Environmental Advocacy: Insights From East Asia, Mary Alice Haddad
Jul 2017
Environmental Advocacy: Insights From East Asia, Mary Alice Haddad
Mary Alice Haddad
Environmental advocacy in East Asia takes place in a context where there are few well-funded professional advocacy organisations, no viable green parties, and governments that are highly pro-business. In this advocacy-hostile environment, what strategies are environmental organizations using to promote better environmental outcomes? Using an original database of environmental organizations and interviews with activists and officials throughout the region, this paper investigates which strategies are most common and compares them to the advocacy strategies found in the United States. It finds, perhaps surprisingly, that (a) environmental organizations across East Asia employ similar advocacy strategies even though they are operating in …
Transformation, Wallace M. Meyer Iii
Jan 2017
Transformation, Wallace M. Meyer Iii
EnviroLab Asia
Prior to leaving for Claremont Colleges’ Envriolab Asia trip to Malaysia and Singapore, I was conflicted by the question: Do we have the moral authority to interfere with resource extraction and oil-palm development in SE Asia? At that time, the trip seemed imperialistic. Why should people from Malaysia, Indonesia or any developing SE Asia country listen to a group of liberal arts college faculty from a city where widespread habitat modifications have led to significant loss of native habitats, declines in biodiversity, and changes in how these ecosystems function? Many observations transformed my opinion and have inspired me to advocate …
Increasing Environmental Performance In A Context Of Low Governmental Enforcement: Evidence From China, Mary Alice Haddad
Jan 2015
Increasing Environmental Performance In A Context Of Low Governmental Enforcement: Evidence From China, Mary Alice Haddad
Mary Alice Haddad
How can activists and policy makers encourage better environmental behavior in a context of poor governmental enforcement? This article examines the case of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, a Chinese nonprofit organization, to show how a transparency-based platform can encourage brand-sensitive multinational corporations, their suppliers, their investors, local governments, and consumers to behave in more environmentally responsible ways, even in a context of low governmental enforcement. Using Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs as its model, this article argues that a transparency-based platform can serve an important coordinating function across multiple sectors, creating a mechanism through which market …
