Green giants and sleeping giants: environmental interest group politics and the nature of the state

The neglect that recent political science has shown toward the concept of the State has drastically reduced the efficacy of analyses of environmental interest group politics. This thesis is an attempt to introduce a revamped concept of the State into such an analysis. The State is defined as both administrative and ideological. Through drawing out the logic of the environmentalist position, it can be shown how environmentalism challenges both these aspects of the modem State. It will then be shown how the State plays a decisive role in setting the parameters in which interest group activity operates, and how those parameters dictate that only groups which deny the logic of their own environmental ideological position gain access to existing power structures. The State, through the marketization, scientization, and technologization of the issues, has effectively defined the language of debate. This language is not the natural language of environmentalism, just as the definitions of the arena, and the norms of legitimacy and behavior sanctioned by the State are unsuited to the claims of environmentalism. By showing that the State has both the capacity and the incentive to intervene, the original premise of bringing the State back in to this analysis of environmental interest group politics in the United States is justified.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science

Department dc:contributor.department

Political Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1988

Author dc:creator

• Taggart, Paul A.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Shaiko, Ronald G.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Luke, Timothy W.
• Payne, Rhys C.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-09082012-040552

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/44692