Environmental politics and policy in U.S.-Mexican border studies: developments, achievements, and trends

The study of environmental politics and policy on the U.S.-Mexican border is barely more than 30 years old. This interdisciplinary field has grown substantially since the 1970s, however, and now generates a substantial literature addressing a range of environmental media, politics, and policy problems within and across the international boundary. While most of this effort is descriptive and normative, focused on understanding institutional arrangements and practices, new areas of emphasis and new theoretical approaches have emerged in the 1990s that are attracting greater scholarly attention. This essay describes the development of the field from the 1970s to the present, pointing to particular achievements and trends that will doubtlessly shape future research in the area.