Non-state actors workshop

I was fortunate to have been invited to participate in a workshop last week on "Social science perspectives on non-state actors in environmental governance" at the National Socio-environmental synthesis center at the University of Maryland in Annapolis.  Many thanks to Carmen Sirianni, Dana Fisher, and Andy Andrews for the invitation and for putting the workshop together. Not all of the presentations had to do with cities, but research by Dana Fisher from the Universty of Maryland and by Suzanne Staggenborg from Pitt focused on local groups of various sorts.  Dana's work is about what she calls local "hybrid" organizations which perform lots of different environmental functions. Her analysis is largely focused on New York City, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. I presented work with my colleague Jeff Berry that looks at how local groups engage in advocacy with local policy makers.  Several papers on this subject are accessible at the ourgreencities web site.