2018.19.blockboek - European%20environments - Docx 0

Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences
BA European Studies
Year 3
Period 1
2018/2019
Course EUS3001
Course book
European
Environments
BA European Studies
2
European Environments Year 3 / Period 1
CONTENTS
1.INTRODUCTION ............................................................. 5
2.COURSE OBJECTIVES...................................................... 7
Revisions and response to student’s input...................8
3.THE COURSE IN THE BA ES CURRICULUM...................9

Links with other courses...............................................9
Trained skills.............................................................. 10
Dublin descriptors and final qualifications ................11
4.COURSE DESIGN........................................................... 12
Tutorials......................................................................12
Lectures......................................................................14
Workshop presentations.............................................15
Group counseling........................................................15
Readings.....................................................................15
Eleum..........................................................................16
Schedule (Mondays and Thursdays)...........................16
5.COURSE ASSESSMENT.................................................. 18
Attendance and participation..................................... 18
Examination................................................................18
6.COURSE TEAM ............................................................. 19
Assignments
Section I:
Nature and Biodiversity................................................ 21
Assignment 1
Making Space for Biodiversity:

The Political Career of a Scientific Concept......22
Assignment 2
The Aliens are coming! ..................................... 27

Assignment 3
PLANTS, COMMUNITY, AND THE QUEST FOR

THE SUSTAINABLE CITY: THE CASE OF URBAN
GARDENING ...................................................31
Section II:
REGULATING ENVIRONMENTAL RISK........................ 35
Assignment 4
Living in a Risk Society......................................36

Additional readings......................................................37
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BA European Studies
Assignment 5
Risk Regulation in the EU:

The Case of Dangerous Chemicals ................... 40
Assignment 6
Better Safe Than Sorry?

Conflicting Views on the Precautionary Principle.
...........................................................................44
- Enacting A Controversy -.....................................................44
Section III:
CONFRONTING Climate Change .................................. 51
Assignment 7
Climate Change and The Politics of

Environmental Knowledge.................................53
Assignment 8
POPULAR IMAGES OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL

CRISIS: “Inconvenient TruthS” AND FEAR IN
THE ANTHROPOCENE......................................56
Assignment 9
From Crisis to Policy Innovation. The Making of

Carbon Markets.................................................58
SECTION 4: ................................................................... 61
PATHWAYS TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY ....................... 62

Assignment 10
THE EXAMPLE OF FOOD..................................63
Concluding Workshop:
The Culture and Politics of Environmental Issues........69

Finding a Topic.......................................................................72
Annex............................................................................. 75
Important Journals.......................................................76
Annual Reports............................................................76
Literature...................................................................... 78
Literature (includes only titles for the introduction)...80
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BA European Studies
1. Introduction 1
Environmental problems such as chemical pollution, global

warming, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss or the risk of
technical disasters are well-established yet highly disputed
issues on the agenda of European politics. Although pioneering
efforts towards political regulation of the environment were first
made in individual member states, environmental policy is now
largely concentrated at the European Union level. The Single
European Act in 1987 even acknowledged environmental policy
as one of the European Union’s formal key tasks. With seven
Environmental Action Programs and more than 850 pieces of
environmental law, the environment is one of the most complex
fields of EU politics (see already McCormick, 2001, p. 17). As a
consequence, domestic environmental policies in Europe are, to
a large extent, made in response to the requirements of EU-
regulation.
The environment is a good example of the way in which hitherto

disregarded or marginal topics can move to the center of the
political agenda. Scholars of European politics have therefore
often chosen examples from environmental politics to shed light
on issues such as the influence of interest groups, the formation
of regulatory institutions or the multi-level character of
European governance (e.g. Barnes/Barnes, 1990; Jordan, 2002;
McCormick, 2001; Delreaux/Happaerts 2016). Yet the practical
and theoretical significance of the environment for European
Studies goes far beyond these more general issues of European
policy formation.
First, environmental discourse and politics focus largely on our

relationship with the natural world. Hence, what is at stake in
environmental problems, is not only conflicts between people
and institutions as they are typical for all policy fields. These
conflicts are inextricably connected to fundamental tensions
between the certain form of society we live in and our natural
surroundings. Environmental problems emerge, for example,
around our habits’ and institutions’ potentially damaging effects
on natural features such as climate, water quality or biological
diversity. This implies new issues of political representations
that more conventional policy fields are usually not faced with.
Why and how can the politics and legislation that is made by
humans, care for the matters of the natural environment? Does
this imply that “trees have standing” as, for example, the
American legal theorist Oliver Stone (1972) has asked already in
the 1970s? Or do we need a new kind of constitution that gives
1For references from this introduction see the list at the end of this course
book.
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equal value to “non-human” entities in our political process of

decision making? (Latour, 2003; 2017). More recently the claim
was made, that we are even living in a new geological period,
the “’anthropocene” (see, for example, Lidskog & Waterton
2016), in which humans have become the most important
shapers of nature (think for example of climate change or the
fact, that meanswhile more animal species live on the planted
that are the results of human breeding than of natural
selection). Even if we assume that it is in the very interest of
humans themselves to respect the integrity of their natural
environments, the views on what counts as an “environmentally
sound” and how this has to be achieved, differ considerably
among actors and institutions. Local activist groups or
international non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), which
act outside of the institutional frameworks of official politics, are
probably the most prominent examples of the attempt to
represent the concerns of the environment. Equally important is
the role that the natural sciences have achieved within the
“diagnosis” and “therapy” of environmental problems. Indeed,
environmentalists as well as regulators depend on an increasing
amount on the continuous input of scientific knowledge (Beck,
1992). Not only are scientists often the first to create public
awareness of a newly emerging environmental problem. In all
countries as well as in EU-institutions, the making of
environmental policy has become surrounded by a host of policy-
oriented research institutes, think tanks and expert advisory
commissions. This tends to give environmental issues a highly
technical character. At the same time, this leads to notorious
conflicts between scientific framings of environmental problems
on the one hand, and the “lay” perspectives of the wider public
or environmental activists on the other.
Second, environmental problems also touch on fundamental

aspects of the organization of contemporary societies and
economies. This has been prominently pointed out by radical
environmentalists, who always argued that the environmental
crisis could only be solved if capitalism was overcome or if
Western societies moved beyond their entrenched Western-
rationalistic modes of thought. There is now much agreement
that environmental problems can only be effectively dealt with if
they are placed within a wider socio-economic context. Rather
than seeking piece-meal solutions of single environmental
problems, environmental concerns should be integrated into
more comprehensive projects of societal transformation.
Terms such as “political ecology” (Forsyth, 2004), “ecological

modernization” (Hajer, 1995; Huber, 2001; Mol, 2001) or
“sustainable development” (Baker 2006; Dresner, 2002;
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BA European Studies
Kemp/Loorbach, 2003) stand for different projects of an

ecological transformation of contemporary societies. The so-
called “principle of environmental policy integration”
(Lenschow, 2002), that calls for an acknowledgement of
environmental issues in every single policy domain
demonstrates that such ideas have also become part of official
EU politics.
Third, the rise of the environment as an object of social and

political concern overlaps with other processes of
transformation that have reshaped contemporary European
societies and politics. For example, the prominent role of
experts in environmental politics fits well with the typical
features of an emerging “knowledge society” (Stehr, 1994).
From a different angle, social theorist Ulrich Beck (1992) has
argued that the emergence of environmental risks forms part of
a broader process of “reflexive modernization”, that is the need
of modern institutions to deal mainly with their own self-
produced problematic consequences – an argument that
anticipates what in the recent few years has been discussed
under the term “ánthropocene”. Moreover, the emergence of
large-scale environmental problems, such a the ozone hole, the
greenhouse effect, or trans-boundary pollution, as well as the
international policy regimes in which these problems are dealt
with, can be seen as just another aspect of the intensified
globalization that has shaken so many sectors of our
contemporary social and economic life (Yearley, 1996; Mol,
2001; Jasanoff/Long, 2004). Social theories such as those of
reflexive modernization, globalization etc., are thus not only
important resources to make sense of environmental problems.
At the same time, the study of environmental issues can also
stimulate new insights for these broader theoretical debates.
2. Course objectives
This course will probe these various dimensions of the

environment and environmental problems in a European
context. In addressing exemplary environmental issues, it will
not only make you familiar with what has become one of the
most important fields of European public policy. It will also shed
light on the multiple relations that exist between the
environment and the broader cultural and social processes that
characterize our contemporary European societies. How have
Europeans in different contexts perceived, valued and acted
upon the environment? How, on the other hand, have their own
identities, interests, and power constellation been redefined and
reshaped through the emergence of new environmental
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concerns? As we will see, the environment has received

practical and symbolic significance on different levels of
European culture, including the world of political and ethical
ideas as well as the mundane practices of everyday life. At the
same time, human-environment relationships are highly
contextual. They have been shaped historically and they differ
among nations, groups of people and institutions. In other
words, there is not just one but many European environments to
be explored throughout this course.
As with our field in general, bringing the environment into the

focus of European Studies is a highly interdisciplinary
enterprise. For a long time, academic scholarship on the
environment has been almost exclusively regarded as the
domain of the natural sciences. Given the technical character of
these issues this is hardly surprising. It is plausible that
environmental scientists such as toxicologists, climatologists,
vegetation ecologists etc. have a lot to say about river pollution,
the greenhouse effect or the loss of valuable habitats. Scientific
knowledge is indispensable if you want to determine a certain
threshold of toxic gas emission. It might also help developing
new technological solutions for environmental problems, such as
new procedures for sewage cleaning or better waste disposal
systems. From these sciences, however, we will learn nothing
about the complex cultural meanings and values that are
implicated in people’s concerns about the environment nor
about the political dynamics of environmental conflicts.
Scientific scholarship will also tell us nothing about the various
institutional contexts that either promote or hinder the
acknowledgement and, hence, the potential remedy of certain
environmental ills. In particular, the attempt to create more
“sustainable” societies and economies requires a complex form
of “transition management” (Kemp/Loorbach, 2003), that can
hardly be reduced to the simple science-based technological
fixes. .
In the last two decades, therefore, the environment has also

become the focus of newly developing research fields in the
social sciences (also what recently has come to be called the
“environmental humanities”). This kind of scholarship offers
many concepts and findings that are relevant for European
Studies, and that have inspired this course. Basically, this course
draws upon insights from the following sub-disciplines or
research fields:
Environmental Sociology
Environmental History
Anthropology of the Environment
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BA European Studies
Social Studies of (Environmental) Science and Technology

Environmental Economics
Due to the lack of time and the primary focus on the social
sciences, the course does not include literature studies, so-
called “eco-criticism”, which in the recent decade has developed
into a very vibrant field – this however should not have to
prevent you from exploring such a perspective in your research
project.
None of these fields is homogeneous. Important conceptual and

methodological fault-lines often cross the boundaries of these
disciplines. Notably, this is the case with the difference between
“realist” and “constructivist” perspectives. “Realists” (or
“essentialists” as they are sometimes called) take the bio-
physical features of the environment and environmental
problems for granted. Based on this, they call for a combination
of natural and social sciences in order to explain the interaction
between social processes and the natural environment in a more
comprehensive way (e.g. Dunlop/Catton 1980; Koehn 1999).
Constructivists have argued that ideas, politics, and even
scientific knowledge of the environment are shaped by historical
and cultural processes. Accordingly, the technicalities of an
environmental problem can be never studied in separation from
the socio-political context in which they are embedded (e.g.
Hannigan 2006; Hajer 1995). Rather than providing a solid
ground to which social explanations can be added,
environmental problems and related “facts” are themselves
considered to be sociologically analyzed. The particular
approach that an author takes in these matters has implications
for his or her selection of research topics, methodology, or the
extent and the way in which data from the natural sciences will
be incorporated in their research. Whereas realists try to
understand how societies and specific institution cause or are
affected by certain objective impacts on the natural
environment, constructivists are more interested in unraveling
the mechanisms that underlie the political and discursive
constitution of environmental problems. Although this course
draws much inspiration from the constructivist tradition, it
includes literature from both camps, as well as from authors
who have attempted to move beyond the simple alternative of
these polar positions (e.g. Forsyth 2004; Latour 2003; Irwin
2002).
Revisions and response to student’s input
The original version of this course book had been developed by

Anique Hommels, Jens Lachmund and Rein de Wilde (all FASoS).
For the study-year 2011/12 the original book has been revised
10
considerably. The main goal was to update some of the

literature (although some classic texts remain in the readings)
and to give the course a more coherent structure. In the process
of revision the input by students from earlier courses has been
taken into account.
It was a main suggestion of students to add a new session to the

section on sustainability that would focus on an example of
sustainability policy. I followed this suggestion by adding an
assignment on sustainable food. Because of the lack of space, it
was necessary in to replace this session by a lecture (now on
“governance and sustainability”). According to the coordinator,
this is acceptable, since sustainability is no longer the focus of a
specific workshop assignment. Moreover, many issues of
sustainability are, at least implicitly, covered by the newly
introduced section on climate change. In revising the module I
also skipped a former session on the constructivism controversy,
which students felt to be a bit too abstract in the previous years.
Issues of constructivism are now touched on in combination with
specific assignment topics (in particular with biodiversity in
assignment 2, and in the context of the debate on climate
change in assignment 5). I hope that this will make the empirical
character of environmental constructivism more visible than the
former theoretical presentation.
Later, further changes have been made. Many of the assignment

have been reworked (e.g. in the part on biodiversity), and more
recent literature has been introduced. I also tried to make more
use of journal articles (which are available online) instead of
books. Since only a one copy of books per tutorial group could
be provided through the library, accessibility of course literature
was a notorious problem in this course. Students were always
very positive about the use of workshops as a teaching and
examination method in this course. Two years ago however
students were much less prepared for both the sessions and the
workshops. Therefore I decided to skip one of workshops, and
replace it by a take-home exam. This means that the full
understanding of all the course literature we be required to pass
the course, and students will no longer be able to side-step some
topics by focusing only on their workshop presentations. Since
students do no longer need an extensive study time to prepare
for the second workshop, I was able to introduce an entirely new
section. The section focuses on climate change, a topic that
students have always been much very interested in, and that
they had often chosen as a theme for their workshop
presentations. I skipped the session on environmental
movements that I just had introduced one year before (it was
felt to be too loosely connected with the main sections).
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BA European Studies
In order to meet interests of the students in such topic, last year

a session on urban gardening” has been added to the module.
Last year students complained that the workshop had been

schedule after the take-home exam, which had the effect that
they all were not really motivated to start working on their
project before that date. They also complained that they had not
been able to make use of the knowledge that they had acquired
during the workshop. This problem is now remedied by placing
the take-home exam at the very end of the module.
3. The Course in the BA ES curriculum
Links with other courses
Some of the assignments and many student research projects

can be seen as policy-analyses that build on competences
acquired in “Policy Domains”. In contrast to that former course,
however, students will not primarily be interested in the EU
policy-making machinery per se, but in its -- or other polities
(e.g. nation states, municipalities) -- role in the framing and
regulation of the environmental issues that figure in this course.
The shift from the EU to other polities that also matter in
environmental policy requires an ability to transfer concepts
that probably only third years students possess. As far as issues
of space and place are concerned, the course also ties in with
discussions in the cultural-geography module “Placing Europe”.
As a project based course (students work in couples on a
common project) the course also builds on, and contributes to
further develop competences that students have acquired in
earlier research projects (“Policy Domains”, “Area Studies”). In
some assignments the course also touches on issues of social
theory that tie in with the earlier courses “Faultlines” and
“Culture and Identity”.
Trained skills
The course requires knowledge of the basic principles of doing

research as they have dealt with in “Research and Writing” (how
to formulate a research question, how to structure a paper) and
“Research Design” (e.g. selecting among different
methodologies). Besides quantitative methods, all research skills
and methods that students have acquired by that time are
potential resources for the European Environments-research
project. Notably the courses “Qualitative Methods” and,
depending on the choice of your topic, “Back to the Sources”
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will provide important cognitive resources for your project. A

special lecture (lecture 4) will explicitly look back at these
issues, and help students to apply them in designing their
course-specific research project. See also the guidelines for
“finding a topic” and formulating a research question at the end
of this course book (section on “concluding workshop).
In addition, the course is also meant to help students to develop

some other skills that are related specifically to their PBL-
learning trajectory. First, the use of discussion-research-
discussion sequences (“7 steps”) in the group meetings will help
students to further strengthen their ability to formulate research
questions, to lead discussions, and to make productive use of
each other’s contributions. It is important to note, that due to
the study period many exchange students use to participate in
the course. For them this is the first occasion for practicing “7-
step”- group discussions. Besides the tutor, the Maastricht-
based students tend to play an active role in teaching these
foreign students (e.g. by showing them how to chair, by
supporting them morally) the necessary study skills. This also
helps these Maastricht students, at a late stage of their study, to
reflect more explicitly on the practice and goals of the 7- steps
method.
Second, the course requires students to transpose the
interactive competences that they have acquired in previous
courses into formal setting of an academic conference. The
student workshop follows the format of an academic conference
as closely as possible: with a conference program, thematic
sessions, students acting as chairs, presentations of about 20
minutes, 10 minutes of discussion time after each presentation,
and an introduction (given by the tutor) and a final discussion.
Third, the course includes a session (assignment 8) in which
students will be involved in a practical exercise of film analysis
as an approach to shed light on the public framing of a political
issue.
Fourth, the course includes a staged debate, in which
students play the role of expert advisors to the European
Commission who either defend or criticize the application of the
so-called “precautionary principle”. The course thereby repeats
a didactic element that (in a slightly different form) had also
already been used in “Faultlines” and “Culture and Identity”. It
is through the repetition of this element at an advanced study-
level, that the students’ ability of debating a contested issue is
being stabilized and refined.
Fifth, the organization and learning trajectory of the course
invites the students to take a problem-oriented attitude to the
entire course content. Environmental degradation and its social
dimensions are a tangible “real world” problem around which
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BA European Studies
the course revolves, and the three thematic sections each zoom
into one specific version of this general problem. What students
are supposed to learn in this respect, is how to transform such
set of “real world” problems into “research problems”, to which
they can apply various kinds of intellectual resources. Moreover,
through the shift in the fourth section to the debate on
sustainability, students learn how to translate such theoretical
insights back into practical problem solutions.
Dublin descriptors and final qualifications
Successfully concluding this course will contribute to students

acquiring the following building-blocks of their final ES
qualifications:2
 Dublin descriptor 1: acquiring knowledge and
understanding
Successful participants will have acquired knowledge about the
social, political, and cultural dimensions of environmental
problems. They will understand the basics of significant
theoretical perspectives (e.g. constructivism, realism, different
concepts of sustainability) and concepts in the environmental
humanities. They will also be able to reflect on the strengths and
limitations of these concepts.
Dublin descriptor 2: applying knowledge and

understanding
Successful participants will have gained new insights into how
to apply their knowledge and understanding of such concepts
and perspectives to identify specific problems, form coherent
arguments, and develop problem-focused interpretations (both
orally and in text). They will have acquired further ability to
contextualize dominant framings of environmental problems,
and to contribute to a normatively reflective re-framing of such
problems. Notably, they will have become more able to reflect
on the complex mutual interconnection of natural and social
processes that prevent simple technological fixes of
environmental problems.

Dublin descriptor 3: making informed judgments and
choices
Successful participants will have become more skillful gathering
and interpreting data (mostly from internet sources, in some
case also from interviews) that will help them to develop a
2 This summary of competences is based on the so-called “Dublin

Descriptors” (see: www.jointquality.org). This is a set of criteria that
has been developed to allow standardized descriptions of the qualification
profile of different programs. The final qualifications for the BA ES are
outlined in the curriculum catalogue.
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deeper understanding of the social and political dimensions of

exemplary environmental issues; more specifically, they will
have gained more experience in how to define their own
research questions and pursue a collective and self-organized
research project over a period of four to five weeks.
 Dublin descriptor 4: communicating knowledge and

understanding
Successful participants will have become more skillful in
communicating complex ideas and insights about environmental
issues to their peers and, conversely, will also be able to make
better use of peer-feedback to refine their research questions
and to improve their interpretation of empirical data.
 Dublin descriptor 5: capacities to continue learning

Successful participants will thereby have further developed
learning skills that will prepare them for their final Bachelor
Paper as well as for future academic education at the Masters’
level. The last three aspects (DD 3-5) are also strengthened
through the use of the workshop as a combined assessment and
teaching method in this course.
4. Course design
Tutorials
The course is divided into four thematic sections. Each section

consists of three or (in the case of the last section) one
assignments and one or two lectures. Each of them deals with
one crucial dimension of the society-environment relationship in
Europe.
Section I focuses on “nature” as a specific category under which

the environment has become institutionalized as an object of
political concern. Attempts to conserve nature can be traced
back into the 19th century and can thus be seen as one of the
first domains of what now is called environmental politics. A
leading question that underlies this section is the issue of
valuing: how and why do people consider certain spaces as a
valuable “nature” and believe that this nature should be
protected. The first assignment (Assignment 1) assignment uses
the example of the EU “Natura 2000” biotope-network to
address the issue in a contemporary European policy context.
From there, we will move to a discussion of the scientific and
moral beliefs system that has inspired these, as well as many
other contemporary nature conservation activities, notably the
“idea of biodiversity”. As we will learn, the conservational aims
and the underlying values of biodiversity promotion can be seen
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BA European Studies
as “socially constructed”, although this is in itself a contested

concept. The topic will be deepened through a discussion of one
of the main threats to biodiversity that biologist have identified
recently: the “invasion” of “alien” species. We will also examine
to which extend the framing of alien species is entangled with
xenophobic stereotypes (Assignment 2). The session closes with
a session on new trends in urban gardening. In this session we
will zoom into the local networks of practices and meanings
through which citizen in their day-to-day life experience
biodiversity, and through which they engage plants and other
organisms for the articulation of political goals (Assignment 3).
Section II examines a second category that figures prominently

contemporary environmental debates: “risk”. What makes
industrial, technical and other activities risky for the
environment is not only a matter of the positive valuation of the
environments that they might affect. Risk is also inextricably
linked to matters of uncertainty. Risk conflicts emerge typically
when it is not easy to determine precisely if a certain decision --
for example, the production of a new chemical – will have
harmful effects on the environment. Often this becomes only
clear after some time has passed. When the damage has become
real, however, the possibilities to opt against its source are
limited. This might lead us to the conclusion that we should
simply avoid all kinds of potential environmental risk. As we will
see, the problem of risk is much more complicated, since the
perception of the risk potential and the willingness to accept
risks differs among actors and institutions. Risk decisions are
thus intrinsically political: where scientific knowledge cannot
give us any precise guidelines, interests, power-constellations
and institutional rules fill in the gap. We will start the section
with a discussion of one of the probably most famous theories of
environmental sociology, Ulrich Beck’s conception of the “risk
society” (Assignment 4). Subsequently we will look at
institutional arrangements that deal with these issues at the EU
level, including the so-called “precautionary principle” and the
procedures for the registration, evaluation and authorization of
new chemicals (Assignments 5-6).
In section III we will focus on what has come to be seen as the

probably most pressing problem of world-wide environmental
concern: global climate change and the attempts to regulate it.
Although the problem overlaps with the theme of risk, it differs
from many other industrial risks, since it does not only concern
the transnational migration of dangers (as already discussed by
Beck); it is rather the planet itself that is in danger. In
Assignment 7 we will focus on the role of popular
representations in films and novels in the shaping of public
16
awareness of climate change. In the second step we will look at

the scientific debate around climate change. How do we know
what we know about climate change? We will cover both the
epistemic culture of climate research (notably the role of models
in predicting climate change) as well as (thereby broadening our
focus from Europe to the U.S.) on the movements of “climate
skeptics” that actively sought to undermine the scientific
consensus on climate change (Assignment 8). Finally, we will
read studies about the emission trading schemes that have been
introduced to combat climate change. What are the internal
dilemmas and tensions of these market based-instruments?
(Assignment 9)
Section IV takes a more comprehensive look at the kind of

problems that were introduced in the previous assignments. It
uses the recent political and social science discussion on
“sustainable development” to address the broader implications
of environmental issues for the fabric of European society.
Whereas in the first three sections we have probed how specific
environmental problems were constituted by their social and
political contexts, we will turn the table, and ask to which extent
environmental politics has also become a way of constructing a
new society. This does not only mean that the functioning of our
society and economy has to be adapted to the requirements of
the biophysical environment. At the same time, environmental
issues are viewed as systematically linked to broader political
issues such as democracy or social justice. We will discuss to
which extend this concept might lead us to significant changes
in the way we live and relate to the environment. We will use the
example of food to discuss the practical and political nature of
the quest for sustainability.
Lectures
This course includes a couple of lectures, which are meant to

provide additional information on the general topic as well as on
related theoretical discussions:
Introduction
(Jens Lachmund)
The lecture introduces the theme of the course and

provides an outline of its content and structure. The
lecture is meant to help you to think of environmental
problems in terms of social and political relations.
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BA European Studies
Understanding Nature Sociologically

(Jens Lachmund)
This lecture is related to the theme of the first section of

this module. It has two goals: first, to provide a historical
background for the discussion of contemporary nature
conservation policies in Europe, and second to sensitize
for the multitude of perspectives in which nature, or parts
thereof, have been framed by different strands of culture.
This latter aspect is also meant to enable students to
understand the “constructivist” perspective that is
underlying some of the contributions that we will read for
the subsequent assignments.
Risk and the Politics of Knowledge

(Jens Lachmund)
This lecture is related to the section on (industrial risk). It

will deal with some of the epistemic and political dilemmas
that are involved in defining risks and incorporating them
as objects of concern into state policies. It will also ask
normative question about how the increasing of
participation of citizens can make our governance of risk
more democratic.
How to Analyze an Environmental Problem

(Jens Lachmund)
This lecture is meant to help you structuring your research

for the final workshop. It will help you identifying a
problem, searching for sources and theoretical resources,
and give some basic hints at structuring a presentation.
This lecture does not only help you preparing the specific
final assignment of this course; it is also a critical
stepping-stone in the skills trajectory that runs through
the ES-program.
Sustainability. A Challenge for Governance

(Guest lecture: Ron Corvers)
Ron Corvers works at the ICIS (International Center for

Integrated Assessment and Sustainability) at Maastricht
University. He has published widely on the issues of
sustainable development. In his lecture he will explain
what sustainability means, and what kind of challenges
this concepts implies for the world of governance.
18
Workshop presentations
The block will end with a workshop that brings together topics
and analytic insights from the various thematic sessions. At this
meeting, students (working in groups of 2 or 3) will present case
studies of exemplary environmental problems in Europe. In
addition to the oral presentations, students are supposed to
hand-in a summarizing paper of 2-3 pages (+bibliography)
which includes references to all relevant primary and secondary
sources (in contrast to the talk itself, the written summary will
not be graded). The students of both tutorial groups will join for
this workshop. They can also form working groups for their
presentations that include members from both tutorial groups.
Group counseling
The tutor will help groups in the process of finding their topic
and of selecting sources, methods, and theories. Please send a
first email with a topic proposal not later than (see schedule p.
17-18. After you have received feedback by the tutor (via email
or personally) please send a more refined research proposal (1-2
pages). This proposal should contain a clear research question,
ideas for the theoretical framing, and a concrete research plan
(sources, time-frame). You will receive feedback by email and/or
during the final group session of this module (which is a formal
feedback session).
Readings
In the following sections of the coursebook, an assignment

vignette is presented for each group session. This vignette is
followed by a bibliography, which includes core readings as well
as some suggested further literature. You are supposed to also
consult literature via bibliographies, databases, search
machines, in library catalogues, or the web. Some key literature
of this block will be made available in the ES study landscape.
The references in the coursebook are also meant to help you
finding material for your workshop presentations. Copies of the
referenced literature should be available on the web or in the
electronic or physical library. Unfortunately, no guarantee can
be given that also all the additional titles will be available at the
library during the course period.
Eleum
On the faculty’s online information system you will find a special

site for this course. If slices have been used for the lectures,
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BA European Studies
they will be made accessible for you after the lectures. Please be
aware that reading slides without having attended to the real
lecture will not be of much use. These slides are only meant to
help you to recapitulate what you have heard. Ideally, you will
not need to make use of these slides at all: one of the basic
academic skills is to take structured notes while listening. Use
each lecture to develop this skill! These notes will always be the
best records for your individual purposes (slides can be used to
double-check when you are in doubt about specific points).
Schedule (Mondays and Thursdays)
Week 1
Lecture: Introduction (J. Lachmund)
Session 1: Assignment pre1 (Section 1)
(September 3)
Session 2: Assignments 1/pre2

(September 6)
Week 2:
Lecture: Nature (J. Lachmund)
(September 10)
Session 4: Assignments 3/pre4 (Section 2)

(September 13)
Week 3:
Lecture: Risk (J. Lachmund)
(September 17)

(September 20)
Deadline for research topic: September 19
Week 4:
Lecture: Analyzing a Problem (J. Lachmund)
Session 7: Assignment 6/7 (Section 3)
(September 24)
Session 8: Assignments 7/8

(September 27)
Deadline for research proposals: September 6.10.
20
Week 5:
Session 9: Assignment 8 (film seminar)/9
(October 1)
Session 10: Assignment 9/10 (Section 4)

(October 4)
Week 6:
Lecture: Sustainability (R. Corvers)
Session 11: Assignment 10
(October 8)
Session 12: Intermediate Feedback for Research Projects

(October 15)
Week 7:
Concluding Workshop: The Culture and Politics of
Environmental Problems
(October 22)
Week 8:
Take-home exam
(Publication: Tuesday, October 23, 10pm)
Deadline take-home exam: Friday, October 26, 4pm (please

see official announcement at Eleum exam site!)
Deadline resit: December 17, 4pm (the resit-assignment will

be published a bit earlier – please contact coordinator about
this before November 15!!
5. Course Assessment
Attendance and participation

Since the academic year 2017-2018 passing attendance is no
longer a formal requirement for being allowed to do the exam.
Yet, you are expected to attend and actively participate in all
tutor meetings. The quality your participation will be assessed
and attendance is an important aspect of the assessment. In
case you do not sufficiently attend and participate in meetings
during several courses in a row, you will be invited to discuss
your attendance and participation behaviour with your mentor.
In case this does not lead to improved attendance and
participation, you will be referred to the student advisor or the
director of studies. The +/- 0.5 rule remains in place to reward
students with a really outstanding performance in PBL
meetings, or to give a clear signal to students who do not meet
the minimum requirements of PBL skills. Please consult the
Education and Examination Regulations 2017/2018 for details.
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BA European Studies
Examination
The final grade will be based on:
1. The presentations at the concluding workshop and active

participation at the workshop. The presentation will be
graded with respect to:
its originality
its focus
the ability to contextualize the argument in broader academic
debates
the use of theoretical concepts and understandings (from
course literature)
the use of empirical evidence
the style of presentation
(50% of the final grade).
A take-home exam. The assignment will consist of one question
(or a set of interrelated sub-questions) that is to be answered in
the form of a short essay (not more than 1000 words). The
assignment question will be published on Eleum (see schedule p.
17-18) -- with clear explanations of all the necessary formal
details of the procedure – so don’t worry about this. The take-
home exam will be graded for student’s ability to:
adequately represent the necessary empirical details
to make a clear argument on a topic that is related to the
course literature
to make use of theoretical concepts and methodological
insights from the course literature
to select and synthesize empirical facts (from the course
literature or on the base of sources that will be given for
the exam) so that they make sense of a meaningful
argument
to present all this in a coherent and formally correct essay-
form
The deadline for submission (hard-copy and safe assignment)
is (see schedule p. 17-18) and check official announcement!!!)
(50% of the final grade).
6. Course team
Jens Lachmund is the coordinator and only tutor of this module.
Contact details:
j.lachmund@maastrichtuniversity.nl
22
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BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENTS
SECTION I:
NATURE AND BIODIVERSITY
24
ASSIGNMENT 1
MAKING SPACE FOR BIODIVERSITY:

THE POLITICAL CAREER OF A SCIENTIFIC
CONCEPT
Source: http://www.panda.org/graphics/epo_n2k_ptb_logo.jpg
“Natura 2000 is the centrepiece of EU

nature & biodiversity policy. It is an EU
wide network of nature protection areas
established under the 1992 Habitats
Directive. The aim of the network is to
assure the long-term survival of Europe's
most valuable and threatened species and
habitats. It is comprised of Special Areas
of Conservation (SAC) designated by
Member States under the Habitats
Directive, and also incorporates Special
Protection Areas (SPAs) which they
designate under the 1979 Birds Directive.
Natura 2000 is not a system of strict
nature reserves where all human activities
are excluded. Whereas the network will
certainly include nature reserves most of
the land is likely to continue to be
privately owned and the emphasis will be
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BA European Studies
on ensuring that future management is

sustainable, both ecologically and
economically. The establishment of this
network of protected areas also fulfils a
Community obligation under the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity.
Natura 2000 applies to Birds Sites and to
Habitats Sites, which are divided into
biogeographical regions. It also applies to
the marine environment”.
Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/natura2000/index_en.ht
m
26
Since the late 19th century social movements in European

countries have called for the protection of outstanding pieces of
nature and landscape. Since the 1970s, it has been increasingly
in the name of “biodiversity” that activists have campaigned for
the designation of nature reserves, and that official
governmental programs have been legitimized.
According to the conservation biologist Edward O. Wilson --

himself an ardent promoter of biodiversity protection --, human
beings have a genetically rooted inclination to love nature,
“biophilia” as he calls it. Preserving nature’s biodiversity, in this
view, follows from the drive of human beings to secure the basis
of their own well-being.
Social scientists tend to see the appreciation of nature as rooted

in historical circumstances, not in biology. If people appreciate
nature at all, if they understand it as biodiversity or just as a
beautiful piece of landscape might – all this differs from one
socio-cultural context to the other. Nature accordingly does not
speak for itself. Metaphors, narratives, and other cultural
images play an important mediating role in what we consider as
valuable nature and what not. This does also imply that our
appreciation of biodiversity is not politically neutral. Social
constructions of nature always emphasize some and silence
other aspects of natural and political reality. Notably in the
“global South” many activists and intellectuals have contested
what they considered a profoundly “Western” notion of
biodiversity. As Turnhout et. al. have argued, an effective
approach to biodiversity requires to go beyond narrow and
technocratic conceptions of biodiversity as “ecosystem service”,
and to embrace the “diversity of values, knowledge and
framings of biodiversity”.
Readings
European Commission.
Memo on commission strategy to protect Europe’s most
important wildlife areas. Frequently asked questions.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/info/pubs/docs/nat20
00/2003_memo_natura.pdf
Wilson, E.O.
(1993). Biophilia and the conservation ethic. In S.R. Kellert &
E.O. Wilson (Eds.), The Biophilia Hypothesis (pp. 31-41).
Washington D.C.: Island Press.
Hannigan, J.
(2006). Environmental sociology. London: Routledge (pp. 63-
78 & 122-135).
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BA European Studies
Turnhout, E.
(2013) From Goods and Services to “living with””.
Conversation Letters 6: 3, 145-161.
Additional Literature
Aubertin, C., Boisvert, V., & Vivien, F.D.

(1998). La construction sociale de la question de la
biodiversité. Nature, Societé, Science, vol. 6(1), 7-19.
Christ, E.
(2004). Against the social construction of nature and
wilderness. Environmental Ethics, 26, 5-24 (directly available
on the web).
Cronon, W.
(1996). Uncommon ground. Rethinking the human place in
nature. London/New York: Norton.
Escobar, A.
(1998). Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity,
conservation, and the political ecology of social movements.
Journal of Political Ecology, 5, 53-82.
European Commission Environment DG
(starting from 1996). Natura 2000 newsletter. Available on
the web:
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/news/natura/ind
ex_en.htm
Ellis, R., & Waterton, C.
(2004). Volunteers and citizenship. Environmental citizenship
in the making: the participation of volunteer naturalists in UK
biological recording and biodiversity policy. Science and
Public Policy, 31(2), 95-105.
Fairbrass, J., & Jordan, A.
(2001). Protecting biodiversity in the European Union:
national barriers and European opportunities. Journal of
European Public Policy, 8(4), 499-518.
Fairhead, J., & Leach, M.
(2003). Science, society and power. Environmental
knowledge and policy in West Africa and the Caribbean.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hiedanpää, J.
(2002). European-wide conservation versus local well-being:
the reception of the Natura 2000 reserve network in Karvia,
SW-Finland. Landscape and Urban Planning, 61, 113-123.
Shiva, V.
(1997). Bio piracy. The plunder of nature and knowledge.
Boston/Mass.: South End.
Tacacs, D.
(1996). The idea of biodiversity. Philosophies of paradise.
Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins.
28
Krott, M.
(2000). Voicing interests and concerns: Natura 2000: An
ecological network in conflict with people. Forest policy and
economics, 1, 357-366.
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BA European Studies
Lachmund, J.
(2013). Greening Berlin. The Co-production of Science,
Politics, and Urban Nature. Boston: MIT Press.
Waterton, C.
(2002). From field to fantasy: Classifying nature, constructing
Europe. Social Studies of Science, 32(2), 177-204.
Weber, N., & Christophersen, T.
(2002). The influence of non-governmental organisations on
the creation of Natura 2000 during the European Policy
process. Forest Policy and Economics, 4,
1-12. (e-version available)
30
ASSIGNMENT 2
THE ALIENS ARE COMING!
Nieuw meldpunt voor schadelijke dier-

en plantensoorten
Invasieve dieren plantensoorten zijn planten of dieren die van nature
niet in Vlaanderen voorkomen én die voor problemen zorgen. Ze
brengen de biodiversiteit in gevaar, berokkenen economische schade
of veroorzaken problemen voor de volksgezondheid. Daarom wil de
Vlaamse overheid deze invasieve soorten zo snel mogelijk opsporen,
zodat ze kan ingrijpen voor de populatie te groot wordt.
Op de website www.waarnemingen.be/exoten kan u, nadat u zich

geregistreerd hebt, melden waar de overlastsoorten zich bevinden.
Eens die gelokaliseerd zijn, zullen terreinbeheerders en lokale
overheden de nodige maatregelen treffen. Op de site vindt u ook
herkenningsfiches, deze helpen u om de verschillende soorten te
onderscheiden.
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BA European Studies
The Giant Hogweed

(Heraclium
mantegaianizzium) is
one of the most famous
“invasive species” that
have spread recently in
contential Europe.
(retrieved from
http://www.lbv-
muenchen.de/Arbeitskr
eise/Umweltbildung/um
welttipps/riesen.baeren
klau1.jpg)
32
In April 2012 the Flamish minister for Environment Joke

Schauvliege launched a reporting point (meldpunt) on the
internet where Flemish citizens can report invasive plant
species. These are plant and animal species from other
continents that have spread into the Flemish landscape and that
are supposed to threaten regional species. This is just one
example for the growing concern among conservation biologists,
policy-makers, and activists about the threat from alien species.
Biological invasion is now widely acknowledged as the second

major factor that contributes to the decline of biodiversity (the
first one being the loss of habitats). At various levels of
governance, policy measures are being taken to protect the
native flora and fauna. If we look more closely to these practices
and politics, however, we can see that the guiding definitions
and criteria for the identification of a species as “invasive” differ
considerably between different countries, as well as between
policy-makers, scientists and wildlife managers. Maybe the
quest to keep invasive species out tells as much about ourselves
as it tells us about the species which are the focus of such
concerns.
In this context, it should not be forgotten, that public concern

about the spread of alien species is not new. According to Gert
Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (2003) it was notably in
National Socialist that Germany that exotic plants were
vigorously combated. The two authors argue that this “native
plant enthusiasm” was deeply rooted in the racist “blood and
soil” ideology of the Nazis. Accordingly, there is a disturbing
continuity between the current concern about plant invasion and
NS-ideology.
Readings
Bright, Christopher
(1999) Invasive species: Pathogens of globalization. Foreign
Policy, Fall 1999
Boonman-Berson, S; E. Turnhout & J. v. Tatenhove
Invasive Species: The categorization of wildlife in science,
policy, and wildlife management. Land Use Policy 38: 204-
212.
Gröning, G., & Wolschke Buhlmahn, J.
(2003). The native plant enthusiasm: ecological panacea or
xenophobia? Landscape Research, 28, 75-88.
Peretti, J.H.
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BA European Studies
(1998). Nativism and nature. Rethinking biological invasion.

Environmental Values, 7(2), 183-192.
Additional Readings
Coates, P.
(2006). American perceptions of immigrant and invasive
Species. Berkeley: University of California Press
Lachmund, J.
(2013) Strange Birds. Ornithologists and the Advent of the
Collared Dove in Post-World War II Germany. Science in
Context 28(2): 259-284.
Olwig, K.R.
(2003). Natives and aliens in the national landscape.
Landscape Research, 28(1), 61-74.
Walter, M., & Binimelis, R.
(2009). The multiple meanings of the cameraria ohridella
Biological Invasion in Paris’s Green Areas. Landscape
Research, 34(5), 272-544.
Smouts, T.
(2003). The alien species in the 20th century Britain:
constructing a new vermin. Landscape Research, 1, 11-20.
Stoet, P. J.
(2007). Counter-bioinvasion: Conceptual and governance
challenges. Environmental Politics, 16(3), 433-452.
34
ASSIGNMENT 3
PLANTS, COMMUNITY, AND THE QUEST FOR THE

SUSTAINABLE CITY: THE CASE OF URBAN
GARDENING
London: Dalston Curve Garden (photo: Jens Lachmund)
One way, in which people in their day-to-day life make contact

with nature is through the practice of gardening. Notably the
big cities in Europe and North America have become the stage
of new experiments with urban gardening. Labels such as
‘guerilla gardening’, ‘urban gardening’ or ‘urban agriculture’
have become the rallying points of a heterogeneous alliance of
actors, which promotes the growing of ornamental or edible
plants by citizens and local communities. Such activities include
the throwing of flower seeds, so-called “seed bombs”, on public
lawns, the planting of roadsides, tree pits and abandoned lots,
as well as the keeping of community-based gardens. Although
these gardening activities are focused on plants, and to some
35
BA European Studies
extent also on wildlife animals, the motivations of the

participants are much broader than only protecting biodiversity.
Its promoters have touted urban gardening for many reasons: to
experiment with creative ways of using public green; to improve
the quality of life and environmental justice in cities; to
integrate migrant cultures; and, as far as food-production is
involved, to shorten “foot miles” and thereby to pave the way for
more sustainable urban food systems.
Berlin, Tree-pit in Neukoelln (photo: Jens Lachmund)
We might think of gardening as nothing more than a leisure

activity. Yet, activists themselves and many social science
observers have claimed that urban gardening is a profoundly
political activity. We can observe that not only grass-root citizens
initiatives promote gardening, but also municipalities and other
public authorities play an important role in facilitating
community growing in cities. While some see urban gardening
as an alternative practice, which subverts dominant orders of
urban life, others see these projects more pessimistically.
36
London, Ruskin Park Community Garden (photo: Jens

Lachmund)
37
BA European Studies
Readings
Adams, D. & M. Hardman

(2014) Observing guerillias in the Wild: Reinterpreting
practices of urban guerilla gardening. Urban Studies,
51(6)1103-1119
Barthel S., J. Parker, & H. Ernstson
(2013). Food and green space in cities: A resilience lense on
gardens and urban environmental movements. Urban Studies
1-18.
Follmann, A. & V. Viehoff.
(2015). A green garden on red clay.: creating a new urban
common as a form of political gardening in Cologne. Local
Environment 20(10): 1148-1174.
Witherdige J., & N. J. Morris
(2016). An analysis of the effect of public policy on
community garden organisations in Edinburgh. Local
Environment, 21, 2.
Additional Readings
Barthel, S. & J. Colding. 2013. Civic greening and environmental

learning in public-access community gardens in Berlin”.
Landscape and Urban Planning 109, 1: 2013, 18–30
Eizenberg, E. 2013. From the ground up. Community gardens in
New York City and the politics of spatial transformation.
London: Ashgate.
Garnett, T. 1999. CityHarvest. The feasibility of growing more
food in London. London: Sustain Bendt, Pim;
Hou, J.,; J.M. Johnson, and L.J. Lawson. 2009. Greening cities,
growing communities. Learning from Seattle’s urban
community gardens. Seattle: Washington University Press.
Lawson, Laura J. 2005. City Bountiful. A century of community
gardens in America. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Nomadisch Grün (ed.): Prinzessinnengärten. Anders gärtnern in
der Stadt. DuMont, Köln 2012.
Reynolds, R.. 2008. On guerillia gardening. A handbook for
gardening without boundaries. Bloomsbury: London.
Rosol, Marit. 2012. “Community Volonteering as neoliberal
strategy? Green space production in Berlin”. Antipode 44,
1: 239-257.
38
SECTION II:
REGULATING ENVIRONMENTAL
RISK
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BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENT 4
LIVING IN A RISK SOCIETY
Source: http://www.talbotwalsh.com.au/warning%20toxic%20hazard.jpg
Scene 1: In early 2011 a dioxin scandal shocked the German

public. Food control authorities had established high doses of
dioxin in the meet of chicken, turkey and pigs as well as in
chicken eggs. Dioxin is a dangerous chemical carcinogen that
emerges as a side-product of various technical processes. As it
turned out, the animals had been fed with food that had been
contaminated with dioxin. The source was an animal food
producer in the North German town Uetersen. This factory
processed fat both for feeding animals as well as for animal
production. It was soon assumed that dioxin in the technical fat
might have wound up in fat that was marketed for agricultural
feeding.
Scene 2: 1999 an article in the science journal Nature kindled

concerns about the safety of biotechnology in agriculture. The
focus of concern was a genetically modified corn. In order to
protect its corn against an agriculture vermin, the corn borer,
genetic engineers had implanted genes of a bacterium which
40
produces a toxin to kill the vermin. The authors of the article, a

group of researchers from Cornell university, reported that
their own experiments with the corn had revealed that the toxin
also killed the monarch butterfly. Although the monarch larvae
normally did not breed on this corn, this was a clear hint that
the modified plant was potentially dangerous to no-target
species (see Jasanoff 2005: 108).
Scene 3: For almost three decades the Fukujima nuclear plant

had supplied the North of Japan with electric energy. When in
March 11, 2011 an earthquake and a tsunami hit the installation
it unleashed a chain of unprecedented events. The security
system immediately turned of the reactor. As it turned out,
however, the tsunami had disabled the cooling system and
caused various leaks in the installation. Several explosions
(caused by hydrogen gas that accumulated in the reactors) and
a nuclear meltdown led to dramatic releases of radiation. Very
soon an evacuation zone was established around the reactor.
Radioactivity was also discovered in food and drinking water in
the Tokyo region. It is completely unclear, what the long-term
effects of this disaster on human well-being and the
environment will be.
The dioxin scandal, the incalculable effects of genetically

modified organisms, and the vulnerability of nuclear energy are
three telling examples of the problems that the German
sociologist Ulrich Beck has discussed in his now classic book on
the “risk society”. As Beck argues, in our current “reflexive
modernity” we are faced with risks that are of a completely
different character than the dangers of earlier historical periods.
According to Beck, such new risks do not only affect the
environment and the well-being of people. They also change the
fundamental lines of conflict that divide and unite people. They
undermine established authorities such as science and state
institutions and led to the emergence of new political actors.
Beck even claims that the new types of risk pave the way for a
new type of society, the “risk society”. According to Beck this is
also a challenge for sociology, since the discipline’s conventional
analytical categories (e.g. class) and focus (on nation-states as
research units) do no longer fit with the emerging reality of the
risk society. Although not all scholars in this field agree with
Beck, his thesis has become a landmark of environmental
sociology.
Readings
Beck, U.
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BA European Studies
(1986). The Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity. London:

Sage. (Chapters 1 & 2)
Matten, Dirk
(2004) The impact of the risk society thesis on environmental
politics and management in a globalizing economy –
principles, proficiencies, perspectives. Journal of Risk
Research 7 (4), 377-398.
Additional readings
Beck, U.
(1995). World risk society. London: Blackwell, Introduction,
pp. 1-18.
Callon, M., G. Burchell, P. Lascoumes, Y Brathe
Acting in an Uncertain World: An essay on technological
democracy, MIT Press 2001.
(Chapters 1, and 7)
42
Douglas, M., & Wildavsky, A.

(1983). Risk and culture. University of California Press:
Berkeley.
Hannigan, J.A.
(1995). Environmental sociology. A social constructionist
perspective. London: Routledge Chapter 5: Constructing
Environmental Risks, pp. 92-108.
Irwin, A.
(2001). Sociology and the environment. London: Polity;
Chapter 2: The Risk Society Thesis, pp. 50-69.
Iles, A.
(2004) Patching local and global knowledge together: Citizens
inside the US chemical industry. In Jasanoff, S./M. Long-
Martello (Eds.): Earthly politics. Local and global in
environmental governance. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Jasanoff, S.
(2003) Technologies of Humility: Citizen Participation in
governing science. Minerva, 41, 223-244.
Suryanarayan, S. & D. Kleinman
(2012) Be(e)coming experts: The controversy over
insecticides in the honey bee colony collapse disorder. Social
Studies of Science 43(2), 215-240.
Ottinger, G.
(2010) Buckets of Resistance: Standards and the
effectiveness of citizen science. Science, Technology and
Human Values, 35, 2: 244-271.
Zinn, J. O. (2016)
Living in the Anthropocene: towards a risk-taking society.
Environmental Sociology 2, 4: 385-394.
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BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENT 5
RISK REGULATION IN THE EU:

THE CASE OF DANGEROUS CHEMICALS
An important aspect of the politics of risk has been the

development of a dense regulatory structure – legal norms,
technical standards, public authorities – to appraise and control
the risks of industrial processes and products. Let us take the
regulation of the production and use of chemicals by the EU as
an example. Since the 1970s, chemical risk had already been the
target of EU legislation. In 2007 the 2007 REACH-regulation
(Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals)
introduced a new and more systematic approach to the control
of chemicals. It was the aim of the new regulation to improve
the protection of human health and the environment, while
maintaining the competitiveness and enhancing the innovative
capability of the EU chemicals industry. REACH was also meant
to give greater responsibility to industry in the management of
risks from chemicals and to provide safety information on the
substances. New channels of information flow were instituted
that passed knowledge from the producer “downstream”.
According to a press release of the Commission issued on

October 29, 2003, “the proposal was drafted in close
consultation with all interested parties, including via an internet
consultation. This has allowed the Commission to propose a
streamlined and cost-effective system. As Commissioner Erkki
Liikanen (enterprise) put it:
I believe that we now have arrived at a proposal that strikes the

right balance between maintaining growth and employment in
Europe on the one hand and improving health and the
environment in Europe on the other. Both the chemicals industry
itself and Europe's manufacturing sectors that depend on
chemicals are key contributors to economic activity in all
Member States. Safeguarding their competitiveness is a priority.
The mechanisms built into today's proposal are cost-effective and
they will enhance the innovative capability of our industry. The
proposal will also provide for a stable framework within the
internal market and a new independent chemicals agency will
help guaranteeing that. (Ibid.)
Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström said:
REACH is a groundbreaking proposal. Once adopted, it will allow

us to take advantage of the benefits of chemicals without
exposing ourselves and the environment to risks. Thus, it will
44
create a win-win situation for industry, workers and citizens, and

our ecosystem. It will give Europe’s citizens the high level of
protection that they have the right to expect. The EU will have
one of the most progressive chemicals management systems in
the world. (Ibid.)
The proposed regulation was meant to replace more than 40

existing directives and regulations. At the core of the proposed
system was a single, integrated system for Registration,
Evaluation and Authorisation of CHemicals. REACH would
require companies that produce and import chemicals to assess
the risks arising from their use and to take the necessary
measures to manage any risk they identify. This would reverse
the burden of proof from public authorities to the industry, in
order to ensure the safety of chemicals on the market.
This has not prevented environmental groups to be rather

critical about the proposed framework. For example,
Greenpeace stated in a press release:
After five years of discussion and many delays, the European

Commission has finally proposed new laws for regulating
chemicals safety called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and
Authorisation of Chemicals). When originally proposed, the
legislation put the protection of human health and the
environment above the profits and pollution of the chemicals
industry. However, industry demands have weakened the
regulations almost beyond recognition.
These laws are important because they govern many hazardous
chemicals found in everyday products -- chemicals which are in
all of our bodies, and which can be detected all over the globe.
France, Germany and the UK claimed that the proposed laws
would cost jobs in the industry and affect their gross domestic
products, with companies moving out of Europe. However, an
independent impact assessment estimated that the changes will
cost the industry only 0.05 percent of its turnover.
This heavy pressure has lead to loopholes in the current draft
laws, which will deliver pollution as usual rather than protect our
health. Instead of forcing industry to innovate and find
alternatives for dangerous chemicals, it asks them to
demonstrate undefined 'adequate control.' What the laws should
contain is the principle of 'mandatory substitution’, which would
mean companies would have a legal obligation to replace
dangerous chemicals with safe ones.
Now the proposed laws will be debated in the European
Parliament and by national governments before finally entering
into law in the EU sometime in 2005 or early 2006. We, and other
environmental, health, and women's groups, will be campaigning
to ensure that the current loopholes are closed and the laws
meet their original goal of protecting our health and the
environment rather than the chemical industry's right to pollute
(Greenpeace International, 2003).
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Another group criticizing REACH was the UK-based Eurogroup

for Animal Welfare. As an effect of REACH, they feared an
increasing need for animal experimentation. According to
animal rights organization, the proposals encouraged
conventional methods of testing. In effect, this criticism pointed
to possible adversarial effects of the precaution principle on the
wellbeing of animals (….)
When in June 2007 the eventual regulation entered into force, it

did not live up to all the original aims. Yet, it is still regarded as
one of the most innovative pieces of environmental regulation of
risk.
Readings
On REACH (everything you can find on EU-websites!)
Fisher, Elizabeth
(2008). The ’perfect storm’ of REACH: charting regulatory
controversy in the age of information, sustainable
development, and globalization. Journal of Risk Research,
11(4), 541-563.
46
References
Carstens, K.
(2004, 1-7 July). Parliament shake-up spills over to REACH,
European Voice.
Eurogroup for Animal Welfare
(2003, press release October 28). New EU Chemicals safety
testing program will lead to the suffering of millions of
laboratory animals.
See website:
http://www.eurogroupanimalwelfare.org/press.htm
Halffman, W.
(2003). Boundaries of Regulatory Science. Eco/toxicology and
aquatic hazards of chemicals in the US, England, and the
Netherlands, 1970-1995. Amsterdam: Dissertation, University
of Amsterdam.
Wynne, B.
(1992). Carving out Science (and Politics) in the Regulatory
Jungle. Social Studies of Science, 22, 745-58.
47
BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENT 6
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY?

CONFLICTING VIEWS ON THE PRECAUTIONARY
PRINCIPLE.
- ENACTING A CONTROVERSY -
Science does not have a clear answer for us how to best tackle
the enormously complex and serious environmental problems
that face the world -- global warming, loss of biodiversity, toxins
in the environment. Also traditional risk assessment and
management may not be sufficient. Indeed, given the scope of
such problems, they may never be.
Given this profound uncertainty, some politicians and activists

insist that priority should be given to caution. Although there is
no consensus definition of what is termed the “precautionary
principle”, one oft-mentioned statement, from the so-called
Wingspread conference in Racine, Wis. in 1998, sums it up:
"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the
environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if
some cause and effect relationships are not fully established
scientifically" (Morris, 2000, p. 5). In other words, actions taken
to protect the environment and human health take precedence.
Therefore, some advocates say (for example), that governments
should immediately ban the planting of genetically modified
crops, even though science cannot yet say.
Starting as a matter of law in Germany and Sweden, the

precautionary principle is increasingly guiding the policy of all
of Europe: in 2000, the European Commission outlined when
and how it intends to use the precautionary principle (EC,
2000). Yet in same ‘Communication’, the Commission conceded
that there is no generally accepted definition of the principle. It
even deliberately declined to define the term. Nevertheless, the
principle is finding its way into international agreements. It was
incorporated for the first time in a fully-fledged international
treaty in the United Nations Bio-safety Protocol regulating trade
in genetically modified products, the so-called Cartagena Bio-
safety Protocol agreed in Montreal in January 2000. Soon
afterwards, it was inserted in the 1992 Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development and the 1992 Framework
Convention on Climate Change (Morris, 2000, p. 5).
48
The concept which has its roots in the German idea of Vorsorge
(O’Riordan & Cameron, 1994) has also been targeted by various
critics. Gregory Conko and Henry I. Miller, associated with the
neo-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, issued a
frontal attack on the principle in an OpEd that appeared in 2003
in The Financial Times:
Regulatory officials in the European Union seem to be ignorant of

the rule of holes: when you are in one, stop digging. Numerous
analyses over the past two decades have documented Europe's
declining competitiveness in agricultural biotechnology—the use
of genetic modification to improve plants, animals and
microorganisms. Recently, for example, the European
Commission's Joint Research Center reported that two-thirds of
large European companies that had been involved in developing
GM crops had cancelled substantial projects since 1998. Yet the
EU seems determined, through its unscientific, unwise, and
unproductive approach to regulation, to let the sector fall further
behind. At the root of the problem is the EU's adherence to the
so-called "precautionary principle," which holds that as long as
the evidence about a product, technology or activity is in any way
incomplete, it should be prohibited or, at the least, heavily
regulated. This, in turn, is based on the false assumption that
little harm comes from delaying the introduction of new products
and technologies. The principle exaggerates the potential
drawbacks of new products and underestimates their benefits.
The decision-making process it dictates is intentionally weighted
against new technologies, even after they have been cautiously
examined (Conko and Miller, 2003; see also Miller and Conko,
2000).
Critics of the principle can also be found in Europe (Van den

Belt & Gremmen, 2002). They assert that the principle's
definition and goals are vague, leaving its application dependent
to the regulators who are charge at the moment. Moreover, it is
supposed to stifle trade and limit innovation. "If someone had
evaluated the risk of fire right after it was invented," Julian
Morris of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London remarks,
"they may well have decided to eat their food raw" (Morris,
2000, p. xi; see also Durodié, 2000).
European Union scholar Giondomenico Majone has argued in a

2002 article in The Journal of Common Market Studies, that “as
a general approach to risk regulation [the precaution principle]
suffers from a number of shortcomings: [among others] it lacks
a sound logical foundation, it may distort regulatory priorities, it
can be misused to justify protectionist measures” (Majone,
2002, p. 89).
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BA European Studies
In Europe, the principle is defended by non-governmental

organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
European scientists, like Peter T. Saunders of King’s College,
UK, who are in favor of principle, point out that:
The precautionary principle hinges on concept of the burden of

proof, which ordinary people have been expected to understand
and accept in the law for many years. What the precautionary
principle does is put the burden of proof onto the innovator or
perpetrator, but not in an unreasonable or impossible way. It is
up to the perpetrator to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt
that it is safe, and not for the rest of society to prove that it is not
(Saunders, 2000).
The group assignment: Enacting a

controversy
In the first session we will brainstorm

about these issues. Instead of
formulating learning goals we will dive
the course into two groups: one is
supposed to search arguments for, the
other against the precautionary
principle. On this basis we will enact a
controversy. To prepare: read as much
as you can and think about how you will
present your findings as arguments pro
or con the precautionary principle.
50
Readings
Aven, T.
(2003). Foundations of risk analysis. A knowledge and
decision-oriented perspective. Chichester [etc.]: Wiley.
Belt, H. van den, & Gremmen, B.
(2002). Between precautionary principle and “sound
science”: distributing the burdens of proof. Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 15, 17-29.
Carstens, K.
(2004, 1-7 July). Parliament shake-up spills over to REACH,
European Voice.
Callon, M., G. Burchell, P. Lascoumes, Y Brathe
Acting in an uncertain world: An essay on technological
democracy, MIT Press 2001.
(Chapters 1, and 7)
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Conko, G., Miller, H.I.

(2003, August 16). Brussels’ bad Science will cost the world
dear. The Financial Times.
Durodié, B.
(2000). Plastic panics: European risk regulation in the
aftermath of BSE. In J. Morris, Rethinking Risk and the
Precautionary Principle (pp. 140-166). Oxford [etc.]:
Butterworth & Heinemann.
European Commission
(2000). Communication of the commission on the
precautionary principle (COM). Brussels: Commission of the
European Communities.
European Commission
(2003). Chemicals: Commission presents proposal to
modernise EU legislation. Brussels: Press Release of the
Commission of the European Communities (IP/03/1477).
Greenpeace International
(2003). Campaigns: chemicals out of control: chemicals
regulations. See website:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/extra/?campaign
%5fid=3987&forward%5fsource%5fanchor=Chemicals
%20Regulation&item%5fid=283853
Löfstedt, R. E.
(2004). The swing of the regulatory pendulum in Europe.
From the precautionary principle to (regulatory) impact
analysis. Journal of risk and uncertainty, 28(3), 237-260.
Majone, G. et al.
(1996). Regulating Europe. London [etc.]: Routledge.
Majone, G.
(2002). What Price Safety? The Precautionary Principle and
its Policy Implications. The Journal of Common Market
Studies, 40, 89-109.
Miller, H.I., & Conko, G.
(2000). Genetically modified fear and the international
regulation of biotechnology. In J. Morris (Ed.), Rethinking
Risk and the Precautionary Principle (pp. 84-104). Oxford
[etc.]: Butterworth & Heinemann.
Morris, J.
(2000). Rethinking risk and the precautionary principle.
Oxford [etc.]: Butterworth & Heinemann.
O’Riordan, T., & Cameron, J. (Eds.)
(1994). Interpreting the precautionary principle. London:
Earthscan.
Sunstein, C.R.
(2002). Risk and reason. Safety, law, and the environment.
Cambridge[etc.]: Cambridge University Press.
52
Saunders, P.T.
(2000). Use and abuse of the precautionary principle, on the
website of the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS). See
website: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php
Tokar, B. (Ed.)
(2001). Redesigning life? The worldwide challenge to genetic
engineering. Montreal [etc.]: McGill-Queen’s University
Press/ Zed Books.
Vogel, D.
(2012). The politics of precaution. Regulating health, safety,
and environmental risks in Europe and the United States.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
See also the websites of Greenpeace International & Friends of

the Earth.
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54
SECTION III:
CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE
55
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56
ASSIGNMENT 7
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE POLITICS OF

ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE
The American historian of science Naomi Oreskes (2004: 1686)

concludes her review of global climate change science, with the
claim that there is “a scientific consensus on the reality of
anthropogenic climate change”. The facts are clear in her view.
There are thus reasons enough to act as soon as possible. This
contrast clearly with the existence of a broad movement of
“climate change deniers” such as the neoconservative anti-
environmentalists in the U.S. or “climate change minimizers”
such as the Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg. As, for example,
Lomborg claims:
“Statements about the strong, ominous and immediate

consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated”,
and therefore, “we need (…) to put global warming in
perspective. Climate change is not the only issue on the global
agenda, and actually one of the issues where we can do the least
good first” (Lomborg 2007).
Such voices are not unimportant for the development of climate

policy: Conservative think-tanks have successfully influenced the
position of the U.S. president G.W.Bush and the Danish
government financed a research institute for Lomborg.
Knowing the climate, however, is not only a matter of accepting

or denying the facts of global climate change. As scholars in the
sociology of science have argued and substantiated in various
empirical case-studies, our views on the global climate are
inevitable socially constructed. They are made by very particular
groups of experts, who all have their own traditions and
agendas, and who have to cooperate to arrive at a consensus.
Moreover, nobody can just “see” climate change happening “out
there”. Therefore all what we know about the facts of climate
change is based on some form of scientific modeling. As Yearley
(2009) and Demmeritt (2010) have shown, it depends on social
and political circumstances what kind of data in mined for such
modeling, what constitutes a good model, and how the results of
climate models are interpreted. How climate scientist deal with
these issues can often have important political consequences.
The politics of environmental knowledge is thus not only about
listening and interpreting the results of science, it is also about
the very nature of its practices of knowledge-making. This does
not mean that constructivist analysts of science have to be
supporters of climate skeptics. What they call for, however, is a
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BA European Studies
politically reflective understanding of the science on which

environmental policy is based on.
Readings
Demmeritt, D.
(2010). The construction of global warming and the politics of
science. Annals of the Association of American Geographers,
91(2), 307-337.
58
McRight, M., & Dunlap, R.E.

(2003). Defeating Kyoto: The conservative movement’s impact
on U.S. Climate change policy. Social Problems, 50(3), 348-
373.
Oreskes, N.
(2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science,
3 December, Vol. 306, No. 5702, 1686.
Edwards, Paul
(2010). A vast machine. Computer models, climate data, and
the politics of global warming. Boston: MIT Press.
McRight, A., & Dunlap R.E.
(2000). Challenging global warming as a social problem?
Social Problems, 47(4), 499-522.
Jasanoff, S.
(2010). A new climate for society. Theory, Culture, Society,
27(27), 233-253.
Yearley, S.
(2009). Sociology and climate change after Kyoto: What roles
for social science in understanding climate change? Current
Sociology, 57(3), 389-405.
Lomborg, B.
(2007). Perspective on climate change. Paper prepared for
the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality joint hearing
with the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the
Committee on Science and Technology on Wednesday March
21, 2007. (downloaded June, 1, 2012 from:
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocument
s/lomborg_testimony.pdf)
Wynne, Brian
(2010). Strange weather, again. Theory, Culture, Society,
27(2-3), 289-305.
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BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENT 8
POPULAR IMAGES OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL

CRISIS: “INCONVENIENT TRUTHS” AND FEAR IN
THE ANTHROPOCENE
One of the public events that contributed to the growing public

awareness of climate change was the release of the film “The
Inconvenient Truth”. Directed by the former candidate for US
presidency Al Gore, it combined scientific insights with a
powerful linguistic and visual rhetoric. We can see the public
role of Al Gore as representative of a broader trend towards the
“celebritization” of climate change, a process that also involved
the public featuring of movie stars, and pop singers. But what
does the presentation of domesday scenaries do? The movie also
contributed to major changes of the ways in which human see
their position in nature; a consciousness that now is increasingly
captured by the imaginary of the anthropocene. In this session
we will view and analyze Al Gore’s film, to understand the
relationship between film, celebritization, and public imageries
about climate change.
In viewing the film, please consider the following questions:

what are the main claims that Al Gore makes in his film?
how is nature presented in the film?
how is science presented in the film?
how does Al Gore present himself in the film?
what are the main visual, acoustic, narrative strategies that are
employed in the film?
We do not just view this film to better understand what climate
change is (that’s probably why many of you might have watched
the film before). Try to take an analytical perspective on what
you hear and see during the film screening. It can be an
advantage if you already have seen the film before, but this is of
course not required.
In addition to viewing the film, please also read one of the two
text indicated below. Try to link your analysis of the fil to the
arguments developed in these two papers. Do you think the
authors are correct in their view of the film? Or do you disagree
with them in some points?
Literature
Boykoff, M.T. 7 M. K. Goodman
60
(2009) Conspiciuous redemption? Reflections on the promises

and perils of the celebritization of climate change. Geoforum
40: 395-406.
Rosteck, T., & Frentz, T.S.
(2009). Myth and Multiple Readings in environmental
rhetoric: The case of An Inconvenient Truth. Quarterly
Journal of Speech, 95, 1-19.
Swijngedouw, E.
(2013) Apocalypse Now. Fear and doomsday. Capitalism,
Nature, Socialism 24, 1, 9-18..
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BA European Studies
ASSIGNMENT 9
FROM CRISIS TO POLICY INNOVATION. THE

MAKING OF CARBON MARKETS.
In 1989 the environmental economists David Pearce, Anil

Markandia and Edward Babier argued that the environment
could be most effectively protected if it was turned into a
commodity. Once producers could no longer simply use nature
for free but had to pay a price for it, they would automatically
tend to be more modest in their pollution or consumption of
natural goods. The idea sounds simple and compelling, and has
often been associated with the idea of “ecological
modernization”. Concern for the environment would be
translated into the language of the market, and then the market
would work for the environmental cause, instead of against the
environment (as it had done so often in the past). It was in the
context of the global climate crisis that these ideas materialized
more broadly. Carbon trading mechanisms, such as the “Joint
Implementation” and the “Clean Development Mechanism” of
the Kyoto Protocol and the EU’s “Emission Trading System”
(ETS) have become the first large scale instruments of market-
based environmental governance. In the EU-system, for
example, firms who want to release more green-house gases
than they are allotted, have to buy pollution rights from other
firms who (for example because they have introduced a more
efficient production technologies) do not dissave their full
allowance. The way from economic theory to practice, however,
was much more determined by political interests and
institutional factors than by the persuasiveness of the
environmental economist’s idea. The new carbon market could
not just be wished into existence. It had to be made, and that
required all kinds of difficult work. This was a process that was
full of tensions and dilemmas, and observers are still divided
about how to evaluate the effectiveness of this policy. Whereas
some see it as an important innovation in governance, others
tend to see it as a “as the most recent expression of ongoing
trends of ecological commodification and expropriation, driving
familiar processes of uneven and crisis-prone development.”
(Boehm, Misoczky, and Moog 2010: 1).
Literature
Boehm, S., M.C. Misocky, S. Moog
62
(2012) Greening capitalism? A Marxist critique of carbon

markets. Organization Studies 33(11): 1617-1638.
Lohmann, L.
(forthcoming). Neoliberalism and the Calculable World: The
Rise of Carbon Trading. Prepared for Kean Birch, Vlad
Mykhnenko and Katherine Trebeck (Eds.), The Rise and Fall
of Neoliberalism: The Collapse of an Economic Order?
London: Zed Books (available on the web).
Spaargarden, G. & A.P.L. Mol:
(2013) Carbon flows, carbon markets, and low-carbon
lifestyles: reflecting on the role of markets in
climategovernance. Environmental Politics 22(1): 174-193.
Voß, J.P.
(2007). Innovation processes in governance: the development
of emission trading as a new policy instrument. Science and
Public Policy, 34(5), 329-343.
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Additional literature
Bayley, I, A. Goudlson & P. Newell

(2011) Ecological modernization and the governance of
carbon. Antipode 43: 3: 682-703.
Callon, M.
(2008). Civilizing markets: Carbon trading between in vitro
and in vivo experiments. Accounting, Organizations, Society,
34, 535-548.
McKenzie, D.
(2008). Making things the same: Gases, emission rights and
the politics of carbon markets. Accounting, Organizations,
Society, 34, 440-455.
Engels, A.
(2008). The European Emissions Trading Scheme: An
exploratory study of how companies learn to account for
carbon. Accounting, Organizations, Society, 34, 488-498.
Braun, M.
(2008). The evolution of emission trading in the European
Union – the role of policy networks, knowledge and policy
entrepreneurs. Accounting, Organizations, Society, 34, 469-
487.
Peirce, D., Markandia, A., & Barbier, A.
(1989). Blueprint for a Green Economy. London: Earthscan.
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SECTION 4:
65
BA European Studies
PATHWAYS TOWARD
SUSTAINABILITY
66
ASSIGNMENT 10
THE EXAMPLE OF FOOD
The deterioration of nature and the incalculable risks of modern

industry has led many to ask if humans can continue their
current economic and cultural way of life. Will unfettered
economic growth and the unequal distribution of its benefits in
the long run make our planet inhabitable? This is the crucial
paradox that in the 1990s has led to the formulation of the
concept of sustainable development. As it was defined in 1987
by the World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED, the so-called Brundland-commission:
Sustainable development is a process of change in which the

exploitation of resources, the direction of investment, the
orientation of technological development, and institutional
change are all in harmony and enhance both current and
future potential to meet human needs and aspiration (WCED
1987 quoted from Baker 2006: 22)
The idea of sustainability has found its way into many official EU
papers, expert reports and model projects. In many member
states and regions, strategies have been developed to reduce
their footprint on the environment. The idea of sustainability has
also inspired the activities of NGO’s, local, regional, national or
global government agencies, as well as industrial corporations.
Advocates of “strong sustainability” thereby compete with those
of a “weaker” interpretation of the term.
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BA European Studies
It is evident that a change to sustainability will required

fundamental changes of the ways in which we live, think,
consume and produce. A good example for this is the way in
which we consume and produce food. Just think of all what you
have been eating in the course of your last day? Where did that
food come from? How and by whom was it produced? What
might be the effects of your way of consuming food on the
environment? Maybe you are already quite conscious about
these problems. Does this also mean that you have changed your
daily routines accordingly? And if not, or not fully, what are the
reasons why you did not change your lifestyle more radically?
At a day to day level, the concept of “food miles”, that (although

it can been criticized for its narrow focus on distance) which
allows consumers to get more awareness of how far away their
product has been produced. In other cases citizens, often with
the help of NGOs, have set up “civic food networks” which
aimed at a “moralization” and democratization of food
economies, and thereby also would pave the way for a more
sustainable food system. Though achieving active “food
citizenship” these consumers can probably indeed make a
difference in our contemporary food system.
Also cities, NGO’s, and many consumers themselves have been

active in trying to change their ways of consuming food, and
thereby also hope to have a positive impact on the ways in which
food is produced, processed, and marketed. Whereas issues of
“food security” for a long time have only been seen as a problem
of the Global South, they are now widely debate in European
policy expert circles. However, as Sonnino et. Al. (2014) have
criticized, policy oriented research in this subject has focused
too exclusively mainly on individual components of the food
system such as supply and demand, and thereby neglected the
68
complex relationships between all the various stages and actors

of the food system.
Readings
Baker, S.
(2006). Sustainable Development. Routledge: London (pp. 17-
48)
Sonnino, R., Moragues Faus, A., Maggio, A. (2014)
Sustainable food-security: an emerging research and
policy agenda. International Journal of the Sociology of
Agriculture and Food, 21, 1: 173-188.
Renting, H., Schermer, M. & Rossi, A. (2012)
Building Food Democracy: Exploring Civic Food Networks
and Newly Emerging Forms of Food Citizenship.
International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and
Food, 19, 3: 289-307.
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BA European Studies
Baker, S., Kousis, M., Richardson, D., & Young, S. (Eds.)

The politics of sustainable development. London, New York.
Routledge.
Blühdorn, I. (no year)
Locked into the politics of unsustainability.
http://www.eurozine.com/pdf/2009-10-30-bluhdorn-en.pdf
Brundtland, G.H.
(1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford Univsersity
Press.
Conelly, J.
(2003). Politics and the environment: from Theory to Practice.
London: Routledge.
Dresner, S.
(2002). The principles of sustainability. London: Earthscan.
Hajer, M., & Fischer, F.
(1999). Living with nature. Environmental Politics as Cultural
Discourse. Oxford University Press.
Huber, J.
(2001). Allgemeine Umweltsoziologie. Wiesbaden:
Westdeutscher Verlag. (Chapter 6)
Irwin, A.
(2001). Sociology and the environment. London: Polity.
Koelen, L. v.d., & Asselt, M. van
(2007). Sustainable Development in Europe. In T. Bloom
(Ed.), Reviewing Europe. Maastricht: University of
Maastricht.
Köhn et al. (Eds.)
(1999). Sustainability in question. The search for a
conceptual framework. Chaltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Milieu defensive
(1992). Action Plan Sustainable Netherlands – A perspective
for changing northern lifestyles. Friends of the Earth:
Amsterdam.
Sachs, W., Loske, R., & Linz. M.
(1998). Greening the North. A post-industrial blueprint for
ecology and equity. London/New York: Zed.
Sachs, W. (Ed.)
(1993). Global ecology. A new arena of political conflict.
London: Zed.
Kemp, R., & Loorbach, D.
(2003). Governance for sustainability through transition
management. Maastricht: MERIT.
Kasemir, B., Jaeger,J., Jaeger, C., & Gardner, M.T.
(2003). Public participation in sustainability science.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dresner, S.
(2002). The principles of sustainability. London: Earthscan.
Worster, D.
(1993). The shaky ground of sustainability. In W. Sachs (Ed.),
Global Ecology. A new arena of political conflict (pp. 132-
146). Zed: London.
Jamison, A., & Roracher, H. (Eds.)
(2002). Technological studies and sustainable development.
Technology Analysis and Strategic Mangement, 13, 1.
70
Hoogma, R., Kemp, R., Schot, J., & Truffer, B.

(2002). Experimenting for Sustainable Transport. The
approach of strategic niche management. London: Spon.
[some interesting texts can also be found on the website of the

MERIT-institute:
http://www.merit.unimaas.nl/publications/rm.php?year_id=2003]
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72
CONCLUDING WORKSHOP:
THE CULTURE AND POLITICS OF

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
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74
During the course, you are supposed to carry out your own
research projects in groups of two students (in the case of
uneven numbers of students one tree student group can be
formed). The results of these studies will be presented (15-20
minutes) at the concluding workshops. In addition to your oral
presentation, please hand-in a summarizing mini-paper of your
presentation (2 pages & a list of references of all the literature
that you base your argument on). The summaries (hard copy
versions) will be collected by the coordinator at the beginning of
the workshop!! Please note that the grade will be based on the
oral presentation; the summary will help the coordinator in the
grading process.
Your research is supposed to be original, making use of

secondary literature as well as a broad variety of primary
sources (policy documents, expert reports, journal articles,
websites etc.). You might also consider doing interviews with
important stakeholders. You are expected to show your
familiarity with the methods and approaches discussed
throughout this module and to relate your studies to more
general theoretical discussions (please see the introduction to
the course book for the evaluation criteria).
75
BA European Studies
FINDING A TOPIC
Do research on an environmental issue that you think is of

particular social relevance or of specific theoretical interest for
European Studies of the environment. Your topic might be
historical or contemporary. Such topics might be, for example,
the extinction of a certain plant or animal species, the pollution
of a river, the controversy about an industrial risk. It might also
be interesting to study problems that hitherto have not attracted
much attention or are even contested, for example, the risk of
cancer produced by electromagnetic radiation or radon. You can
focus on environmental debates or problems on the EU level, in
one or more countries or on a local level. Depending on what
topic you choose, it might also be interesting to follow the
development of the problem throughout different geographical
and institutional contexts. You can of course also pick topics that
we cover in one of the three sessions (nature, risk, climate
change). In any case, however, you should provide more that we
already discuss in the sessions.
It is critically important that the topics are clearly defined
and delineated. They should not be too complex so that they can
be explored within the given time-frame. Finally, you should
approach your topic with a clear research question (For
example: “I study the regulatory conflicts on electromagnetic
radiation in Belgium to find out how anti-radiation activists were
able to put a new issue on the public agenda. Thereby I want to
deepen our understanding on the role of civil society activism in
environmental policy”).
In the different assignments we touched on various
theoretical perspectives (eco-biography, risk society thesis,
secondary modernity, social construction, discourse, ecological
modernization, sustainability etc.). Make use of some of these
concepts to frame you study (For example: “I study this problem
from a social-constructivist perspectives. More specifically, I
employ the model of environmental claims-making as it has been
developed by Hannigan…”).
Examples for possible topics:

How Cities Combat Climate Change: A Comparison of two
European Urban Agglomerations.
Local Activism and the Chemical Industry: Combating Industrial
Risk in the Po-region
Detecting the Ticking Bomb: How Asbestos lost its Innocence
Protecting the Swiss Landscape: From Protest to Policy
Between Fear and Science: Public Concern about
Electromagnetic Radiation
76
The Anti-Nuclear Movement in Germany: A Historical

Perspective
Noise as an Environmental Problem
Bodies of Risk: Environmental Medicine, Folk Epidemiology and
the Politics of Allergy
Fine Dust: The Quest for Regulation
From Killing to Saving: The Rise of Bird Protection in European
Countries
The Baltic Sea at Risk: The Birth of a Transnational Policy
The Maas: Steps towards an Eco-Biography
The Automobile Society: From Modernist Utopia to Ecological
Dystopia
The Environment and the Making of Regional Identity: The Case
of ….
The Paper Industry as an Environmental Problem: From
Pollution to Sustainable Production?
Googling Against Nature? The Ungreen Side-Effects of the
Information Society
Protecting Trees in the City: The Campaign against Tree-Cuts in
the Antwerp Kaiserlay
DDT and the Rise of Modern Environmentalism
Living with the Risk: Aluminum Production, Heavy Metals and
Neighbors in the Belgian City of Genk
Soil Erosion as a Global Environmental Problem
77
BA European Studies
78
ANNEX
79
BA European Studies
Abbreviations: bib=library UM; ej=e journal; NCC=Nederlandse

Centrale Catalogus,
Important Journals
Agriculture and Human Values (NCC)
Environment (NCC)
Environmental Economics & Policy Studies (NCC)
Environmental History (NCC)
Environmental History Review (NCC)
Environmental Management (ej)
Environmental Pollution (NCC) (very scientific!)
Environmental & Resource Economics (NCC)
Environmental Science & Policy (ej)
Environmental Values (NCC)
Environment and History (NCC)
Environment and Planning A: Government and Policy (NCC
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (lib)
Environment and Planning D: Space and Society (NCC)
Global Environmental Change. Human and Policy Dimension
(NCC)
Nature and Culture (ej)
Nature, Societé, Sciènce (ej).
Risk Management (NCC)
Science and Public Policy (NCC)
Science, Technology & Human Values (bib)
Social Studies of Science (lib, ej)
Strategic Environmental Management (ej)
Studies in environmental anthropology (NCC)
Sustainable Development (ej)
The International Journal of Sustainable Development and World
Ecology (NCC)
Journal of Political Ecology (NCC)
These are only some important journals that tackle

environmental issues from a social science perspective. Of
course, you can find relevant articles in all social scientific
journals. For case studies of the scientific construction of
environmental problems, it might also be useful to consult more
scientific journals.
Annual Reports
Environmental Assessment Report (European Environment
Agency) (lib)
OECD environmental data compendium (lib)
80
81
BA European Studies
82
LITERATURE
83
BA European Studies
84
Literature (includes only titles for the introduction)

Baker, S.
(2006). Sustainable Development. Routledge: London (pp. 17-
48)
Barnes, P.M., & Barnes, I.G. (Eds.)
(1999). Environmental Policy in the European Union.
Cheltenham: Elgar.
Beck, U.
(1992). Risk Society. London: Sage.
Delereux, T & S. Happaerts
(2016) Environmental Policy and Politics in the European
Union. London: Palgrave
Forsyth, T.
(2003). Critical Political Ecology. The Politics of
Environmental Science. London: Routledge.
Hannigan, J.A.
(2006). Environmental Sociology. London: Routledge.
Huber, J.
(2001). Allgemeine UmweltSoziologie. Wiesbanden:
Westdeutscher Verlag.
Hayer, M.
(1995). The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Oxford:
Clarendon.
Irwin, A.
(1002). Sociology and the Environment. Cambridge: Polity.
Jasanoff, S., & Long, M (Eds.)
(2004). Earthly Politics. Global and Local in Environmental
Governance. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Jordan, A. (Ed.)
(2002). Environmental Policy in the European Union. London:
Earthscan.
Kemp, R., & Loorbach, D.
(2003). Governance for Sustainability Through Transition
Management. Maastricht: MERIT.
Köhn et. al. (Eds.)
(1999). Sustainability in Question. The Search for a
Conceptual Framework. Chaltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
Latour, B.
(2003). The politics of Nature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Latour, B.
(2017)Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climate
Regime. Politiy Press.
Lenschow, A. (Ed.)
(2002). Environmental Policy Integration. Greening Sectoral
Policies in Europe. London: Earthscan.
Litskog, R. & C. Waterton
85
BA European Studies
(2016) Anthropocene – a cautious welcome from

environmental sociology? Environmental Sociology 2, 4: 59-
406.
McCormick, J.
(2001). Environmental Policy in the European Union. London:
Palgrave.
Mol, P.J.A.
(2001). Globalization and Environmental Reform. The
Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy. Boston: MIT
Press.
Stehr, N.
(1994). Arbeit, Eigentum und Wissen. Zur Theorie von
Wissensgesellschaften. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Stone, O.
(1988). Should Trees have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for
Natural Objects. Paolo Alto: Tioga.
86

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Faculty of Arts and

3.THE COURSE IN THE BA ES CURRICULUM...................9

6.COURSE TEAM ............................................................. 19

Making Space for Biodiversity:

The Aliens are coming! ..................................... 27

PLANTS, COMMUNITY, AND THE QUEST FOR

Living in a Risk Society......................................36

Risk Regulation in the EU:

Better Safe Than Sorry?

Climate Change and The Politics of

POPULAR IMAGES OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL

From Crisis to Policy Innovation. The Making of

PATHWAYS TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY ....................... 62

THE EXAMPLE OF FOOD..................................63

The Culture and Politics of Environmental Issues........69

Environmental problems such as chemical pollution, global

The environment is a good example of the way in which hitherto

First, environmental discourse and politics focus largely on our

equal value to “non-human” entities in our political process of

Second, environmental problems also touch on fundamental

Terms such as “political ecology” (Forsyth, 2004), “ecological

Kemp/Loorbach, 2003) stand for different projects of an

Third, the rise of the environment as an object of social and

This course will probe these various dimensions of the

concerns? As we will see, the environment has received

As with our field in general, bringing the environment into the

In the last two decades, therefore, the environment has also

Social Studies of (Environmental) Science and Technology

None of these fields is homogeneous. Important conceptual and

Revisions and response to student’s input

The original version of this course book had been developed by

considerably. The main goal was to update some of the

It was a main suggestion of students to add a new session to the

Later, further changes have been made. Many of the assignment

In order to meet interests of the students in such topic, last year

Last year students complained that the workshop had been

3. The Course in the BA ES curriculum

Links with other courses

Some of the assignments and many student research projects

The course requires knowledge of the basic principles of doing

will provide important cognitive resources for your project. A

In addition, the course is also meant to help students to develop

Dublin descriptors and final qualifications

Successfully concluding this course will contribute to students

Dublin descriptor 2: applying knowledge and

2 This summary of competences is based on the so-called “Dublin

deeper understanding of the social and political dimensions of

 Dublin descriptor 4: communicating knowledge and

 Dublin descriptor 5: capacities to continue learning

The course is divided into four thematic sections. Each section

Section I focuses on “nature” as a specific category under which

as “socially constructed”, although this is in itself a contested

Section II examines a second category that figures prominently

In section III we will focus on what has come to be seen as the

awareness of climate change. In the second step we will look at

Section IV takes a more comprehensive look at the kind of

This course includes a couple of lectures, which are meant to

The lecture introduces the theme of the course and

Understanding Nature Sociologically

This lecture is related to the theme of the first section of

Risk and the Politics of Knowledge

This lecture is related to the section on (industrial risk). It

How to Analyze an Environmental Problem