Tuesday, February 5, 2013

A glimpse of the policy dynamic afflicting our world...

So, failing having enough time this week to add a substantial post to this blog, I will post a recent essay from my classwork in compensation. I hope it provides my readers with some new information!

The Iron Triangle, An Analysis

   Recent events on the world stage are beginning to demonstrate the overwhelming intractability of contemporary environmental issues such as habitat destruction in the wake of development interests. Examples such as the rampant pollution of the Niger River Delta by the petrochemical industry serve as live models of this problem. This essay posits that Carter's “Iron Triangle” metaphor is a sufficient heuristic for understanding the operant mechanisms of environmental problems on the global scale.
    Carter defines the “Iron Triangle” as representing the resource interdependence of policy communities, specifically acknowledging 'the enormous influence of producer groups in key policy areas where decision making is dominated by [three interests]: congressional committee, administrative agency and producer group.' (Carter 2007: 186) Carter argues that producer groups—which he refers to as organizations of insider business interests with a strong ability and interest in impacting the regulatory process—are empowered when congressional committees support legislation to expand economic activity, which may form or direct a national agency to release funds to producers in the form of various incentives, which then allows the producers to produce more, plausibly increasing employment and expanding the economy, which helps maintain the politicians' political appointments and seats on committees, who in turn can create yet more institutional support for producers. These actors form “policy communities,” which carter defines as closed groups with stable memberships within governing bodies (the UN), administrations (IMF, WB), and producers, where the continued maintenance of each of these actors depends on the same pool of economic and political resources.
    Carter nests this “Iron Triangle” within the Traditional Policy Paradigm, which he identifies as the unplanned, reactionary, “end-of-pipe” method of regulation and problem solving employed by industrial powers since the beginning of the industrial age. The Traditional Paradigm reinforces the Iron Triangle by ensuring that those groups calling for regulation are seen as a problem, as illegitimate due to negatively impacting the bottom-line of current prosperity.
    Goldman (2006) argues that the pressures of the Traditional Paradigm operate on the international stage through International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) fiscal policies, which most often encourage unsustainable, intensive development and export of third world countries' natural capital. International politicians in the UN helped form agencies like the IMF, which then encourage economic expansion by mandating that support funds go to highly productive activities in order to repay IMF loans. This money ends up in the hands of producer groups around the globe, and these groups negatively impact global environmental health through their operations under the Traditional Paradigm. Thus we see a realization of Carter's “Iron Triangle” at work on the international scale, with important implications for the management of global environmental health.

Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment. (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press
Goldman, M. (2006). Imperial nature: The World Bank and struggles for social justice in the age of globalization. Yale University Press.