Misplaced Distrust: Policy Networks and the Environment in France, the United States, and Canada

Echoing the Trilateral Commission's 1975 study The Crisis of Democracy, Montpetit (political science, U. of Montreal, Canada) complains that the "crisis of confidence in policy makers is widespread within advanced democracies." Comparatively examining environmental policy towards agricultural pollution in France, the United States, and Canada, he argues that, more often than not, policy networks adequately address the concerns of wide groups of constituencies. He further argues that burea…