The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process

Dr Hajer's path-breaking study opens the way for a better understanding of the environmental conflict, showing how language can be seen to shape our view of what environmental politics is really about and how those perceptions can differ between countries. The author identifies the emergence and increasing political importance of 'ecological modernization' as a new concept in the language of environmental politics. This concept, which has come to replace the antagonistic debates of the 1970s, stresses the opportunities of environmental policy for modernizing the economy and stimulating the technological innovation. Combining abstract social theory with detailed empirical analysis, Martin Hajer illustrates the social and political dynamics of ecological modernization in a detailed analysis of the acid rain controversies in Great Britain and the Netherlands. He concludes by reflecting on the institutional challenge of the environmental politics in the years to come.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1: The New Environmental Conflict 2: Discourse Analysis 3: The Historical Roots of Ecological Modernization 4: Accumulating Knowledge, Accumulating Pollution? Ecological Modernization in the United Kingdom 5: The Micro-Powers of Apocalypse: Ecological Modernization in the Netherlands 6: Ecological Modernization: Discourse and Institutional Change

Review :
`this is an important book which will interest many political scientists apart from those focusing on the environment ... There are excellent summary tables and a model of an index. For environment specialists, there are fresh insights on issues such as risk; the role of scientists and scientific data; and the emergence - with its institutional repercussions - of ecological modernization as the dominent way of conceptualizing environmental problems. The way he draws from German and Dutch primary and secondary sources is especially valuable.' Stephen C. Young, University of Manchester, Political Studies `This superb book is one of the few successful attempts to apply contemporary sociological thinking to a detailed empirical case-study in the environmental sphere in a way which is genuinely enlightening for policy makers as well as for academic scoial science disciplines ... an excellent book' Simon Shackley, Global Environmental Change, vol.7 no.2 1997