Dr Tim Forsyth, CON. H805

For students taking MSc Development Studies, MSc Development Management, MSc International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, MSc Global Politics, MSc International Relations, MSc International Relations (Research), MSc Environment and Development, MSc Population and Development, MSc Anthropology and Development, MSc Biomedicine, Bioscience and Society, MSc Accounting, Organisations and Institutions, MSc Public Policy and Administration, MPA International Development, MSc Regulation and MSc Regulation (Research) and for those taking other MSc programmes, space permitting, with the approval of the course teacher and their own programme directors. Also available to students taking MSc International Relations or MSc International Political Economy as part of the LSE-Sciences Po Double Degree in Affairés Internationales programme. Please note that in case of over-subscription to this course priority will be given to students from the Department of International Development and its joint degrees (where their regulations permit). This course is capped at 60 students.

The course reviews social and political debates about environment and development. It is about the institutions that regulate the interactions between society and the natural environment, at the local and national levels. A range of explanatory frameworks are introduced, with particular attention to the politics of sustainable development; political ecology; population and access to resources; gender environment and development; natural hazards; the politics of state environmental policy; common property regimes; community based natural resource management, and co-management of land and forests; environmental social movements in developing countries. We ask how these different institutions, and the politics surrounding them, impose constraints upon and present opportunities for environmental governance and the promotion of sustainable and equitable development. This course may be taken or audited with DV415, which focuses on global environmental governance.

10 lectures (each of 1.5-hour duration) and 9 seminars (each of 1.5-hour duration) during Michaelmas Term.

One 1,500 word essay

A detailed weekly reading list will be provided at the first course meeting.

W M Adams, Green Development, Routledge, 2000; A. Agrawal, Environmentality, Duke, 2005. T Forsyth, Critical Political Ecology: the Politics of Environmental Science, Routledge, 2003; M. Hulme, Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity, Cambridge University Press, 2009; E Ostrom (et al), The Drama of the Commons: Understanding Common Pool Resource Management, National Academy Press, 2002; R Peet & M Watts (Eds), Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, Routledge 2004.

Two-hour examination (80%) and an essay of no more than 2,000 words (20%) due on the first day of Lent Term.