AbstractsSociology

A Glocal Approach to Environmental Policy in Alaska

by Olivia Handberg Scott




Institution: Roskilde University
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Environmental policy, Alaska, Arctic, Democratic network Governance
Record ID: 1121580
Full text PDF: http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/23251


Abstract

The world is increasingly becoming interconnected through the spread of media technology, uniting people over interests and concerns, to which they can gain information and attempt to influence policy-making within different policy-areas. In a world where environmental issues are increasingly becoming global in concern, there is the need to understand the ways in which global actors can lobby for greater democratic inclusion of opinions that alter state-centric models and alter local environmental policy-making. In this master thesis, this process has been explored by operationalizing and applying the theory of Democratic Network Governance to the case study of the Pebble Mine in Alaska in the US. This mining project is one of the most contemporary and controversial mining project in the world, with many global actors expressing their concerns with the potential it possesses for destroying global salmon stocks. Having looked at opinions of different Global Environmental Interest groups, and the ways in which they interact, it has helped explore the ways in which these actors ultimately have managed to influence and change environmental policy in regards TNC operations of the Pebble mine in the state of Alaska. These global environmental actors have managed to construct a supranational forum of influence, which bypasses traditional state legislation and is less hierarchical than traditional structures and more inclusive.