Dauvergne, Peter

PERSONAL:

Male

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. E-mail—peter.dauvergne@ubc.ca.

CAREER:

Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, former faculty in department of international relations; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, professor of political science and associate dean for strategic initiatives and development in the faculty of arts. Director of the environment program, Liu Institute for Global Issues; Canada research chair, Global Environmental Politics.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Sprout Award, International Studies Association, 1998, for Shadows in the Forest; grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Hampton Fund, Weyerhaeuser U.S. Environmental and Resource Policy Research Program, MIT Press, Australian Research Council, University of Sydney, and Canada-ASEAN Centre; Alcan Fellowship in Japanese Studies, University of British Columbia; Eco-Research Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

WRITINGS:

Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

(Editor and contributor) Weak and Strong States in Asia-Pacific Societies, Allen & Unwin/International Relations (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia), 1998.

Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific: Corporations and Environmental Management, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(Editor and contributor) Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, Edward Elgar (Northampton, MA), 2005.

(With Jennifer Clapp) Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

The Shadows of Consumption, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2008.

Contributor to books, including Southeast Asia and Globalization: New Domains of Analysis/L'Asie du Sud-Est face à la mondialisation: les nouveaux champs d'analyse, University of Laval, 1997; Japan and East Asian Regionalism, edited by Javed Maswood, Routledge, 2001; Development and Security in Southeast Asia, edited by David B. Dewitt and Carolina G. Hernandez, Ashgate, 2002; The Business of Global Environmental Governance, edited by David L. Levy and Peter J. Newell, MIT Press, 2005; and Global Political Economy, 2nd edition, edited by John Ravenill, Oxford University Press, 2008. Contributor to periodicals, including Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Pacific Economic Bulletin, Environmental Politics, Asia-Pacific Magazine, Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, and Current History. Founding editor, Global Environmental Politics, 2001-08.

SIDELIGHTS:

Peter Dauvergne is a political science professor whose research and writings have focused on how international politics and business have affected the environment, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. His debut book, Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia, takes a close look at how Japan has drawn on the natural forest resources of countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, with the result being wholesale destruction of the rainforests there, especially since the 1950s. Two central mechanisms function in the raping of the landscape, Dauvergne explains: shadow ecology and patron-client relationships. The first term refers to "the environmental impact of one country's economy on resource management in another," as Patricia Marchak explained it in a Pacific Affairs review. Marchak later continued: "The patron-client relation- ships are the counterpart to shadow ecologies. Governments of client states become mechanisms for providing elites with the bounty from the [in this case] Japanese trade." In other words, globalization of the economy has encouraged Japan to use resources outside its own borders, and the money flowing to local economies in Southeast Asian states has led to increased governmental and corporate profiteering at the expense of the environment. Interestingly, as Fadzilah Majid Cooke pointed out in a Journal of Contemporary Asia review, "Globalisation in the economic sphere, apparently has not prompted globalisation of the cultural sphere. It has in fact led to the strengthening of local cultural practices (patron-client relationships)." While this might sound positive on the surface, it actually is not. Geographical Review contributor Roger Hayter explained that "the Japanese connection has helped deepen, extend, and modify patron-client relations that appear to be generating increasing corruption and illegal activities." Illegal logging is a result, and it has grown to such a scale that governmental regulations and law enforcement have little effect on the problem.

Reviewers of Shadows in the Forest appreciated Dauvergne's broader perspective on an environmental problem, and how he shows that the problems of one country may be linked to outside origins. Hayter called it an "admirable book" for this reason, but also added: "Unfortunately, Dauvergne pays little attention to how the path of deforestation might be arrested." The critic suggested that some counter forces might already be acting against deforestation, including environmental activists and a "growing instability of the patron-client model." Hayter also speculated that the massive forest fires experienced in 2007 in Indonesia may help the citizens there to appreciate what they may be losing all the more. "Shadows in the Forest provides a readable, insightful, and coherent account of complex, globally significant problems that relate to sustainable development in a populous Third World context," Hayter insisted. While American Political Science Review contributor David M. Potter felt that Dauvergne does not sufficiently link the timber trade between Japan and other states "effectively" with environmental degradation, the reviewer nevertheless concluded that the book "contributes much to our understanding of an increasingly contentious and problematic issue both in domestic economic development and international politics." Cooke labeled Shadows in the Forest "a welcome addition to the globalisation, development and environment debate."

Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific: Corporations and Environmental Management may be viewed as a follow-up to Dauvergne's Shadows in the Forest. Here he provides more history and more perspectives on the issue of rainforest logging in the region. The book is divided into four parts. The first section explains the situation, detailing what is happening, where it is happening, and to what extent; next, the author relates what professionals such as scientists and foresters have been doing to reduce the destruction; the third part explains to readers the corporate perspective, including how logging companies and financial firms form strategies in a competitive global market, as well as their perspective on corporate accountability in logging; the final section concerns national and international organizations and where they are succeeding and failing in the struggle to prevent environmental destruction. Dauvergne "does a good job of including both conceptual and practical information in this book, and the reader interested in sustainable development and the Asia-Pacific region will find the case studies and historical data particularly helpful," reported Greg Ringer in Pacific Affairs. "Although some of the data is already outdated and the conclusion rather pessimistic in its assessment of corporate behaviour, I found the book informative."

With Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, Dauvergne collaborated with Jennifer Clapp to "provide one of the first detailed assessments of the relationship between globalization and the environment," according to a Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare contributor. Many interconnected issues are touched on in the work, including how business, politics, poverty, and wealth all play a role in what is happening with today's environment. As with Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific, Dauvergne and his coauthor offer several perspectives. Douglas A. Kyser, writing in the Political Science Quarterly, listed these groups as market liberals, institutionalists, bioenvironmentalists, and social greens. Their ideals range from laissez-fair economics to those who would have increased governmental monitoring of businesses' impact on the environment. Kyser called this approach "meticulously even-handed," though this results in some noncommittal and inconclusive arguments. "Readers who follow Clapp and Dauvergne's discussion," Kyser nevertheless concluded, "will come away with a nearly comprehensive map of the argument terrain in global environmental politics."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, June, 1998, David M. Potter, review of Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia, p. 500.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, December, 2005, A.A. Batabyal, review of Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, p. 707; June, 2006, D.L. Feldman, review of Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, p. 1899.

Contemporary Sociology, January, 2006, review of Paths to a Green World, p. 100.

Environmental Politics, February, 2007, Matthew Paterson, review of Paths to a Green World, p. 147.

Geographical Review, July, 2000, Roger Hayter, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 465.

International Affairs, April, 1998, Isao Miyaoka, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 486; July, 2006, Robert Falkner, review of Paths to a Green World, p. 803.

International Studies Quarterly, November, 1998, Marvin S. Soroos, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 317.

Journal of Asian Studies, August, 2000, Conrad Totman, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 738.

Journal of Contemporary Asia, May, 1999, Fadzilah Majid Cooke, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 253.

Journal of Economic Literature, December, 1997, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 2196; December, 2005, review of Paths to a Green World, p. 1167.

Journal of Japanese Studies, summer, 1998, Miranda A. Schreurs, review of Shadows in the Forest.

Journal of Peace Research, March, 2007, Nils Petter Gleditsch, review of Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, p. 247.

Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, December, 2006, review of Paths to a Green World, p. 209.

Nation, November 3, 1997, Gina Neff, review of Shadows in the Forest, p. 50.

New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, summer, 1997, Paul Martin, review of Shadows in the Forest.

Pacific Affairs, summer, 1998, Patricia Marchak, review of Shadows in the Forest; spring, 2000, R.S. Milne, review of Weak and Strong States in Asia-Pacific Societies; fall, 2003, Greg Ringer, review of Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific: Corporations and Environmental Management.

Political Science Quarterly, summer, 2006, Douglas A. Kysar, review of Paths to a Green World.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2005, review of Handbook of Global Environmental Politics.

ONLINE

Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia Web site,http://www.politics.ubc.ca/ (March 17, 2008), faculty profile of Peter Dauvergne.