Environmental Leadership in Developing Countries: Transnational Relations and Biodiversity Policy in Costa Rica and Bolivia. By Paul F. Steinberg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. 280p. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Abstract

Much of the literature on environmental policymaking in the Global South focuses on the role of transnational linkages, wherein ideas regarding environmental management are transplanted by intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations in the North to governments in the South. The perception that environmental management concepts are primarily transferred in this way stems in part from the resonance that Ronald Inglehart's work on postmaterialist societies and environmental activism has had on the field, as well as a paucity of studies examining the dynamics of the domestic political players in the creation of natural resource management policies in the South. Paul Steinberg's work, Environmental Leadership in Developing Countries, addresses this particular puzzle and takes on the too-oft accepted notion that domestic policy entrepreneurs play a small supporting role at best in bringing about environmental policies in the Global South.