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.
