Managing Leviathan: Environmental Politics and the Administrative State

Simon Dalby is a research associate at the Centre for International
Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The global environmental crisis has produced numerous texts explicating
the problem’s dimensions. Many such texts point to a need for
more-effective government management of environmental problems, be they
toxic waste, pollution, forestry and land use, or the greenhouse effect.
This volume thoughtfully argues that the administrative processes of the
contemporary state in North America are neither efficacious nor the best
approach to tackling environmental problems.

These academic authors, experienced in the field of North American
environmental politics, argue that existing models of environmental
decision-making are inadequate to deal with either the bureaucratic
logic of administration or the political power of interests that are
indifferent to environmental protection. The authors suggest that both
decentralization and increased citizen involvement may more effectively
control environmental degradation.

Part 1 looks at the environment as an administrative problem. The next
three chapters investigate the techniques and processes of environmental
administration. Part 3 offers a single chapter that inverts the
problematic of the first part, arguing that administration is an
environmental problem. The final part investigates the politics of
environmental administration—arguing, among other things, that
powerful corporations and their lobbyists have a persistent advantage in
dealings with the administrative state. The editors’ conclusion
suggests that a workable environmental administration needs to be
noncompartmentalized, open, decentralized, antitechnocratic, and
flexible. Obviously this is a tall order, but this model provides a
useful template against which existing policies and procedures can be
gauged.

This book is well organized: the editors have integrated a diverse set
of writings into a much more coherent whole than is often the case with
edited volumes. The sometimes-complicated political and academic
arguments are clearly presented, and the extensive endnotes do not
clutter the text. This book stands as a thoughtful contribution to the
literature on the environmental crisis. It is also a useful corrective
to the simplistic advocacy of legislative and governmental solutions to
the political crisis engendered by contemporary environmental issues.