Citation:
Fragmentation and Integration in State Environmental Management, Barry G. Rabe, (Washington DC: The Conservation Foundation, 1986),164 pp.
Fragmentation and Integration in State Environmental Management is an examination of: the need for, and State attempts at, integrated environmental management. The author also offers his assessment of the future of integrated environmental management.
Fragmentation and Integration in State Environmental Management will be of interest to those who seek an understanding of the current fragmentary nature of environmental policy management. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which addresses the evolution of environmental policy in the United States. The first chapter in this part addresses the fragmentation of Federal environmental policy. Herein, one will find examinations of: policy theory and environmental management, Federal efforts to integrate this management, and the enduring fragmentation in the Federal system. The second chapter focuses on fragmentation at the State level. The proliferation and segmentation of permits, state efforts at coordination of management, and reorganization attempts, are considered.
Part II is devoted to attempts to integrate environmental management. The first chapter in this section examines four innovations in this area: permit coordination (Washington), state Environmental Policy Act (New York), rule-making and adjudicatory board (Illinois), and integrated toxics control strategy (Illinois). The middle chapter of this part addresses the policy formation process for integrated environmental management innovations. In the context of the policy, political and problem streams, the author considers; the availability of ideas, the constituency for an idea, and the triggering event, respectively. The author discusses the role of the entrepreneur in the process of the first step: policy formation. The final chapter of this part examines the policy implementation process for integrated environmental management innovations. Substantive, as well as administrative and political performance is addressed. Finally, limitations which are likely to be enduring are considered.
The final part of the book is an assessment of what likely will be the future of integrated environmental management. The author considers the enduring impediments to such management. In the context of the policy stream, Rabe addresses: the absence of clearly formed ideas, signs of a functional federalism, and disinclination toward integration. The final chapter of the book is an assertion that fragmentation in environmental policy management is inevitable, but that incrementalism may be a way to mitigate the effects of such fragmentation. The authors assert that incrementalism accounts for societal plurality and is compatible with the State innovations already praised. Following a consideration of the limitations of incrementalism the author asserts that an integrated approach to environmental management is not in the foreseeable future, and offers steps toward its realization.
Fragmentation and Integration in State Environmental Management is a careful examination of the fragmentation in the present system of environmental policy management with suggestions for movement toward a more integrated approach. The text is well written and logically presented.