Seminar Re Scaling environmental governance in Europe

European integration is essentially a process of re-scaling statehood. The national scale, which had been considered the “normal” site for political struggles and state institutions for a long time, finds itself in a complex process of spatial re-organisation. “New state spaces” (Neil Brenner) are created across multiple scales, ranging from the local and the regional to the national, supranational and global. This process is driven by struggles for control and empowerment. In turn, it contributes to shape societal power relationships in different ways. Environmental governance plays an important role in this respect, insofar as the perceptions of environmental problems and the modes to cope with them on the national and regional scale are increasingly shaped by European regulations. The seminary firstly introduces into different concepts of re-scaling, as there are the Multi-Level Governance approach, the geographical scale debate or the work of Oran Young on “institutional dimensions of environmental change”. Secondly, the re-scaling of environmental governance will be investigated more closely in the area of water. Special attention will be drawn to the formulation and implementation of the European Water Framework Directive which has contributed to a significant institutional and actor-related dynamic on the regional scale. The requirements for evidence of academic achievement are: regular participation, reading the basic texts, writing small essays on selected topics of the seminary. FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel SS2007 Global Political Economy Wissen Markus