Controversy in Environmental Policy Decisions: Conflicting Policy Means or Rival Ends?

Abstract

In the past few years, environmental activists and some academic studies of environmental political issues have portrayed environmental protection as a new social consensus. This view has some, though limited, capacity for explaining the controversial character of many environmental protection issues and the frequent losses that environmental activists experience in political struggles. In an effort to clarify this seeming conundrum, the author delineates the core of the societal consensus thesis’ best explanation for the controversial character of many environmental policy decisions. This explanation is contrasted with explanation that draws on conflict among three coherent rival environmental perspectives in contemporary political life. These environmental views are integral, if frequently unrecognized, aspects of familiar general social perspectives distinguished by contrasting principles, values, and practical objectives. A strategy is designed to facilitate responsible environmental protection legislation in light of these three rival perspectives.

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