Faculty Profiles
Political Scientist Works to Improve International Environmental Cooperation and More
“UMass Amherst is fertile ground for undergrads and graduate students interested in globalization and international environmental issues,” says Peter Haas, professor of political science and outgoing director of the political science graduate program. “We have a group of professors from engineering, natural resources, anthropology, economics and political science who share related interests. We’re all engaged in a critical assessment of aspects of globalization and looking at various activities for improving both the collective management of shared problems and the human prospect. As students take advantage of these interdisciplinary approaches to global issues here on campus, their global competence should increase dramatically.”
One of Haas’ main interests is how societies resolve differences. His recent work focuses on multilevel governance and the role of science in international and environmental regimes. “My research,” he says, “has focused on the management of transboundary and global environmental threats, but my teaching goes beyond that to include International Political Economy (IPE) and the conflicts associated with globalization more generally.” Haas, who holds his PhD from MIT and earned his BA from the University of Michigan with highest honors and distinction in history and political science, became interested in environmental issues while growing up in California’s Bay Area, “The mobilization of my ninth-grade class to clean up a tanker oil spill in the San Francisco Bay made me graphically aware of how local conditions are affected by decisions made elsewhere,” he recalls. “Politics and environmental concerns just seemed to be in the air when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.”
As Paul Revere is to Massachusetts, John Muir is to California. In high school, reading John Muir and backpacking in the Sierras, Haas developed a deep love of nature. From studying maps and reading about this great mountain range, he began to acquire a keen interest in large-scale conservation problems. While he wasn’t an environmentalist per se, Haas certainly knew about the destruction of habitats.
Because Haas’s father and grandfather were scholars, an academic rather than an activist career path was familiar. (His father Ernst was the Robson Research Professor of International Relations at the University of California-Berkeley from 1952–2003 and co-author of The Uniting of Europe, a groundbreaking work still read after almost 50 years in print.) “I caught the travel bug early, as my family traveled extensively in Europe,” he says. Studying international environmental politics, therefore, combined Haas’ interests, although for a couple of years after college he was a stringer for a newsletter covering United Nations efforts to regulate multinational corporations. Haas also learned rock climbing and worked in an outdoor store before starting his graduate studies. He continues to enjoy mountains whenever possible, sometimes with his son David.
Haas has made many contributions to the understanding of how to improve international environmental cooperation. He has conducted extensive research on a number of successful and failed efforts, including the UN’s Mediterranean Action Plan, European acid rain, stratospheric ozone protection, North Sea and Baltic protection, and climate change, among others. Involved in theoretical and applied work on the role of organized science in international environmental protection and in global governance more generally, Haas is “intrigued” by the Enlightenment Project of rationality, which hopes to improve human existence through the application of knowledge and understanding as a counterweight to narrow self-interest, greed and power aspirations.
Actively engaged in the practice of global governance, Haas is co-author of the newly published Global Environmental Governance, part of the Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies series by Island Press. Written with James Gustave Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the book explains how societies addressed global environmental problems in the past and what needs to be done in the future. It also presents essential concepts in international environmental law and regime formation, and includes helpful key terms and study questions. Haas, who is a prolific author, coauthor and editor of books, articles and chapters, is currently working on a book about the evolution of environmental governance since 1972. He has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Commission on Global Governance, and the United Nations Environment Program, and his work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, German Marshall Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the Gallatin Foundation.
July 6, 2006
