Misplaced Distrust: Policy Networks and the Environment in France, the United States, and Canada

Echoing the Trilateral Commission's 1975 study The Crisis of Democracy, Montpetit (political science, U. of Montreal, Canada) complains that the "crisis of confidence in policy makers is widespread within advanced democracies." Comparatively examining environmental policy towards agricultural pollution in France, the United States, and Canada, he argues that, more often than not, policy networks adequately address the concerns of wide groups of constituencies. He further argues that bureaucratic, interest group, or "internationalization" (globalization) factors do not account for poor-policy performance. In noting that France tends towards better policy performance and Canada towards the worst, he contends that the cause of poor policy is poor organization of balance between civil society and state actors. Distributed by the U. of Washington Press. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR