Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 183
11
Community Environmental Policy Capacity
and Effective Environmental Protection
Daniel Press and Alan Balch
Many of our current public policy debates are variations on these age-old ques-
tions: Is it better to regulate . . . through mandatory standards or through volun-
tary guidelines and individual discretion? Should social welfare programs be
centralized, with uniform standards applying to all the states, or would decen-
tralization allow local officials to apply their knowledge of local circumstances
in ways that would make for better policy? (Stone, 1997:238)
For the past 30 years, federally based command-and-control regulation and,
to a lesser degree, market-based incentive approaches have been the pri-
mary focus of U.S. environmental policy. Extensive experience with, and
analyses of, such efforts reveal strengths and weaknesses in both. Scholars and
policy analysts are giving new attention to different policy paths such as the
Revolution of authority and/or responsibility from federal and state authorities to
local communities (Saber et al., 2000; Vig and Kraft, 2000~. The political result
is a growing effort to shift away from a federal command-and-control paradigm
toward more community-specific approaches that are based on local decision
making and that create opportunities for collaboration among agencies, local
governments, industry, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and citizens.
In this chapter, we focus on such community-based environmental protec-
tion measures, beginning with some working definitions, then moving on to a
framework for understanding the factors in and around a community that shape
both its responses to environmental problems and the effectiveness of those
responses. We illustrate this framework with research on local open space pres-
ervation and recycling activity in California.
183
OCR for page 184
184
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
WHAT ARE COMMUNITY-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION MEASURES?
"Community" includes actors inside and outside of local government, and
thereby encompasses private citizens and companies, NGOs, and local govern-
ment agencies. We use the term "community-based" to focus on local environ-
mental protection activities and decisions that are driven primarily by local ac-
tors and institutions, although they may be reacting to or receiving support from
wider regional, state, provincial, federal, or even international spheres. In some
cases, the community (or some part thereof) decides to take up an issue voluntar-
ily and determines what action, if any, to take. For example, no state or federal
mandate requires local California communities to purchase open space, although
a significant amount of local open space is purchased via community action. In
other cases, local protection efforts may respond to an external governing body
telling the community that it must act; however, the consequent actions can be
considered locally based only if the community is given discretion to determine
what type of action to take. In California, for example, the state required local
jurisdictions to reduce solid waste disposal by 50 percent, but gave localities
significant latitude to determine how to achieve those reductions.
To summarize, community-based efforts arise when communities are pro-
vided the option or take the initiative to fashion place-specific remedies to
problems. What forms might such remedies take? Localities may take steps that
are command-and-control oriented. However, many community-based attempts
to address environmental issues are largely nonregulatory, often relying on ex-
tensive voluntarism.
Most community-based voluntary environmental measures can be grouped
into one of four categories: (1) information gathering, (2) resource restoration or
protection, (3) persuasion/endorsement, and (4) personal or lifestyle changes.
Information activities span a range from applied research to monitoring and data
collection on environmental health and quality (including biotic and abiotic as-
sessments). Resource restoration and protection activities range from the fee-
simple purchase of open space lands to one-time beach, creek, or park cleanups
to long-term, multiyear revegetation and invasive exotic species removals.
Persuasion and endorsement efforts include political lobbying, campaigning
or canvassing on local issues, and brokering collaborations or consensus on con-
troversial environmental issues that arise between local actors. Personal and/or
lifestyle changes encompass a variety of efforts such as water conservation,
carpooling, recycling, comporting, and energy conservation that require alter-
ations in behavior and habits. Of course, any of these four actions can be pro-
moted at the local level by local, state, provincial, and federal governments, and
they may even be required rather than voluntary. They become community-
based voluntary measures when they are discretionary in nature and the impetus
for such action comes primarily from within the community
OCR for page 185
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
TABLE 11-1 Examples of Community-Based Voluntary Activities for
Environmental Protection
185
Community Action Program Details and Foci Examples
Restoration and Restoration of local areas Save the Bay's Habitat
protection important for wildlife habitat and Restoration Program works to
natural systems restore critical Narragansett
Bay habitats, beach
vegetation (Save the Bay,
2002)
Information gathering Monitoring of natural systems or Sacramento Tree Foundation
agency processes to track change monitors the spread of Dutch
or flag problems Elm disease (Sacramento
Tree Foundation, 2002)
Persuasion/ Door-to-door advocacy on Sonoma County Conservation
endorsement environmental issues and Action: door-to-door
candidates; phone banks grassroots organizing to
mobilize letters to elected
officials and familiarize
voters with candidates' voting
records (Sonoma County
Conservation Action, (2002)
Lifestyle changes Promotion of environmentally Citizens in Los Angeles can
beneficial behaviors and actions attend free "Smart Gardening
Classes" offered by the city to
promote backyard composting
(City of Los Angeles, 2002)
The types of community-based groups that may promote these activities are
as varied as the activities themselves. These may include local government
agencies, environmental groups, schools, neighborhood associations, and local
businesses. Table 11-1 provides examples of both voluntary activities and the
local groups supporting them.
Most community-based groups actually engage in more than one of the
activity types listed in Table 11-1. Some groups, especially those organized to
protect large communities or regions, may engage in most or even all of the
activities, or form a coalition of groups that combine tasks. For example, the
Lake Michigan Federation "works to restore fish and wildlife habitat, conserve
land and water, and eliminate tonics in the watershed of America's largest lake.
We achieve these through education, research, law, science, economics, and
strategic partnerships" (Lake Michigan Federation, 2002~.
Even small local groups who focus primarily on one task, such as water
OCR for page 186
186
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
quality monitoring, sometimes engage in other related tasks, as data from the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Office of Water suggest. This
office collects data on volunteers who monitor water quality throughout the
country. Of the 778 volunteer organizations the EPA surveyed, nearly a third
engaged in just one activity (e.g., biological water quality monitoring or physi-
cal-chemical analysis) (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000~. Only half
of these groups added two or more major activities to their responsibilities (such
as debris cleanup and restoration, storm-drain stenciling, and land use surveys).)
States varied with respect to how many volunteer watershed groups were
active within their borders (from 1 to 58 groups per state). Moreover, groups
varied in the number of activities they assumed beyond their primary water
quality assessment tasks (from no additional tasks to five). We divided the
50 states into those with fewer than 11 groups statewide ("Low Group States")
and those with more ("High Group States"~. Volunteer organizations in Low
Group States were, on average, no more likely to take on additional activities
than organizations in High Group States (t = 1.14, p < 0.05, df = 28~. At this
stage in the development of water quality NGOs, it is thus unlikely that the
relative absence of volunteer groups spurs existing groups to take on a wider
range of activities.
POLICY CAPACITY FOR COMMUNITY-BASED
ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES
One way to study the transformation from past practices to more sustain-
able, scientific, ecosystem-based management practices is to compare systemati-
cally the communities that are implementing sustainable land use with those that
are not and try to isolate the key variables that account for the differences
(Mazmanian and Kraft, 1999:297~.
Do community-based efforts, especially those that are voluntary, result in
positive environmental outcomes? What explains the variations in community
response and performance on key environmental issues across California? We
will offer insights into these questions through examples and results from sepa-
rate studies on open space preservation and solid waste diversion in California,
both of which are largely grounded in community-based efforts. Despite a wealth
of efforts across the state, some cities and counties have been significantly more
successful in these areas than others.
To guide research into the conditions shaping community willingness and
ability to implement effective environmental measures on a local level, we rely
on a policy capacity model (Press, 1998; Boyne, 1985; Ringquist, 1993~. A
successful policy capacity model for explanatory and heuristic purposes should
identify all the theoretically plausible independent variables, then explain the
mechanisms by which each variable potentially could affect environmental out-
comes. The model we present is based on the oft-repeated observation that some
OCR for page 187
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
187
communities are more capable of mounting environmental protection activities
than others. In places with more environmental policy success, our model sug-
gests a positive feedback loop whereby a community strongly supports certain
environmental protection measures, which translates into further support from
local leaders and generates the political, economic, and technical resources nec-
essary for sustaining and implementing environmental programs. Organized
efforts to enact and implement such programs in turn may rely on members of
the general community for support, cooperation, and participation. If the com-
munity is supportive of environmental protection in the first place, then its mem-
bers are likely to respond positively to environmental protection efforts and take
voluntary action if called on to facilitate the success of such efforts.
We are not suggesting that environmental attitudes automatically translate
into certain environmental behaviors in all cases (see Schultz, this volume, Chap-
ter 4~. We are suggesting, however, that when a community organization or
political entity decides to enact and implement a local environmental program
(e.g., establishing a citywide greenbelt), that program is likely to be well re-
ceived in communities with relatively high concentrations of environmentally
concerned citizens. Indeed, it is probable that the presence of such citizens is
part of the reason such action is being taken in the first place (i.e., the actions of
elected officials or community organizations are often reflections of popular
demand). Moreover, if the effectiveness of such environmental programs hing-
es on widespread, voluntary citizen participation (e.g., recycling), then commu-
nities with environmental predilections among the general populous are likely to
encounter relatively high levels of program participation. Among the many
possible mitigating factors in this attitude to action equation is the amount of
effort required (Schultz and Oskamp, 1996; McKenzie-Mohr et al., 1995~. Thus,
community groups can provide citizens with capacity tools that facilitate the
effort required to translate attitudes into action (e.g., providing curbside pickup
or circulating a petition). In principle, the easier it is to participate and take
action, the more likely it is that people will express their preferences through
action (McKenzie-Mohr et al., 1995~.
We refer to "environmental policy capacity" as a community's ability to
engage in collective action that secures environmental public goods and servic-
es. Much like Putnam's (1993) conception of institutional performance, we
envision a relatively simple model of policy capacity and performance. The
model is integrative, relying on four general components that contribute to a
community's environmental problem-solving ability. First, we consider the re-
sources and constraints on local policy responses that are (a) internal to the
community in question. These consist largely of a locality's sociopolitical, de-
mographic, and economic characteristics (e.g., local revenues, demographics,
income, political ideology, party identification, development pressure). Second,
a community's policy response may be facilitated by or in response to (b) exter-
nal factors, such as development pressure in neighboring jurisdictions or the
OCR for page 188
188
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
nature of state, provincial, or federal mandates and funding. Third, a communi-
ty's (c) policy network consists of the political mechanisms by which the exter-
nal and internal factors translate into policy mobilization, formulation, and im-
plementation regarding a particular issue (Ringquist, 1993~. This category
consists of the various public and private institutions and actions that potentially
could play a role in crafting and/or implementing the social and political choices
made by a community. Finally, the types of (d) policy outputs generated by
these three factors will dramatically affect a community's ability to achieve the
desired levels of environmental protection.
Each of these four components may affect environmental outcomes through
a number of venues. Internal influences, for example, may come from the gov-
ernment in the form of tax revenues, from civil society in the form of political
ideology, from markets in the form of development pressure, or from the envi-
ronment in the form of geographic features. Thus, each of the four categories
can be divided further into at least two or three subcategories based on the
question of who is responsible for the action within that category. Is it the
government, in its execution of official duties? Is it civil society, in its pursuit of
collective action? Is it the free market, in its pursuit of profits and wages? These
four general categories (and their subcategories) combine to determine a com-
munity' s capacity to address environmental issues. Table 11-2 provides a break-
down of these categories and subcategories in addition to examples of each.
How do these four components come together to create a model useful for
the study of politics and society? Figure 11-1 presents the four categories and
their potential relationships to one another in the context of local policy choices.
Because policymaking is an evolving and dynamic process, we explore the role
played by each of these factors and how they may combine to determine local
environmental policy capacity.
Because local policy capacity exists in a particular setting (city, county,
region) during a given time period (i.e., a particular decade), it is subject to both
(a) internal and (b) external constraints. These internal and external factors not
only influence each other (e.g., the state or provincial economy affects the local
economy), but they can separately or simultaneously shape the makeup and response
of (c) local policy networks, especially by molding or changing the relationship
between local desires and local expectations. As an example of the impact of
internal factors, consider a wealthy city with a high degree of environmentalism.
Local civic environmentalism reflects public expectations concerning the
provision of environmental goods. Collective norms strongly influence factors
within the policy network, such as the political ideology of elected officials and
the focus of local interest groups. In the model of a community with strong
environmental policy capacity, the social norm is to expect a high level of envi-
ronmentally sound individual behavior and institutional performance. Such a
city likely will have in place the elected officials and organized interest groups
(i.e., entities found in the policy network) to address environmental issues.
OCR for page 189
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
TABLE 11-2 Policy Capacity Categories
189
Category
Subcategories Examples
(a) Internal influences Government
Civil society
Environmental
Market
(b) External influences Government
Civil society
Tax revenues
Current regulations
Government type and/or size
Demographics
Political ideology
Party identification
Environmental values/support/knowledge
Civic environmentalism/voluntarism
Landscape features
Development pressure
Taxable sales
Employment
State/provincial and/or federal grants
State/provincial and/or federal mandates
State/provincial and/or federal fines
State/provincial and federal nongovernmental
organizations
Private foundation grants
Environmental Droughts
Floods
Regional and state/provincial economic activity
Regional development pressure
Bureaucratic commitment
Attention from elected officials
Policy entrepreneurialism
Administrative and technical expertise
Interest group activity and mobilization
Local foundation funding
Grassroots activism
Business advocacy groups
Market
(c) Policy network Government
Civil society
Market
(d) Policy outputs Government
Regulations and laws
Programs
Program staff and spending
Grant requests
Voluntary activity
Resource restoration/protection
Persuasion/endorsement
Personal or lifestyle changes
OCR for page 190
190
(a) Internal
influences
\
J
, ~
~ (b) External \~/
\~ influences by
\
\
FIGURE 11-1 Local environmental policy capacity model.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
, ~ , ~
~ (c) Issue-specific policy network
, ~~u n ~ armor implementation)
,
(d) Outputs
Whereas local environmentalism may provide the political will for environ-
mental action, local wealth can provide the fiscal resources required for effective
community action. The community policy networks attempting to address envi-
ronmental problems vary quite a bit in their ability to raise local funds, either
because they attract a different tax base or because they vary in public support
for ballot-box financing of bonds, taxes, and fees.
That same policy network also may be influenced by external factors, such
as funding for environmental programs or environmental mandates from state,
provincial, and federal governments, or perhaps by state, provincial, and national
interest groups with local chapters. Moreover, local desire for environmental
protection may be tempered by low or heavily encumbered tax revenues or by
state, provincial, and federal limitations on taxation (proposition 13~2 or restric-
tions on land use regulation (such as those shaped by federal takings cases).3
External environmental and market factors also may play a role, such as pollu-
tion or development pressure from a nearby city that prompts local concern
among the public and/or within the local policy network.
The factors included in (a) and (b) provide constraints and opportunities,
which set the context for political action within the (c) policy network. Thus,
internal factors such as political ideology, income, and party identification all
can affect local policy responses, but only through the influence they have on the
"intervening political mechanisms" that shape policy choices (Ringquist, 1993;
OCR for page 191
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
191
Boyne, 1985). Such intervening can include interest group activity (Dahl, 1956;
Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993; Ringquist, 1993), policy entrepreneurialism
(Schneider et al., 1995; Mintrom, 2000; Kingdon, 1995), and stakeholder partic-
ipation (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1989~.
In the local policy network, civic and government attention to an issue can
translate into social choices and action targeted at that issue. Such efforts com-
monly are referred to as (d) policy outputs and can include spending, regulations,
hearings, new programs, and new laws (see Figure 11-1~. The four types of
voluntary action described previously also fall under the policy output umbrella.
In some cases, outputs can lead directly to collective environmental goods and
services ("on the ground" [e] outcomes). For example, a local land trust may
partner with a city agency to purchase a particular parcel of local open space.
However, turning policy outputs into successful outcomes, especially when rely-
ing on voluntary actions, can be far more complicated. Many outcomes require
sustained attention from a (c) policy network, which may be similar to the one
that generated the output, or may be a completely different policy network, or
may be a mixture of both. A city's recycling program requires citizen participa-
tion; a county's carpool program may rely on support from local businesses; an
environmental group's habitat restoration program relies on membership partici-
pation; a bond measure for open space acquisition funds may hinge on voter
approval. These examples are just a small sample of the various types of outputs
that rely on a network of private and/or public stakeholders and target groups
that are responsible for turning environmental outputs into successful outcomes
(Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1989~. This observation is especially true for volun-
tary programs.
To summarize, internal and external factors influence each other and the
policy network; the policy network translates social attention into effort. De-
pending on the type of action taken, outputs can result in immediate environ-
mental protection, or such protection may hinge on the support, participation,
and cooperation of community members. Based on this model, one would ex-
pect policy capacity in the environmental context to be highest where:
· Environmental conditions and problems are locally visible.
· Local budgetary, technical, and administrative resources are relatively
high.
· Community expectations of, and desire for, institutional performance in
environmental protection are high.4
· Political leaders sustain a commitment to environmental policy and pro-
grams.
Results from our California local open space preservation and solid waste
diversion studies confirm many of these expectations.
OCR for page 192
92
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
LOCAL OPEN SPACE PRESERVATION IN CALIFORNIA
Even though slowing growth now enlists nationwide voter support, sprawl
has been left for local communities to address, and these are under tremendous
pressure to develop open space in order to secure tax revenues. With ever-in-
creasing populations and a political economy dependent on growth, how can
people in some places in California manage to preserve open space? More spe-
cifically, what are the conditions for creating innovative, effective land preserva-
tion institutions at the local level?
The Community and Conservation in California study5 investigates these
questions by first assessing the extent of local acreage acquired by cities, coun-
ties, special districts, and land trusts in California. Doing so reveals that commu-
nities have acquired a little over a million acres of valuable open space, mostly
since 1950. These acreages are very unevenly distributed. The study explores
this variation by analyzing county-level policy capacity. Accordingly, we gath-
ered data on civic environmentalism (through a telephone survey of 4,100 resi-
dents), voting on statewide environmental policy measures (through state
records), local fiscal and administrative resources (city, county, and special dis-
trict revenues; planning and geographic information system [GIS] resources),
and development pressure and landscape features (using new housing starts,
topography, and river density).
As the policy capacity model suggests, internal community factors may in-
fluence local policy outputs and environmental outcomes. Development pressure
and compelling landscapes stimulate concern for preservation (Figures 11-2 and
11-3~; fiscal resources enable land acquisition (Figure 11-4), and civic engage-
6
(a
Cal 4
o 3
Q
Ct
° 2
rem
o
O
R = 0.62
.
-
.
8.5 9 9.5 10 10.5 1 1
Log land valuation change, 1965-98
FIGURE 11-2 Land valuation change versus local protected acres.
Source: California State Controllor's Office (1965-1998~.
11.5 12
OCR for page 193
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
6-
~n
~ 4-
c'
o
Q
Is
° 2-
o
1-
O-
193
R =0.55
.
........................................ . Sit
.
0 1
2 3
Log urban river meters
FIGURE 11-3 Urban rivers versus local protected acres.
Source: California Spatial Information Library (2000~.
6-
<~, 5
o
Q 4
an
c' 3
o
2
a, 1
o
4 5
6 7
R =0.56 .
.
.
o- , , , , , , , 1
5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5
8 8.5
Log local government revenues, 1965-96
FIGURE 11-4 Local government revenues versus local acres protected.
Source: California Department of Finance (1965/1996~.
9 9.5
OCR for page 194
194
8
Q
Q
° 4.00-
~ 3.00
o
,, 2.00-
o 1.00-
6.00 -
5.00
0.00 -
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
-
::~
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
-
R = 0.41
-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
Civic environmentalism
FIGURE 11-5 Civic environmentalism versus local acres protected.
Source: Press (2002~.
ment6 provides the values and political support necessary to mobilize local action
(Figure 11-5; for the full study, see Press, 2002~.
SOLID WASTE DIVERSION
In 1989, California passed legislation designed to promote a dramatic shift
in local solid waste management. The Integrated Waste Management Act (AB
939) mandated that every city and county across the state achieve a 50-percent
reduction in landfilled solid waste by 2000. Communities were given significant
latitude in determining the most appropriate paths for achieving the required
diversion levels. Cities and counties across California were (and continue to be)
under intense political pressure to divert waste from landfills, and they all imple-
mented various programs in response. Not surprisingly, communities have var-
ied in their abilities to actually translate diversion efforts into outcomes by re-
covering materials from the waste stream. The scientific advantage of
investigating these variations in California is that relatively equal pressure was
applied to communities across the state to achieve the same 50-percent diversion
goal. One way of measuring these variations in success at the local level is by
looking at the amount of recyclable material diverted from landfills. We used
1999 county-level recycling tonnage data provided by the state's Department of
Conservation as an environmental outcome measure. Unfortunately, the state
only collects recycling data for a handful of items: glass containers, aluminum
containers, plastic containers, and some paper fibers. Communities can and do
collect a wider variety of materials for recycling. However, because the items
included in this data set are among the most common materials collected by
curbside and other local recycling programs, they should provide a reliable (al-
beit limited) indication of recycling levels.
OCR for page 195
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
195
To control for variations in population size across counties, we used recy-
cling tonnage per person as the dependent variable. For the independent vari-
ables, we considered a variety of internal factors that could explain variations in
local recycling capacity. For example, we measured community interest in and
support for environmental protection (i.e., local civic environmentalism) using
county percentage of registered Green Party voters in 1999 and county average
vote on statewide environmental measures from 1998-2000 (see Figure 11-6~.7
Both voting and party registration are acts of civic responsibility. However,
although voting for an environmental ballot measure is undoubtedly an act of
environmental support, registering as a Green Party member is more a statement
of affiliation than an environmental act. Our choice to use this variable as a
surrogate for local civic environmentalism was based on an assumption that such
voters perceive environmental issues as among the most important to them polit-
ically, and such voters are likely to engage in various forms of environmental
activism. Thus, a higher percentage of registered Green Party voters in a county
could translate into a higher level of support for, participation in, or emphasis on
environmental issues.
A multiple regression of these variables on per capita recycling data for 57
of California's 58 counties suggests that those counties with a high degree of
environmental support and interest also have high levels of per capita recycling
(R2 = 0.55; p < 0.0001~. An index of broader internal civic engagement based on
these measurements in addition to survey data for 30 California counties (col-
lected through the Community and Conservation Study) also proved a reason-
0.07 -
0.06
0.05 -
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
o
R = 0.55
_'- 1 1 · 1 1 1 1 1 1
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2
3 4 5
Index of 1999 Green Party registration and average ballot support from 1998-2000
FIGURE 11-6 Environmental support versus recycling per capita.
Sources: California Department of Conservation (1999~; California Secretary of State (1999~.
OCR for page 196
96
Q 0.045-
'' 0.04-
~ 0.035-
`~ 0.03-
0.025-
~, 0.02-
c, 0.015 -
~, 0.01-
r 0.005-
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
O-
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
Civic engagement index
FIGURE 11-7 Civic engagement versus recycling.
Sources: California Depardnent of Conservation (1999~; California Secretary of State (1999~;
and Press (2002~.
ably strong predictor of per capita recycling levels (R2= 0.57, p< 0.0001~.8 Fig-
ure 11-7 contains a scatterplot of these results.9
SOLID WASTE, OPEN SPACE, AND THE
POLICY CAPACITY MODEL
Most of the independent variables explored in the two cases we provided
would be classified as internal civil society, government, and environmental
variables in the policy capacity model. How do such internal factors shape open
space protection and recycling activity? One plausible explanation is that these
factors enable a policy network of public and private institutions that reflect and
pursue the community's interest in environmental issues. In other words, inter-
nal factors shape the policy network by supporting and in some cases creating
important institutions and infrastructure capable of producing environmental out-
comes. However, open space and recycling efforts may produce decidedly dif-
ferent roles for the community in terms of implementation. In the case of open
space, preservation often requires minimal effort from the community at large
beyond providing latent support for the institutions and actors pursuing such
ends. Occasionally, these actors and institutions may turn back to the communi-
ty for political and/or financial support at critical times (e.g., when voters must
pass a bond measure). Community recycling efforts, on the other hand, often
rely on large segments of the community on a daily basis in order to achieve
success. Whether community members participate in recycling programs may
hinge on many of the same internal factors that either limit or empower expan-
sive community recycling programs in the first place, such as environmental
OCR for page 197
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
197
attitudes and values and the amount of effort required for participation (Schultz
and Oskamp, 1996; Stern and Dietz, 1994; Stern et al., 1993; Hopper and Niels-
en, 1991; McKenzie-Mohr et al.,1995; Derksen and Gartrell,1993~. Thus in the
case of recycling, civil society can have a significant impact on both policy
formulation and implementation.
CONCLUSION
Logic and evidence concerning community-based voluntary measures sug-
gest that this "third way" can make viable, important contributions to environ-
mental protection under certain circumstances and in particular places. Over
time, some communities develop expectations about collective environmental
goods and the capacity to provide these goods through largely local efforts.
Voluntary or discretionary community-based efforts often complement, extend,
or leverage regulatory or incentive-based environmental policies. Indeed, vigor-
ous community assistance can vastly enhance the programs implementing these
policies. A good example comes from the many coastal zone watchdog organiza-
tions. Such groups often conduct water quality tests far more comprehensively
and frequently than government officials could ever hope to mount on their own;
they also extend government enforcement and patrolling of coastal waterways.
Thus it would be a mistake to view community-based measures as somehow
standing apart from command-and-control regulation or market incentives man-
dated by governments at all levels.
State, provincial, and federal agencies and policymakers can and do-
enhance community-based environmental voluntarism. Government can do so
first, by enhancing the capacities of communities to translate local willingness
into action. The returns on a few dollars of capacity-building can be huge. For
example, a little time and effort on the part of some water district staff results in
miles of stream cleanups on many weekends throughout the country. Second,
agency officials who actively encourage and respect participation by volunteers
and community groups benefit from not only from local activities that relieve
their management burdens, but also from the wide, sustained political support
that may follow. Finally, government can design traditional regulatory or incen-
tive-based environmental policies with an eye to a role for community-based
activities. For example, municipal waste diversion incentives would be far less
attractive to urban residents, businesses, and industry in the absence of the many
NGOs who routinely provide public education programs on recycling and reuse
or perform free commercial waste audits.
Community-based voluntary activities not only get the work of environmen-
tal protection and restoration done, they extend governance over this important
area to a much wider sphere than is possible when only two agents say, pollut-
ers and regulators are involved. Because government officials always will be
underequipped to provide entirely adequate governance over environmental is-
OCR for page 198
198
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
sues, community participation spreads the burden widely and provides insurance
against, or compensation for, the shortcomings of traditional environmental man-
agement.
NOTES
1 For this analysis, we used the EPA's counts of watershed groups, which list the number of
groups per state as well as counts of their activities. We included construction site inspections, pipe
surveys, and human use and land use surveys in the category "land use surveys." We included debris
monitoring and photographic surveys in the category "other surveys." Our thanks to Betsy Herbert
for her assistance with the watershed data.
2 Proposition 13, passed in 1978, was a constitutional amendment passed by initiative. "Propo-
sition 13 rolled back property tax assessments to 1975 levels, permitted an annual increase in assess-
ment of only 2 percent except in the event of a sale, and, for all practical purposes, capped property-
tax rates at 1 percent per year. (A higher rate requires a two-thirds vote, which is very difficult to
obtain.) Since property tax rates at the time were approaching 2 percent in many parts of the state,
Proposition 13 cut local government revenues dramatically"(Fulton, 1991:209).
3 See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), Dolan v. City of Tigard,
512 U.S. 374 (1994).
4 Institutions here include administrative agencies, elected policymakers, and voluntary civic
associations.
5 The Community and Conservation in California study was led by Daniel Press, Principal
Investigator, University of California, Santa Cruz, with support from the EPA and the John Randolph
Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation (for the full study see Press, 2002).
6 We assessed civic environmentalism using survey and voting data, constructing an index
measuring: (1) informational resources (knowledge of development or land use problems and con-
flicts, familiarity with land trusts), (2) financial resources in the form of willingness to pay for
collective environmental goods (either as property taxes or indirectly as income tax for park bond
issues), (3) participation in a wide variety of face-to-face activities, (4) NGO resources in the form of
volunteer activity for civic and environmental causes, and (5) a county's average vote on statewide
environmental measures, 1924-2000.
7 Both the Green Party data and the environmental ballot approval data were downloaded from
the California Secretary of State's Web site. The Green Party variable was created by taking total
registered Green Party voters in a county for 1999 and dividing that figure by the total number of
registered voters in the county for the same year. The ballot measure variable is an average percent-
age of yes votes in the county on the four statewide ballot measures dealing with environmental
issues between 1998 and 2000: 1998 Prop 4 (Animal Trap Ban), 1998 Prop 7 (Air Emissions Cred-
its), 2000 Prop 12 (Parks and Water), 2000 Prop 13 (Water Conservation and Supply).
8 The civic engagement index was created by standardizing and then combining results from
several different categories: (1) environmental values (1999 Green Party registration), (2) environ-
mental liberalism (stated preference for increased governmental services and regulation to address
environmental issues), (3) political mobilization (contacting public officials, volunteering time to
political organization/candidate, and attending public meeting attendance), (4) environmental volun-
teerism, such as Adopt-Creek, and (5) environmental support (county's average vote on statewide
environmental measures, 1998-2000).
9 It is important to note that these results are preliminary and part of a larger research analysis
that will include a variety of demographic, economic, and political variables and their possible
relationships to disposal and recycling levels. Thus, the results presented here must be viewed with
caution because a variety of factors that could skew the results, many of which will be taken into
consideration in the complete analysis, were not explored fully in these preliminary findings. For
OCR for page 199
DANIEL PRESS AND ALAN BALCH
199
example, certain national, state, provincial, and even regional policies and characteristics could be
responsible for some of the variations in per capita recycling at the county level. How a county is
structured economically also could affect recycling levels.
REFERENCES
Boyne, G.A.
1985 Theory, methodology and results in political science - The case of output studies. Brit-
ish Journal of Political Science 15:473-515.
California Department of Conservation
1999 Unpublished data provided to authors. Sacramento: State of California Department of
Conservation. [Online]. Available: http://www.consrv.ca.gov [Accessed 3/5/02].
California Department of Finance
1965/ California Statistical Abstract. Sacramento: State of California State Controller's
1996 Office.
California Secretary of State
1999 California Voter Registration Statistics as of October 5, 1999. Updated Nov. 29, 1999.
Sacramento: State of California Secretary of State. [Online]. Available: http://
www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror_1099.htm [Accessed 3/5/02].
California Spatial Information Library
2000 Unpublished data provided to authors. Sacramento: State of California Spatial Informa-
tion Library. [Online]. Available: http://www.gis.ca.gov [Accessed: 3/5/02].
California State Controller's Office
1965- Assessed Valuation Annual Report. Sacramento: State of California State Controller's
1998 Office.
City of Los Angeles
2002 Smart Gardening Classes. [Online]. Available: http://www.lacity.org/san/sancpost.htm
[Accessed 3/5/02].
Dahl, R.
1956 A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derksen, L., and J. Gartrell
1993 The social context of recycling. American Sociological Review 58(June):434-442.
Fulton, W.
1991 Guide to California Planning. Point Arena, CA: Solano Press.
Hopper, J., and J. Nielsen
1991 Recycling as altruistic behavior. Environment and Behavior 23(2):195-220.
Kingdon, J.W.
1995 Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins College
Publishers.
Lake Michigan Federation
2002 About LMF. [Online]. Available: http://www.lakemichigan.org/about/default.asp [Ac-
cessed 3/5/02].
Mazmanian, D.A., and M.E. Kraft, eds.
1999 Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental
Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mazmanian, D.A., and P.A. Sabatier
1989 Implementation and Public Policy. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
McKenzie-Mohr, D., L.S. Nemiroff, L. Beers, and S. Desmarais
1995 Determinants of responsible environmental behavior. Journal of Social Issues 51(4):139-
156.
OCR for page 200
200
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CAPA CITY AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION
Mintrom, M.
2000 Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice. Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.
Press, D.
1998 Local environmental capacity: A framework for research. Natural Resources Journal
38(Winter):29-52.
2002 Saving Open Space: The Politics of Local Preservation in California. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press.
Putnam, R.D.
1993 Making Democracy Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ringquist, E.J.
1993 Environmental Protection at the State Level: Politics and Progress in Controlling Pol-
lution. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Sabatier, P.A., and H.C. Jenkins-Smith
1993 Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, CO: West-
view.
Sahel, C.F., A. Fung, and B. Karkkainen
2000 Beyond Backyard Environmentalism. Boston: Beacon Press.
Sacramento Tree Foundation
2002 Save the Elms Program. [Online]. Available: http://www.sactree.com/about/#step [Ac-
cessed 3/5/02].
Save the Bay
2002 Save the Bay's Community-Based Restoration Program. [Online]. Available: http://
www.savesfbay.org/cbrmain.html [Accessed 3/5/02].
Schneider, M., P. Teske, and M. Mintrom
1995 Public Entrepreneurs. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schultz, P.W., and S. Oskamp
1996 Effort as a moderator of the attitude-behavior relationship: General environmental con-
cern and recycling. Social Psychology Quarterly 59(4):375-383.
Sonoma County Conservation Action
2002 Effective Organizing for Sonoma County's Environment. [Online]. Available: http//
www.conservationaction.org/effect.htm [Accessed 3/5/02].
Stern, P.C., and T. Dietz
1994 The value basis of environmental concern. Journal of Social Issues 50(3)65-84.
Stern, P.C., T. Dietz, and L. Kalof
1993 Value orientations, gender, and environmental concern. Environment and Behavior,
25(3):322-348.
Stone, D.
1997 Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: W.W. Norton.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water
2001 National Directory of Volunteer Monitoring Programs. Updated October 12, 2001.
[Online]. Available: http://yosemite.epa.gov/water/volmon.nsf [Accessed 3/5/02].
Vig, N., and M. Kraft
2000 Environmental Policy in the 1990s. 4th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
policy network
