The compromise of liberal environmentalism /

Bernstein examines major international environmental conferences that address the relationship between environment and development, in the process explaining coherently the change in international norms of environmental governance from those focusing on environmental protection to those he dubs "liberal environmentalism." While the former implies protecting the environment from the forces of the marketplace, the latter is categorized by its focus on market mechanisms and human-centered economic development. The book makes an argument for how to understand this normative change, based on a "socio-evolution" in which ideas interact with institutionalized social structures and the norms they already contain. Bernstein convincingly and usefully rejects the role of epistemic communities as a driving force behind the norm change he identifies. But his universe of cases (major international pronouncements), rather than being an easy test for epistemic community theory as he suggests, is actually a poor realm in which to examine the role of scientific expertise; issue-specific international agreements, rather than large-scale norm generation, is where one would expect scientists to have the greatest role. Whether or not one agrees about how these norms get adopted, Bernstein's explanation that they do is compelling and his attention to the role of ideas in environmental policy important. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above. E. R. DeSombre Wellesley College