Environmental Politics and Law

Abstract:: Can law change human behavior to be less environmentally damaging? Law will be examined through case histories including: environmental effects of national security, pesticides, air pollution, consumer products, plastics, parks and protected area management, land use, urban growth and sprawl, public/private transit, drinking water standards, food safety, and hazardous site restoration. In each case we will review the structure of law and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.

Ethno-linguistic Fragmentation, Discrimination, and Access to Clean Water in Mexico

Abstract:: Access to water is very unequal in Mexico and indigenous municipalities are particularly disadvantaged. The paper analyzes empirically the unequal access to water across Mexican municipalities and across individuals for the period of 2000-2005 using regression analysis. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, it expands the focus of the literature of ethnic fragmentation and public good provisions from level to distribution; and second, it presents an ethnic fractionalization index at the municipality level based on salient ethnic divide. The results show that there is a systematic water gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations, even after controlling for various factors. The findings suggest that explanations of the negative relationship are related to discrimination and marginalization rather than differences in preferences across ethnically diverse groups.