Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico
CEESP News - by Dr. Prakash Kashwan, Univesity of Connecticut聽
How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others? Democracy in the Woods answers these question by explaining the trajectories of forest and land rights鈥攁nd the fate of forest-dependent peasants鈥攊n the forested regions of India, Tanzania, and Mexico.
To organize a comparative inquiry that straddles the fields of comparative politics, historical institutionalism, and policy studies, this book develops a political economy of institutions framework. It shows that differences in structures of political intermediation鈥攙enues that help peasant groups and social movements engage in political and policy processes鈥攅xplain the varying levels of success in combining the pursuits of social justice and environmental conservation.
Readers may get more information about the book here or by contacting Prakash Kashwan at [email protected]
Prakash Kashwan has a Ph.D. in Public Policy (School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2011), and has since been working as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. He specializes in the fields of international environmental policy, natural resource management and conservation, and in mixed-methods research. His research has appeared in Ecological Economics, International Journal of the Commons, Land Use Policy, Journal of Environmental Management, and Global Environmental Politics. He has been a CEESP member since 2013.