ABSTRACT

Policy regimes are combinations of policy goals, principles guiding policy choice, and specific instruments selected to achieve desired goals and principles. The chapter provides an overview of alternative environmental policy goals, principles, and instruments. Different regimes distribute effects across actors and determine how actors will be affected by policy change. Which policy regime should be installed to achieve specific environmental policy goals remains a terrain of intense debate. Economic approaches tend to promote voluntaristic and market-based policies which restrict policy to instances of environmental externalities while regulatory approaches seek to steer choice directly towards desired outcomes. Some current regime debates include water markets versus water rights; carbon taxes versus cap and trade; land grabbing versus the right to food; and the use of GMOs. Environmental regimes vary nationally, sub-nationally, and by sector. This chapter reviews environmental policy options beginning with a discussion of high-level environmental policy goals: conservation, sustainable development, and environmental justice. The second section surveys the policy instruments available to environmental policy-makers and the third exemplifies these by reviewing sample international and national climate change policies. The chapter ends with some conclusions about the range of environmental problems faced in rural areas, the potential for effective policy responses, and some suggestions for policy research.