Darst, Robert G.

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Darst, Robert G.

PERSONAL:

Education: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, B.A., 1984; University of California-Berkeley, M.A., 1987, Ph.D., 1994.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 285 Old Westport Rd., North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300. E-mail—rdarst@umassd.edu.

CAREER:

Political scientist, educator, and writer. University of Oregon, Eugene, assistant professor of political science, 1996-2001; Connecticut College, New London, CT, visiting assistant professor of government, 2001-02; Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, visiting assistant professor of politics, 2002-03; Brown University, Providence, RI, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies, 2003; University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA, assistant professor of political science and associate director of the University Honors Program, 2003—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Recipient of grants, including foreign language area studies grant from the University of California at Berkeley, 1988; a postdoctoral scholarship from Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1994-1996; a research grant from the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 1995-1996; a junior faculty development grant from the University of Oregon, 1997; and a research grant from National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, 2004-2005. Fellowships from Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies, 1986-88; Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University, 1989-1990; Russian and Soviet Studies, 1991-92; Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, 1991-92; Institute for the Study of World Politics, 1992, 1993, 1994, and Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, 1992-1994; also a SSRC-MacArthur fellowship in International Peace and Security, 1989-1991.

WRITINGS:

Smokestack Diplomacy: Cooperation and Conflict in East-West Environmental Politics, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2001.

Contributor to books, including Analyzing the Gorbachev Era, edited by Gail W. Lapidus, Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies (Berkeley, CA), 1989; Cooperative Denuclearization, edited by Graham Allison, Center for Science and International Affairs (Cambridge, MA), 1993; Dreaming of the Barents Region: Interpreting Cooperation in the Euro-Arctic Rim, edited by Jyrki Käkönen, Tampere Peace Research Institute (Tampere, Finland), 1996; Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance, edited by Clark A. Miller and Paul N. Edwards, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2001; and The Internationalization of Environmental Protection, edited by Miranda A. Schreurs and Elizabeth Economy, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1997. Contributor to periodicals, including Environment, Journal of Human Rights, Post-Soviet Affairs, Soviet Economy, Global Environmental Politics, International Studies Review and Journal of Refugee Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

A specialist in international relations, environmental politics, and human rights, Robert G. Darst is the author Smokestack Diplomacy: Cooperation and Conflict in East-West Environmental Politics. In his book, Darst focuses on the period from the end of the 1960s to the 1990s post-Cold-War era. Specifically, Darst delves into three case studies that highlight how the Soviet Union went from using environmental cooperation as a means to help with Cold War diplomacy, to a period in which the Soviet Union made demonstrable efforts in environmental policies to broaden cooperation with the West, and finally to the era following the fall of the Soviet Union that resulted in a weakened commitment by Russia to environmental issues. "He concludes the book with a useful checklist of lessons learned that could be applied to future cooperative ventures," wrote Dennis Pirages in Perspectives on Political Science. Pirages also wrote: "Smokestack Diplomacy makes a unique contribution to the professional literature on international environmental policy as well as post-Communist studies and is essential reading for scholars and practitioners in these areas." West European Politics contributor Michael Kraack commented: "In sum, the book is an interesting read," adding that he would "recommend the book to political practitioners developing international subsidy mechanisms in the case of global warming."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Perspectives on Political Science, spring, 2002, Dennis Pirages, review of Smokestack Diplomacy: Cooperation and Conflict in East-West Environmental Politics, p. 121.

West European Politics, January, 2002, Michael Kraack, review of Smokestack Diplomacy, p. 232.