The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale.

Oran R. Young. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2002. [phone]. [e-mail] http://mitpress.mit.edu. 190 pp. Softbound.

The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale presents a common structure for conducting research on the role institutions play in causing and confronting environmental change. The structure is based on the analytic themes identified in the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) Science Plan. Young uses various examples of environmental change to illustrate his arguments for analytical symmetry, ranging in scale from depletion of a local species to global climate change. The author addresses theoretical concerns of collective-action and social-practice models of institutions, as well as the problems of institutional fit, interplay, and scale identified by IDGEC. Additionally, Young shows how institutions interact with each other and the environment and to what extent the study of local institutions can assist in the understanding of global institutions.

Oran R. Young is currently Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Institute on International Environmental Governance at Dartmouth College and Chair of the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee.