The Resurgence of Private Property Rights under Ronald Reagan

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2015 im Fachbereich Politik - Klima- und Umweltpolitik, Note: 1,3, Hochschule für Politik München (Lehrbereich Internationale Politik), Veranstaltung: Environmental, Climate and Energy Policy of the United States, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This paper analyses the environmental policy process in the United States from January 1981 to January 1993. Though by focusing only on policy formulation, implementation and evaluation one cannot gain a causal understanding of behavior, this approach is adequate to gain a basic understanding of the environmental policy during the Reagan and the Bush presidencies.

Chapter 2 examines formulation of environmental policy by the two main protagonists of American politics, which of course are the presidency for the executive branch and Congress for the legislative branch.

Chapter 3 is about implementation of environmental policy in this era as shown by the two examples of the Environmental Protection Agency and a short survey of environmental protection legislation by Congress. The EPA should characterize the environmental policy pursued by the administration. In contrast the survey should highlight the approach of the Congress towards environmental policy. Did the Democratic majority in the House succeed in fortifying the previous decade¿s progress in environmental protection?

Chapter 4 is an attempt to answer the main question by trying to identify the main direction of environmental policy of this era. Have the presidents succeeded with their approach to environmental policy and how did this influence the United States in the following decades? If one specifies progress and regress in environmental policy in their period, which one prevails? Unfortunately this questions cannot be answered adequately due to the length of the paper, but the results should provide a satisfactory overview of this complex topic that combines very different facets of policy and politics.