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How did New York City's climate politics change after Hurricane Sandy, and why? Prevailing accounts of extreme weather's impact on climate politics draw on survey data and characterize climate policy in vague terms. However, weather does not do the work of politics; the specifics of climate policy matter. I develop a relational sociological approach focused on mobilized actors, political economy, and event theory. Drawing on interviews and document analysis, I show how senior disaster officials, New York's Mayor Bloomberg and his Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, community groups and Occupy Sandy activists responded to Hurricane Sandy. Actors maintained outlooks and practices consistent with their position in the city's power relations. This selective continuity shifted New York's climate policy from decarbonization-focused tentative cosmopolitanism to adaptation-focused defensive parochialism. I term this convergent prioritization of adaptation a 'fortress of solitude' social logic. Only subsequent events explain New York's 2019 low-carbon legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation to impacts of climate change is a key pillar of climate change policy, and local governments have historically played a major role in the design and implementation of these policies. An array of political, economic, institutional, social, and individual factors influence adaptation policy instrument choice. At the local government level, these choices also reflect inter-governmental dynamics that can constrain or support local efforts. We analyze eight hypothesized drivers of local adaptation policy instrument choice using fractional regression analysis and multilevel modelling. Local governments are pursuing diverse adaptation policy implementation styles that are associated with different levels of internal capacity, local political economies and problem perception. Dependence on national governments, the presence or absence of national adaptation mandates, national decision-making traditions, and national adaptation policy approaches may also influence local policy instrument choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research consistently finds a relatively weak relationship between environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior, as environmentally concerned individuals often fail to act pro-environmentally, both in the private and public spheres. While the strength of the concern–behavior relationship varies considerably across countries, existing research has yet to provide a complete account of these cross-national differences. In this study, we add to previous cross-national research on the concern–behavior relationship by focusing on the quality of government. Using multilevel analysis and data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), we demonstrate that people who are environmentally concerned are more likely to act pro-environmentally (in the public sphere), in countries where government institutions are fair, effective and impartial. We also find that people are generally more likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior in both the private and public sphere in countries where the quality of government is high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear energy was a defining topic of German environmentalism from the 1970s to 1990s. An analysis of the transformation of Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) shows that anti-nuclear protests, which are frequently depicted as a prototypical example of ‘new’ social movement activism, were only a temporary phenomenon. From the 1970s, NABU gradually transformed from a traditional nature conservation organization into an environmental lobby organization that addressed nuclear energy, other health hazards and environmental risks. These topics were perceived through the notion of mutual assured destruction that emerged with the cold war nuclear arms race. With the end of the cold war and the government’s decision to phase-out nuclear energy, NABU began to rediscover its neglected focus on nature conservation. Nature walks and wildlife monitoring schemes replaced sit-ins, political rallies and civil disobedience against the construction of nuclear reactors. Since 2000, the goals and strategies of German environmentalism have increasingly turned back to the ‘old’ social movement activism of traditional nature conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has contributed to the institutionalization of environmentalism. Putting environmental INGOs in comparative perspective, it is argued that differences in authority among INGOs are an important determinant of the strategies that INGOs adopt and the ultimate influence they are able to achieve. This claim is illustrated through an examination of the changing political opportunities for INGOs and a case of a recent private governance initiative, The Sustainability Consortium. The status maintenance concerns of leading INGOs encourage them to adopt incrementalist and pro-market policies that help launch weak governance schemes and frustrate many other environmental INGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on environmental nongovermental organizations (ENGOs). It refers to the support of activities of less-institutionalized, more radical activists by ENGOs in various ways. It describes the symbiotic relationship between ENGOs and radical environmental activists. It explains the role of ENGOs in some sociologists of social movements. It highlights the external institutionalization of ENGOs which did not eclipse less institutionalized forms of direct action and should not be exaggerated.

The European environmental movement has been reconfigured since the introduction of the pan-European public interest environmental law group based on the model founded in the USA around 1970. Yet it has been claimed that there is a low degree of success in transplanting legal practices from one national space to another. Examination of the successful transplantation of a US legal model to the European context by the law group ClientEarth shows both that this claim is false and why it is false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the European Union's (EU) adoption of the EU Treaty, also called the Lisbon Treaty, and how it may affect environmental policy making, noting the areas of agriculture, energy, and transportation. The authors also discuss the history of the Lisbon Treaty and its likely significance in the longer term. With passage of the Lisbon Treaty, consideration of sustainable development in external relations is a specific EU policy goal. The concept of environmental policy integration (EPI) also is mentioned.

The literature connecting social capital with natural resources management has increased significantly in the past decade. Several studies have indicated that higher levels of social capital may lead to improved environmental management by communities. In this context, a multidimensional concept of social capital is used and its connection with environmental policy implementation is explored. The social capital components investigated are: social and institutional trust, social norms and social networks. This provides a first attempt to investigate the interconnections between these social capital components and different types of environmental policy instruments. Furthermore, social capital is connected to the constraints imposed by different instruments and the way that they are perceived by citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines three critical perspectives in green political theory arguing that environmental governance is emerging as an increasingly scientised and technocratic domain. These are contrasted with work under the banner of 'civic expertise' proposing increased citizen deliberation and participation in the scientific realm to reverse the technocratic features of environmental management. Eco-feminism links the rise of technocratic science to an overall critique of modernity, rationality and patriarchy. Eco-modernism aims at re-configuring scientific rationality in terms of reflexive modernisation, and a stronger participatory dimension of civil society. In the postmodern green critique, the ascendancy of regulatory science marks the influence of biopower or green governmentality. Civic expertise is advanced as a middle ground between these contested appraisals of science in modern societies. This is underpinned by a post-positivist account of scientific knowledge and promotes a reform of the scientific endeavour toward enhanced transparency, participation and democratisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]