Accountability in socioecological systems: US environmental policy and sustainable transitions?

Accountability in socioecological systems: US environmental policy and sustainable transitions?

A co-evolutionary account of sociological systems presents opportunities to identify accountability mechanisms as central drivers of change. In this approach norms, procedures, and practices of accountability are strategic points of entry for analysis and for practical projects aimed at advancing sustainable transitions. I explore this thesis conceptually and through assessment of ostensive transition to a data-driven, outcome-based, pay-for-performance model of agrienvironmental policy in USA.

Associate professor at Cornell University, Steven Wolf, teaches and conducts research on environmental governance with a specific focus on efforts to secure public goods from private landscapes. His training and approach engage sociology, economics and geography. While most projects address socioecological dynamics in industrialized societies of Europe and USA, he is involved in ongoing work in India and China. His work has appeared in Global Environmental Change, Environmental Policy and Governance, Research Policy, Science, Technology & Human Values, Ecological Economics, Environment and Planning A, and Organization and Environment. He co-edited volumes in 2014 and 2017 on crisis in the neoliberal agrifood regime in the Earthscan Food and Agriculture series.

Lunch will be served, so please let us know if you are coming by sending an e-mail to marikken.wathne@uib.no