Debra J. Salazar

Reconciling Environmentalism and the Left: Perspectives on Democracy and Social Justice in British Columbia's Environmental Movement

The article examines how political ideas of environmentalists support as well as impede relations between the environmental movement and other progressive movements. This requires examination of the role and meaning of social justice and democracy in the discourse of environmentalism. This study focuses such an examination on a sample of environmental activists in British Columbia. Q methodology is used to discern patterns of association between particular sets of environmental ideas, and beliefs and values related to democracy and social justice. The authors identify four environmental/political perspectives: alienated ecocentrism, civic communitarianism, insider preservationism and green egalitarianism. These perspectives share a perception of justice focused on fair democratic procedures. Fairness is linked to inclusion and equal treat-

Saving Nature and Seeking Justice Environmental Activists in the Pacific Northwest

Critics of the environmental movement point to its narrowness, conventionality, and sectoralism. Analysis of environmentalist discourses offers a means to assess these criticisms. Furthermore, examination of these discourses offers insight into the political ideas that link environmentalists with other progressives and those that divide these sectors. Drawing on a sample of 42 environmental activists in the United States Pacific Northwest, Q methodology is used to reconstruct 4 discourses: civic republican, liberal ecocentric, green justice, and global ecocentric. Analysis of these discourses reveals several key findings. First, issues related to racial and economic justice are the most divisive for environmentalists in the region. Second, the strongest areas of agreement across the discourses relate to the balance of nature and the importance of active, democratic citizenship. Third, the green justice discourse reflects the perspectives of activists from all sectors of the regions environmental movement, suggesting an absence of sectoralism and the existence of intramovement learning.

Identification with Transboundary Places and Support for Ecological Transboundary Governance: A Case Study of British Columbia Environmental Activists

Abstract This paper is a case study of BC environmentalists to assess activists’ identification with transboundary places and support for transboundary governance. The focus is on environmental cases and issues involving British Columbia and its American neighbors. The study draws on semi‐structured interviews with twenty seven environmentalists to characterize their identification with regional, provincial and national entities and to explore the relation between their identification and political practices. Assessing support for transboundary governance is important as regional and multinational governance systems continue to evolve to manage ecological assets shared across borders. This study concludes that although transboundary political practices is common to the environmental movement, there is little support for expanded or new institutions for transboundary governance.

Think globally, secure the borders : The Oregon environmental movement and the population/immigration debate

The environmental movement in the United States is engaged in a debate about the role of population and immigration on the movement’s agenda. The authors examine this debate within the Oregon environmental movement. Our focus is the role of race in shaping perspectives on immigration. Environmentalist immigration reformers in Oregon have framed their analysis in color-blind terms, but accusations of racism have dogged them. These accusations can best be understood by examining (a) the broader context of immigration politics, (b) the limitations of color-blind discourse, (c) the incongruity of drawing on a discourse of ecology to make arguments focused on national borders, and (d) immigration reformers’ political economic analysis.

Justice and Environmentalisms in the British Columbia and U.S. Pacific Northwest Environmental Movements

Researchers have found that many contemporary movements, including the environmental justice movement, offer multidimensional conceptions of justice that extend beyond the distribution of societal benefits and burdens. In an effort to understand the role of justice in environmental politics more broadly, we ask (1) how environmental activists throughout the movement understand social justice and (2) whether and how environmental activists vary in the kinds of justice claims they make. Drawing on interviews with samples of environmental activists in British Columbia, Canada, and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, Q methodology is used to examine how environmental activists understand justice. We find, within the mainstream of the environmental movement, varying and elaborated understandings of social justice in the environmental context.

Beyond the Politics of Left and Right: Beliefs and Values of Environmental Activists in British Columbia

WHEN T H E B R I T I S H COLUMBIA New Democratic Party returned to power in the early 1990s, conflict between two of the partys core constituencies came to the fore. Key NDP commitments during the 1991 campaign were to labour, including the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) union, and to citizens and organizations concerned about the environment. In government, the NDP has been less than successful in meeting these, often conflicting, commitments. Indeed the management and use of Crown forests has been one of the most persistent and vexing policy problems the NDP government has faced. Environmentalists have voiced bitter criticism of the governments forest policy, arguing that it has sacrificed the health of forests and communities to appease the IWA and powerful corporate interests. Tha t a left-of-centre government would be plagued by dissension from the environmentalist elements of its constituency would not be surprising to students of environmental politics in Europe. These analysts have argued that environmentalism is part of a new politics, independent of traditional left-right party cleavages (Ofie 1985; Dalton 1994). But the schism dividing the NDP and the environmental movement in British Columbia is intriguing, given the results of recent research that links environmentalist and leftist perspectives in western Nor th America and in Canada generally (Ellis and Thompson 1997; Blake et al. 1996-7; Kanji 1996). D o environmentalists and the NDP occupy different branches of the left? Do environmentalist objections

Toward an integrated politics of social justice and environment: African American leaders in Seattle

During the last decade, communities of color have mobilized to address environmental problems. Their engagement with the environment has given impetus to an environmental justice movement that has framed environmental inequities as another instance of social injustice and institutionalized racism. The present study outlines the elements of this environmental justice frame and examines its resonance through a set of interviews with 26 African American community leaders in Seattle. Interviewees’ perceptions were largely consistent with the frame: Most defined environment broadly, believed that people are entitled to clean and healthy environments, and believed that people of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. They differed with regard to the salience of environmental issues and strategies for addressing environmental inequities.

Conservation and the nature of goods

Conflicts within the conservation movement have reflected disagreements regarding the purposes of conservation. We offer the concept of goods as a means to analyze these purposes. Conservation may be understood as the management of ecosystems to generate a continuous or sustained provision of specified sets of goods. A political economy of natural resources that focuses on goods will assess the allocative and distributive consequences of conservation regimes. That is, it will examine what people want ecosystems to provide and how institutional arrangements are related to the nature of goods and the ecosystems that produce them. This mode of analysis is as useful for the conservation of biodiversity as for more traditional conservation purposes. An analysis of goods highlights the political implications of various conservation regimes.

Movement Structure in an Authoritarian Regime: A Network Analysis of the Women’s and Student Movements in Iran

Contributing to the literature on movement structure in authoritarian regimes, this analysis focuses on the structure of two Iranian movements. We use a multi-method approach to analyze the organization of the student and women’s movements in Iran between 1997 and 2008. From 1997 to 2004, a reform government opened political opportunities. The period between 2005 and 2008 was characterized by increased repression. The student movement was organized during the first period as a hybrid composed of several networks linked in a federal structure. As the political context changed, the movement became less centralized. Its strategy shifted from one based in alliance with governing reformers to coalition building outside of the regime. In contrast, the women’s movement was organized as a densely linked web of noncentralized campaigns. The women’s movement overcame divisions as political opportunities closed in the mid-2000s and built a grassroots strategy during the latter part of the decade.