1998-1999 Annual Report
Environmental Studies Section
1998-1999 Annual Report
Submitted by Philippe Le Prestre
PURPOSE OF THE SECTION
The Environmental Studies Section has several purposes:
– to link scholars of various disciplines and keep them abreast of current developments in this field;
– to develop and encourage research;
– to disseminate information on environmental developments by sponsoring or participating in prof meetings;
– to seek ways to further the teaching of international environmental studies.
 MEMBERSHIP IN ESS COMMITTEES, 1998-1999
Executive Committee
Philippe Le Prestre (UQAM) ex officio
Richard Matthew (Georgetown University) (to 1999)
Karen Litfin (University of Washington) (to 1999)
Beth DeSombre (Colby College) (to 1999)
Shin-wha Lee (Korea University) (to 2000)
Neil Harrison (University of Wyoming) (to 2000)
Geoffrey Dabelko (Woodrow Wilson Center and University of Maryland) (to 2000)
Sprout Award Committee
Gary Bryner (Brigham Young U.) (to 1999), Chair
Jennifer Clapp (Trent University) (to 1999)
Ken Conca (University of Maryland) (to 2000)
Kate O’Neill (Harvard University) (to 2000)
Stacy vanDeVeer (Harvard University) (to 2000)
Junior Scholar Travel Award Committee
Philippe Le Prestre (UQAM) chair
+ 2 members from the Executive Committee
Nominating Committee
Miranda Schreurs (University of Maryland), Chair
Arild Underdal (University of Oslo)
Peter Dauvergne (University of Sidney)
Human Dimensions Of Global Environmental Change
Oran Young (Dartmouth College)
Newsletter Editor
Ronnie Lipschutz (UC -Santa Cruz)
ESS Webmaster
Ron Mitchell (U. of Oregon)
MEMBERSHIP
The section membership is fairly stable and stood at about 286 members in 1998. This puts the section in the top five among all 18 ISA sections.
1998-1999 FINANCIAL REPORT
Balance as of 98/1/31 : $1604.16
Between 98/2/1 and 99/1/31:
Income: (dues) $1330.00
(interest) $ 0.0 (withheld by ISA headquarters)
Expenses: Newsletter $294.60
1998 Reception $529.07
Subtotal $ 823.67
Balance as of Jan. 31, 1999 : $ 2110.49
Note that ISA headquarters has maintained its decision to withhold interests earned on the balance in order to to help defray staff support for the section. This policy was supposed to be under review but seems to have been de facto adopted.
The profits we have enjoyed stem from the electronic rather than physical publishing of the Newsletter; only a few hard copies are now mailed whose cost is supported by UC.Santa Cruz. In order to make up for a previous deficit spending, it had been decided that there would be no travel award in 1999, and that the graduate student award would not carry a financial prize this year.
Given the 1998-99 surplus, the section will go back to awarding $300 for travel support for junior scholars (finishing graduate students and junior faculty).
 DEVELOPMENTS
1. The 1999 ESS Conference Program at the Washington Annual Meeting
The 1999 ISA Meeting was the largest ever, with about 1800 participants to 429 panels and 2 poster sessions. The Section sponsored or co-sponsored 21 full panels, or about 5% of the total. In absolute terms. This falls within the normal range of recent years (between 20 and 25) but corresponds to a diminishing proportion of ISA panels. This stability in the context of a growing annual meeting might be explained in part by the “greening” of other sections. Many section members now present papers on panels sponsored by other sections (notably IPE, GD and IO), and sections themselves have taken up environmental themes.
1999 Reception
The 1999 reception at the Washington Omni was extremely well attended. The costs of the reception were supported, in part, by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Project on Environmental Change and Security. We are grateful to his Director, Geoff Dabelko, for this significant support.
Two new features took place at the 1999 reception :
(1) The Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rud Luubers, honored us of his presence and spoke a few words to the section members;
(2) for the first time, the Graduate student award was given at the reception. From now on, future awards will also be given at the reception, while the Sprout award, being an ISA responsibility, will still be given out at the ISA business meeting.
 AWARDS
Sprout award
The 1999 Sprout award committee,chaired by Gary Bryner, selected Nicholas Low and Brendan Gleeson as recipients of the 1999 Sprout Award for their book entitled Justice, Society, and Nature: An Exploration of Political Ecology, published by Routledge (1998).
Two honorable mentions were given to the following books: Engaging Countries by Edith Brown Weiss and Harold Jacobson and Greening of Security in World Politics by Karen Litfin.
Graduate Student Award
The award given for the best paper presented at the 1998 ISA convention in a panel sponsored by the section was given to Colin Kahl for his paper entitled “Population Growth, Environmental Degradation, and State-Sponsored Violence: The Case of Kenya, 1991-1993.” The committee was composed of the members of the Executive committee of the section and chaired by Beth DeSombre.
In reaching its decision, the Committee stressed the following aspects of this paper :
“This paper is innovative, well argued and organized, fluently written, and thorough. It presents a good discussion and critique of theories relating environmental problems to internal conflict, showing an excellent grasp of the literature. The case study is well-constructed and the hypotheses are quite persuasive. The argument that environmental degradation can provide the opportunity for groups to advance political goals is an understudied phenomenon that this paper does well to address. As such, it makes a contribution to the literature on environmental change and conflict.”
ELECTIONS
At its February 20 business meeting in Washington, attended by a standing room only of more than 50 members, the following individuals were elected to the various committees:
President 1999-2001: Dimitris Stevis (Colorado State University)
1999-2001 Members of the Executive committee
Paul Harris (LSE), Peter Dauvergne (University of Sidney), Miranda Schreurs (University of Maryland)
Carry-overs: Geoff Dabelko, Shin-wha-Lee, Neil Harrison
1999-2001 Nominating committee
Beth DeSombre (Colby College), Detlef Sprinz (PIK-Potsdam), Ian Rowlands (U. of Waterloo) and Jennifer Clapp (York). Two will have a one-year term and two a two-year term.
1999-2001 Sprout award committee
Elected for a two-year term were Laura Strohm and Philippe Le Prestre (UQAM).
Carry-overs are Ken Conca, Kate O’Neill and Stacy van de Veer.
1999-2000 Junior Scholar Travel Award Committee:
To be nominated by the Section Chair among the executive committee members.
1999-2000 Graduate Student Award Committee
The Executive Committee or its ad-hoc subcommittee.
1999-2000 Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee:
Oran Young continues as chair until 2000.
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P. Le Prestre
ESS Chair, 1995-1999.
