Michele Betsill

Last updated

Michele Betsill
Nationality American
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Michele Betsill is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science at Colorado State University, where she has also been the chair of the department. She studies climate change and sustainability policies, with a particular focus on how non-governmental actors and sub-national governments respond to climate change. She is a co-founder of the Earth System Governance Project.

Contents

Education and early work

Betsill graduated from DePauw University in 1989, with a BA in French and communication. [1] She then obtained an MA in international studies from the University of Denver in 1991. [1]

In 1991, Betsill became a Policy and Government Relations Associate at the African Wildlife Foundation, where she remained for a year. Beginning in 1994, she worked as a research associate in the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. [1]

In 1997, Betsill received an MA in political science from the University of Colorado Boulder, and in 2000 she earned her PhD in political science there. [1] [2] Betsill's dissertation, called Greens in the Greenhouse: Environmental NGOs, Norms, and the Politics of Global Climate Change, received the 2002 award for an Outstanding Dissertation in Transformational and Ecological Politics from the American Political Science Association. [3]

During the 1999–2000 academic year, Betsill was a post-doctoral fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and in 2000 she became a professor of political science at Colorado State University. [1] In 2015 she became the chair of that department. [1] Betsill has been a guest or affiliate of Lund University, the Center for Collaborative Conservation, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. [1]

Career

Betsill has been an author or editor of 6 books. Her first book, Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance, was coauthored with Harriet Bulkeley and published in 2003. Cities and Climate Change examines the role of cities, and networks of cities, in implementing climate change policies. [4] Betsill and Bulkeley argued that attempts to understand the implementation of climate change policies had been limited by a focus on national governments, but that meaningful policies could also be implemented at the level of city governments or non-governmental organizations, both within and across national borders and potentially without the participation of other levels of government. [4] This is particularly true because of the economic output of cities, and their significant participation in energy use. [5] Focusing on the Cities for Climate Protection program and five case studies of specific cities, Betsill and Bulkeley investigate why it is difficult for networks of cities to implement meaningful sustainability policies in the context of urban planning. [4]

Betsill was also a co-author of the 2014 book Transnational Climate Change Governance, together with the other members of the Leverhulme Network on Transnational Climate Governance. [1] The book empirically investigates attempts to combat climate change that are led by or conducted in collaboration with non-governmental actors, arguing that such efforts are more important and effective than is generally realized. [6] Abby Lindsay Ostovar situated this attempt to "analyze the evolution, constitution, and meaning of the emergent system of cross-border efforts between state and nonstate actors to address climate change" in the context that state-led efforts to combat climate change have not yet been effective, prompting voluntary initiatives to attempt to fill the gap, but with as-yet unknown results. [6]

Betsill was also a co-editor of four books: Palgrave Advances in International Environmental Politics (2006), NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations (2008), the second edition of Advances in International Environmental Politics (2014), [1] and Agency in Earth System Governance (2020). [7]

In 2008, Betsill co-founded the Earth System Governance Project, [8] which became the world's largest network of environmental political scientists. [9] In 2015, Betsill became the chair of the political science department at Colorado State University. [1] [10]

A 2019 citation analysis by the political scientists Hannah June Kim and Bernard Grofman listed Betsill as one of the most cited political scientists working at an American university in 2 different categories: the top 40 most cited women scholars, and the top 25 most cited political scientists who earned their PhD between 2000 and 2004 (inclusive). [2]

Betsill's work has been cited in media outlets like Mashable, [11] [12] Foreign Affairs , [13] and Times Higher Education . [14]

Selected work

Related Research Articles

Multi-level governance is a term used to describe the way power is spread vertically between many levels of government and horizontally across multiple quasi-government and non-governmental organizations and actors. This situation develops because many countries have multiple levels of government including local, regional, state, national or federal, and many other organisations with interests in policy decisions and outcomes. International governance also operates based on multi-level governance principles. Multi-level governance can be distinguished from multi-level government which is when different levels of government share or transfer responsibility amongst each other. Whereas multi-level governance analyses the relationship of different state levels and interaction with different types of actors.'

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ICLEI</span> International sustainability organization

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is an international non-governmental organization that promotes sustainable development. ICLEI provides technical consulting to local governments to identify and meet sustainability objectives. It has a strong focus on biodiversity and has worked across local, national, and global levels. ICLEI was the first and is the largest transnational network of local governments engaging in climate action.

Ecogovernmentality, is the application of Foucault's concepts of biopower and governmentality to the analysis of the regulation of social interactions with the natural world. The concept of Ecogovernmentality expands on Foucault's genealogical examination of the state to include ecological rationalities and technologies of government. Begun in the mid-1990s by a small body of theorists the literature on ecogovernmentality grew as a response to the perceived lack of Foucauldian analysis of environmentalism and in environmental studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth System Governance Project</span> Social science research programme

The Earth System Governance Project is a long-term, interdisciplinary social science research programme originally developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change. It started in January 2009.

Environmental governance (EG) consists of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regulatory body which is responsible for ensuring sustainability (sustainable development) and manage all human activities—political, social and economic. Environmental governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management. Obviously, in fact the EG arrangements are very diversed and not at all as inclusive as we could wish them to be.

In political ecology and environmental policy, climate governance is the diplomacy, mechanisms and response measures "aimed at steering social systems towards preventing, mitigating or adapting to the risks posed by climate change". A definitive interpretation is complicated by the wide range of political and social science traditions that are engaged in conceiving and analysing climate governance at different levels and across different arenas. In academia, climate governance has become the concern of geographers, anthropologists, economists and business studies scholars.

The International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) was a research programme that studied the human and societal aspects of the phenomenon of global change.

The Cities for Climate Protection program (CCP) is one of three major global transnational municipal networks aimed at reducing urban greenhouse gas emissions. Established in 1990 by the International Union of Local Authorities and the United Nations Environment Programme, one of the largest global transnational networks, the International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI), presented a framework to represent local government environmental concerns internationally. The ICLEI strives to ‘establish an active and committed municipal membership… that promotes environmental and sustainable development initiatives within…[a] framework of decentralised cooperation’. In 1993, subsequent to an ICLEI successful pilot scheme, the Urban CO2 Reduction Project, the CCP program was established during the post-Rio Earth Summit era. The CCP program illustrates itself within local climate policy, as a Transnational governance network.

Territorialisation of Carbon Governance (ToCG) is a concept used in political geography or environmental policy which is considered to be a new logic of environmental governance. This method creates carbon-relevant citizens who become enrolled in the process of governing the climate. The territorialisation of carbon governance transforms climate change from a global to local issue. It embodies political practices that serve to connect the causes and consequences of global climate change to local communities.

Earth system governance is a recently developed paradigm that builds on earlier notions of environmental policy and nature conservation, but puts these into the broader context of human-induced transformations of the entire earth system.

Soil governance refers to the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making employed by nation states and local governments regarding the use of soil. Globally, governance of the soil has been limited to an agricultural perspective due to increased food insecurity from the most populated regions on earth. The Global Soil Partnership, GSP, was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its members with the hope to improve governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a food-secure world, as well as support other essential ecosystem services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Liverman</span> Geographer and science writer


Diana Liverman is a retired Regents Professor of Geography and Development and past Director of the University of Arizona School of Geography, Development and Environment in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in Tucson, Arizona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Bruyninckx</span> Belgian political scientist (born 1964)

Hans Emiel Aloysius Bruyninckx is a Belgian political scientist and international relations scholar specialized in international environmental governance and European environmental politics. He has headed the European Environment Agency since 2013. While in this position, he is on leave from his posts as Professor of International Relations and Global Environmental Governance, Institute for International and European Policy; and Director, Research Institute for Work and Society, both at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in climate change</span> Climate change activists

The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as "imperative" by the United Nations and "critical" by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organization concluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would "provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation."

Stacy D. VanDeveer is an American academic and international relations scholar. He is Professor, Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance at the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He was Chair of the Department of Political Science and Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. He has also taught courses with Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School, and been a fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Brown University's Transatlantic Academy, UMASS, and UNH London Program. VanDeveer has authored and co-authored over 90 articles, book chapters, reports and six co-edited books on his specialties. His research interests include international relations, comparative politics, LGBT rights, EU and transatlantic politics, humanitarian degradation and connections between environmental and security issues.

Harriet Bulkeley, is a British geographer and academic. She is Professor of Geography at Durham University. Bulkeley is also a coordinator in the Naturvation project. Through her work at Durham University, Harriet is involved in the ReInvent-EU project, which aims to encourage decarbonisation in 4 key areas: plastic, steel, paper and meat and dairy. Her research largely explores the politics and processes surrounding environmental governance, as well as the management of municipal waste in the United Kingdom and the politics, specifically urban politics, of climate change.

Transnational environmental policies are efforts to confront global environmental issues such as climate change, ozone depletion, or marine pollution. Environmental policies are transnational when they include actors from at least two sovereign states. As of 2018, more than 1,800 multilateral environmental agreements are in effect.

Tabitha M. Benney is a Professor in the University of Utah's Department of Political Science and affiliated faculty in the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program, Latin American Studies, International Studies, Asian Studies, and the Center on Global Change and Sustainability.

Sheila Rose Foster is a legal scholar, and an author. She is the Professor of Public Policy at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at the Law Center at Georgetown University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyeeta Gupta</span> Environmental scientist and academic

Joyeeta Gupta is a Dutch environmental scientist who is professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the University of Amsterdam, professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, and co-chair of the Earth Commission, set up by Future Earth and supported by the Global Challenges Foundation. She was co-chair of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6 (2016-2019), published by Cambridge University Press, which was presented to governments participating in the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2019. She is a member of the Amsterdam Global Change Institute. She was awarded the Association of American Publishers PROSE award for Environmental Science and the 2023 Spinoza Prize.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Michele Betsill". Colorado State University. 2019. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 Kim, Hannah June; Grofman, Bernard (April 2019). "The Political Science 400: With Citation Counts by Cohort, Gender, and Subfield" (PDF). PS: Political Science & Politics. 52 (2): 296–311. doi: 10.1017/S1049096518001786 . Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  3. ↑ "Best Dissertation Award". American Political Science Association. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Mills, Gerald (June 2004). "Book Review Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 85 (6): 883–884. Bibcode:2004Holoc..14..474D. doi:10.1177/095968360401400320. S2CID   128528902.
  5. ↑ Lee, Kai N. (November 2005). "Book Review Cities and Climate Change: Urban Sustainability and Global Environmental Governance". Global Environmental Politics. 5 (4): 122–124. doi:10.1162/glep.2005.5.4.122. S2CID   153694178.
  6. 1 2 Lindsay, Abby (November 2015). "Review Transnational Climate Change Governance". Global Environmental Politics. 15 (4).
  7. ↑ Michele M. Betsill; Tabitha M. Benney; Andrea K. Gerlak, eds. (2020). Agency in Earth System Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108688277. ISBN   9781108688277.
  8. ↑ Archived 7 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine Biermann, Frank, Michele M. Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Siebenhüner, with contributions from Ken Conca, Leila da Costa Ferreira, Bharat Desai, Simon Tay, and Ruben Zondervan. 2009. Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth System Governance Report 1, IHDP Report 20. Bonn, IHDP: The Earth System Governance Project.
  9. ↑ Dryzek, John S. (October 2016). "Institutions for the Anthropocene: Governance in a Changing Earth System". British Journal of Political Science. 46 (4): 937–956. doi:10.1017/S0007123414000453.
  10. ↑ "Department of Political Science". Colorado State University. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  11. ↑ Mark Kaufman (18 December 2018). "The U.S. surrendered its climate leadership on the world stage". Mashable. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  12. ↑ Mark Kaufman (4 November 2019). "Worst reasons for Trump to quit the Paris climate pact, unranked". Mashable. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Is Trump's Paris Withdrawal a Major Climate Setback?". Foreign Affairs. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "Workload survival guide for academics". Times Higher Education. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
  15. ↑ Bulkley, Harriet; Betsill, Michele (1 February 2005). "Rethinking sustainable cities: Multilevel governance and the 'urban' politics of climate change". Environmental Politics. 14 (1): 42–63. doi: 10.1080/0964401042000310178 . S2CID   153697559.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.