Christopher McGrory Klyza

The story of Vermont : a natural and cultural history

A unique evolutionary history, told through the mutual interaction of Vermonts natural and human components.

Local Environmental Groups and the Creation of Social Capital: Evidence from Vermont

Scholars who have studied local environmental groups in the United States have tended to agree about three related, stylized facts: that such groups are widespread, that they are pursuing a diverse set of activities, and, at least implicitly, that they are creating social capital that significantly affects environmental policy. However, a healthy skepticism about these claims among academics and within the policy community exists due to a lack of significant data to verify them. In this article, (1) we collect and interpret data to demonstrate, in two counties of Vermont, that local environmental groups are indeed pursuing a diverse set of activities, developing a typology of these groups based on their main focus; (2) we show the groups are developing and maintaining social capital; and (3) we illustrate how these methodologies can enhance the literature on local environmental groups by testing claims about the extent and influence of these groups.

A Window of Autonomy: State Autonomy & the Forest Service in the Early 1990s

The state has made a comeback in political science over the last twenty years. A synthesis of sorts of traditional and behavioral approaches to the study of politics, statist theory, in its methodology, is at once historical, institutional, and empirical. This study of the U.S. Forest Service both illustrates and critiques the statist approach, and also adds to the growing literature on the Progressive Movements role in the building of an American state in the early years of this century.