Browsing by Author "Lipschutz, Ronnie D."

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Local Action, Bioregional Politics, and Transnational Collaborative Networks in Policy Responses to Global Environmental Change
(1992) Lipschutz, Ronnie D.
"The purpose of this paper is to look more closely at three sets of related questions. First, what exactly is the nature of the complex linkages between sociosphere and biosphere and how do these relate to the ways in which we usually 'construct' our understandings of the global environment. Second, how might we go think about the architecture of a sustainable social choice mechanism and addresses the problems raised by the complex linkages. And, third, are there any examples of such praxis to which we might turn for insights? In what follows, I shall argue that the literature as well as a growing body of empirical data provide strong reasons to think that emerging networks, linking local practices to national governments and international regimes, may be an important strategy for coping with global environmental change. This is a conclusion that goes somewhat against the grain of much of the literature and activity currently underway around the issue of global environmental change, but is very much in line with the bioregional strategy described above."
Who Knows? The Place of Local Knowledge in Global Environmental Governance
(1995) Lipschutz, Ronnie D.
"The central issue facing human civilization at the end of the 20th century is governance: Who rules? Whose rules? What rules? What kind of rules? At what level? In what form? Who decides? On what basis? Given these questions, the notion of global 'management' has acquired increasing currency in some circles. This is especially true given that economic globalization seems to point toward a single world economy, in which the role of the sovereign state, 'at the controls,' is of decreasing relevance. Contrary to some expectations, however, globalization is not leading to integration. Rather, what we see is political fragmentation and the emergence of a multi-level and very diffuse system of governance, within which 'local' knowledge becomes increasingly important to coordination within political 'hierarchies' and among locales. I use the issue of environmental governance, in which these contrary trends are evident, to illustrate this proposition and to discuss the nature and role of knowledge in this process."