The volume examines how different countries define and address environmental issues, with specific attention to intergovernmental relations: what institutions have been created, what assignment of powers have been chosen or have emerged, what solutions have been tried and with what success. It also investigates whether a systemic view of the environment had percolated to the level of policy making. The adopted perspective has been as broad as possible, with the inclusion of sixteen countries in six continents and of the European Union, analyzed by scholars from different disciplines - economics, political science, environmental science and law - thus producing novel material that is not part of the conventional treatment of the environment and of decentralization in the economic literature.
1 Introduction by Albert Breton and Giorgio Brosio and Silvana Dalmazzone and Giovanna Garrone 1
Pt. I Federal and Supranational Systems
2 Australia: Preserving biodiversity and managing water resources by Jeffrey D. Petchey 17
3 Economic growth and environmental protection in Brazil: An unfavourable trade-off by Clovis Calvalcanti 49
4 Interdependence and coordination in the Canadian environmental policy process by Marcia Valiante 77
5 Ethiopia: Protecting nature in a developing decentralized country by Gordon Asfaw and Kifle Lemma Woldesemayat and Sebsebe Dermissew 111
6 European Union: Shifting environmental governance to the supranational level by Anthony R. Zito 140
7 Environmental institutions in Germany: Leader or laggard? by Stefanie Engel and Melanie Zimmermann 173
8 Overlapping fiscal domains and the effectiveness of environmental policy in India by Subrata Mandal and M. Govinda Rao 223
9 Russia: The difficult transition to stable environmental institutions by Pavel V. Kasyanov and Ahona V. Stovpivskaya 263
10 The political economy of environmental governance in the United States by Jason F. Shogren 303
Pt. II Non-Federal Countries
11 Chile: The development-sustainability dilemma by Tommaso Chiamparino and Laura Piazza and Irene Venturello 359
12 China: Seeking meaningful decentralization to achieve sustainability by Changhua Wu and Hua Wang 397
13 The Danish communes: Capacities and constraints in environmental management by Mikael Skou Andersen 436
14 France: Forces shaping centralization and decentralization in environmental policymaking by Albert Breton and Pierre Salmon 457
15 Capacity constraints on local government environmental policies in Ghana by Felix Ankomah Asante 495
16 Italy: Towards responsibility-sharing in environmental protection by Ivana Capozza and Giovanna Garrone 522
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