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Tim Forsyth

London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of International Development, Faculty Member

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Specialist in the politics of environment and development, and especially incorporating local livelihoods into global environmental assessments and policies. More than six years' work experience in South and Southeast Asia, fluent in Thai and with other skills in Spanish and French. Currently working on resilience and livelihoods in Myanmar and Nepal.

See further details: http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/profile.aspx?KeyValue=t.j.forsyth@lse.ac.uk

Current position: Professor, Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Previous appointments:
1999–2000: Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
1998–1999: Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, Falmer, Sussex
1997–1998: Fellow, Energy and Environment Program, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)
1996–1997: Lecturer (temporary), Development Studies Institute, LSE
1995–1997: Various lecturer positions at Department of Geography, LSE; Department of Geography, King’s College London, University of North London, University of Westminster
1994: Journalist, Associated Press, Bangkok
1993–1994: Journalist, Asia, Inc. magazine, Hong Kong and Thailand, (winner of fellowship)
1993: Researcher, team manager, World Wildlife Fund (business attitudes to sustainable tourism)
1992–1993: Lecturer (temporary, part-time), Department of Geography, Royal Holloway College
1989–1992: Ph.D. candidate, University of London
1987–1989: Futures and options trader/graduate, British Petroleum, London, Singapore, Amsterdam
Phone: +44 (0)207 955 6836
Address: Department of International Development,
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE, UK.
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/FORSYTHT/tim_forsyth.htm

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Papers by Tim Forsyth

Social movements and environmental democratization in Thailand

MIT Press eBooks, 2004

Critical realism and political ecology

Athlone Press eBooks, 2001

Much discussion of critical realism and environmental issues has focused on philosophical debates... more Much discussion of critical realism and environmental issues has focused on philosophical debates concerning the dichotomies of nature/ society, people/ animals, or women/ men (e.g. Benton, this volume;. Yet in addition, critical realist arguments are also relevant to debates concerning environmental degradation and the management of ecological resources. The aim of critical realist research on environmental degradation is to highlight how scientific explanations of environmental change provide only partial insights into complex biophysical processes, and that existing models of explanation reflect the agendas of the societies that created them. Such explanations are problematic as they may only address certain aspects of biophysical change. Moreover, they may not represent the interests of social groups not included in the science process, particularly in developing countries. Academic work focusing on the interface between politics and environmental degradation has often been labeled 'political ecology' (e.g. . 1 Yet some recent writings on political ecology raise important questions from the perspective of critical realism. On one hand, there is a body of work that focuses on the environmental activism associated with struggles over resources and the formation of the state (e.g. Bryant and Bailey, 1997). Such work presents a valuable analysis of grassroots resistance and non-governmental organizations as counter points to repressive state policies and industrial activity. But this work may also be criticized for uncritically accepting existing definitions of environmental degradation derived from positivistic natural science without acknowledging how such terms are constructed. Indeed, much recent research within developing countries has indicated that many processes commonly thought to be degrading, such as soil erosion and deforestation, may not always threaten livelihoods or present longterm damage to ecosystems as sometimes thought.

Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice

Geoforum, Mar 1, 2008

Piers Blaikie's writings on political ecology in the 1980s represented a turning point in the gen... more Piers Blaikie's writings on political ecology in the 1980s represented a turning point in the generation of environmental knowledge for social justice. His writings since the 1980s demonstrated a further transition in the identification of social justice by replacing a Marxist and eco-catastrophist epistemology with approaches influenced by critical realism, poststructuralism and participatory development. Together, these works demonstrated an important engagement with the politics of how environmental explanations are made, and the mutual dependency of social values and environmental knowledge. Yet, today, the lessons of Blaikie's work are often missed by analysts who ask what is essentially political or ecological about political ecology, or by those who argue that a critical approach to environmental knowledge should mean deconstruction alone. This paper reviews Blaikie's work since the 1980s and focuses especially on the meaning of 'politics' within his approach to political ecology. The paper argues that Blaikie's key contribution is not just in linking environmental knowledge and politics, but also in showing ways that environmental analysis and policy can be reframed towards addressing the problems of socially vulnerable people. This pragmatic coproduction of environmental knowledge and social values offers a more constructive means of building socially just environmental policy than insisting politics or ecology exist independently of each other, or believing environmental interventions are futile in a post-Latourian world.

Expertise needs transparency not blind trust: a deliberative approach to integrating science and social participation

Critical Policy Studies, Oct 1, 2011

Good things come in threes, so they say. In this paper Collins, Weinel and Evans (CWE) call for a... more Good things come in threes, so they say. In this paper Collins, Weinel and Evans (CWE) call for a 'Third Wave' of science studies where 'scientific values should be central to society and that the advice of "those who know what they are talking about" should be given greater weight than those who do not' (195). Their aim is to avoid the weakening of scientific authority they claim follows extending public participation in politics and science.

Building deliberative public–private partnerships for waste management in Asia

Geoforum, Jul 1, 2005

Public-private partnerships in environmental policy should not simply be viewed in instrumental t... more Public-private partnerships in environmental policy should not simply be viewed in instrumental terms as means of providing environmental infrastructure and services, but also as sites where norms of environmental concern and political accountability are formulated and replicated. Deliberative public-private partnershipsor partnerships that allow greater public participation in the formulation of these normsmay therefore become an important new form of local environmental governance and help make partnerships more relevant to local environmental needs. This paper examines case studies of public-private partnerships in waste-to-energy projects in the Philippines and India to identify how principles of institutional design may enhance the deliberative nature of public-private partnerships in environmental policy. The paper argues that current approaches to deliberative, or cooperative environmental governance concerning public-private partnerships need to acknowledge insights from network theory concerning the communication of environmental and political norms before they can be successfully transferred to developing countries.

Climate justice is not just ice

Geoforum, Jul 1, 2014

Discussions about climate change and justice frequently employ dichotomies of procedural and dist... more Discussions about climate change and justice frequently employ dichotomies of procedural and distributive justice, and inter-and intra-generational justice. These distinctions, however, often fail to acknowledge the diverse experience of climate risks, or the contested nature of many proposed solutions. This paper argues for a reassessment of debates about climate justice based upon a greater diversity of risks and solutions such as integrating the reduction of social vulnerability simultaneously with mitigation. In effect, this implies reassessing the implicit use of Rawls' model of justice as fair allocation of predefined risks and solutions, and instead considering Sen's understanding of justice as inclusive debate about which risks require which solutions.

Time to change? Technologies of futuring and transformative change in Nepal’s climate change policy

Globalizations, Jan 14, 2021

This paper calls for a more critical analysis of implicit social values in time-based projections... more This paper calls for a more critical analysis of implicit social values in time-based projections of transformative change in climate change policy in developing countries. The paper argues that transformative change is a form of socio-technical imaginary, in which contemporary visions of social order influence supposedly technical, and apolitical policies and timelines. To analyze these imaginaries, the paper applies the framework of "technologies of futuring," or the processes in which projections about the future are imbued with implicit values, to different theories of change used to propose responses to climate change in Nepal. The paper shows that projections of future change are linked to assumptions about physical risks and social agency that reflect different, and contestable, worldviews. This chapter concludes that discussions about transformative change need to make assumptions about risk and society more transparent when proposing urgent deadlines based on assumptions about the future.

Environmental Social Movements in Thailand: How Important is Class?

Asian journal of social science, 2001

This paper argues that current academic approaches to environmentalism in developing countries un... more This paper argues that current academic approaches to environmentalism in developing countries understate the role of class in either dominating political alliances, or in constructing underlying environmental discourse. The paper uses examples of various social movements in Thailand to illustrate the diverse ways in which environmental activism may represent or support different political objectives. It is proposed that analysts need to pay more attention to the origin of much environmental discourse from new, or identity-based social movements both within Thailand and elsewhere, and to seek ways to understand the 'co-production' of social activism and environmental knowledge.

Industrial pollution and social movements in Thailand

Routledge eBooks, 2004

Beyond Narratives: Civic Epistemologies and the Coproduction of Environmental Knowledge and Popular Environmentalism in Thailand

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Feb 20, 2019

Beyond narratives: civic epistemologies and the co-production of environmental knowledge and popu... more

Environmental activism and the construction of risk: implications for NGO alliances

Journal of International Development, Jul 1, 1999

This paper argues that academic approaches to environmental policy that equate political pluralis... more This paper argues that academic approaches to environmental policy that equate political pluralism with the representation of plural environmental rationalities are overoptimistic and avoid the complex ways in which risk is constructed. The paper discusses two cases of industrial poisoning in Thailand to illustrate how alliances between factory workers and middle class activists strengthened political campaigns against the state but failed to identify the nature of risk or address workers' concerns. It is argued that academic debates need to acknowledge the pragmatic nature of both environmental knowledge and NGO alliances, and therefore seek more eective, inclusive public fora for assessing risk.

Constructing a New Understanding of the Environment under Postsocialism

Environment and Planning A, Apr 1, 2001

This paper introduces a special grouping of papers in Environment and Planning on the theme of en... more This paper introduces a special grouping of papers in Environment and Planning on the theme of environment and post-socialism. Following the collapse of state socialism in Europe in 1989-1991, many immediate approaches to environmental reconstruction assumed that economic liberalisation and democratisation would alleviate problems. Since then, critics have argued these proposed solutions were themselves problematic, and too closely reflected Western European and North American conceptions of environmental quality and democracy. This paper summarises debates about environment and post-socialism since 1989-1991. In particular, the paper examines whether an essentialistic link can be made between state socialism and environmental problems, and how far civil society -or environmentalism -may result in an improvement in perceived environmental quality. The paper finally considers the possibility for developing an approach to environment and postsocialism that lies between crude generalisation and micro-scale studies.

Cooperative environmental governance and waste-to-energy technologies in Asia

International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development, Jan 18, 2006

The concept of cooperative environmental governance has been proposed as a means of increasing ci... more The concept of cooperative environmental governance has been proposed as a means of increasing citizens' participation in environmental policy and technological choice in order to make policy processes more deliberative and socially inclusive. This paper critically analyses the concept in relation to cases of waste management and waste-toenergy investment in the Philippines and India, and especially the choice between the technologies of incineration, pyrolysis and biomethanation. The paper argues that, despite much progress towards local inclusion, there is still too much optimism about the ability for local people to influence technological choice, and powerful actors can shape the identities and roles played by local people. Consequently, cooperative environmental governance needs to incorporate a greater political understanding of how and by whom technological debates are framed, using insights from discursive politics.

Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change

Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 29, 2017

International efforts to reduce and sequester carbon dioxide and other green-house gases are not ... more International efforts to reduce and sequester carbon dioxide and other green-house gases are not yet slowing the rate of global warming. Indeed, the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) anticipates rapid changes in climate even if the greenhouse-gas emissions are reduced quickly,1 and recent findings suggest that these projections are underestimated.2 The impacts of climate change will be severe, particularly for the most vulnerable developing countries that have the least capacity to cope. As a result, the need to support adaptation in developing countries is growing in urgency. Adaptation describes adjustments in natural or human systems in response to the impacts of climate change.3 Until recently, adaptation was a controversial topic in climate change policy debates, with many arguing that too much atten-tion to adaptation-considered locally focused, inexpensive, and beneficial only in the short term-could detract from more expensive mitigation efforts for the global good. In his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore wrote, "Believing that we can adapt to just abut anything is ultimately a kind of laziness, an arrogant faith in our ability to react in time."4 However, the tide is turning. Given slow progress on mitigation coupled with evidence of greater and more rapid impacts of climate change than those previously expected by the IPCC, adapta-tion is firmly on the international policy agenda as a crucial supplement to mitiga-tion. Signaling this change, Gore stated in a recent interview with the Economist, "I used to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention. But I've changed my mind. . . . Poor countries are vulnerable and need our help."5

Enhancing climate technology transfer through greater public-private cooperation: Lessons from Thailand and the Philippines

Natural Resources Forum, May 1, 2005

This paper contributes to debates about climate change policy and technology transfer by analyzin... more This paper contributes to debates about climate change policy and technology transfer by analyzing the success factors underlying collaboration between private companies and communities in developing countries. To date, much attention to capacity building for enabling environments -including public-private collaboration-under the climate change convention has focused on state-led initiatives and on the innovation and development of technologies. This paper, instead, focuses on how private-sector investors and host communities may collaborate in the diffusion of technologies, by reducing the costs of technology transfer, and making technology more appropriate to developing countries. The paper describes cases of collaboration concerning waste management and waste-toenergy in Thailand and the Philippines. The paper argues that successful public-private partnerships between investors and communities depends on minimizing transaction costs, strengthening collaborative (or assurance) mechanisms, and in maximizing public trust and accountability of partnerships. Lessons are then drawn for enhancing capacity building for technology transfer under the climate change convention and applications such as the Clean Development Mechanism.

Is resilience to climate change socially inclusive? Investigating theories of change processes in Myanmar

World Development, Nov 1, 2018

Approaches to resilience to climate change can be socially exclusionary if they do not acknowledg... more Approaches to resilience to climate change can be socially exclusionary if they do not acknowledge diverse experiences of risks or socio-economic barriers to resilience. This paper contributes to analyses of resilience by studying how theories of change (ToC) processes used by development organizations might lead to social exclusions, and seeking ways to make these more inclusive. Adopting insights from participatory monitoring and evaluation, the paper first presents fieldwork from four villages in Myanmar to compare local experiences of risk and resilience with the ToCs underlying pathways to resilience based on building anticipatory, absorptive, and adaptive capacities. The paper then uses interviews with the development organizations using these pathways to identify how ToC processes might exclude local experiences and causes of risk, and to seek ways to make processes more inclusive. The research finds that development organizations can contribute to shared ToCs for resilience, but adopt tacitly different models of risk that reduce attention to more transformative socio-economic pathways to resilience. Consequently, there is a need to consider how resilience and ToCs can become insufficiently scrutinized boundary objects when they are shared by actors with different models of risk and intervention.

Public concerns about transboundary haze: A comparison of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia

Global Environmental Change-human and Policy Dimensions, Mar 1, 2014

Public concerns about environmental problems create narrative structures that influence policy by... more Public concerns about environmental problems create narrative structures that influence policy by allocating roles of blame, responsibility, and appropriate behavior. This paper presents an analysis of public concerns about transboundary haze resulting from forest fires in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia for crises experienced in 1997, 2005 and 2013. The source of the information is content analysis of 2,231 articles from representative newspapers in each country. The study shows that newspaper reporting about haze has changed from a discussion of the potential health and economic impacts of fires resulting partly naturally from El Niño-induced droughts, towards an increasing vilification of Indonesia for not ratifying the 2002 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution; plus criticism of Singaporean and Malaysian companies investing in palm oil plantations, and ASEAN. Attention to climate change and potential biodiversity loss linked to haze, however, remains low. The paper argues that newspaper analysis of public concerns, despite political influences on the press, offers insights into how public criticism is voiced in these countries, and how perceived responsibility for action is changing.

Environmental Responsibility and Business Regulation: The Case of Sustainable Tourism

The Geographical Journal, Nov 1, 1997

This paper adds to the growing literature within geography on environmental regulation of busines... more This paper adds to the growing literature within geography on environmental regulation of business activities. The adoption of voluntary practices of environmental responsibility is discussed as a form of environmental regulation, and then applied to tourism using a survey of 69 companies and institutions in the UK outgoing tourism industry. Results indicate that business has adopted a wide range of practices, but considers them to be weak regulatory instruments because ultimate responsibility for change lies with host governments via legislation. However, environmental protection may enhance business performance if voluntary practices could differentiate mass-market holiday packages and allow companies to compete on more than price alone. This paper therefore supports research from other industries which states that environmental practices may lead to commercial advantage if adopted proactively rather than in response to market demand for ethical or green products. However, change may accelerated by labeling 'green' or 'sustainable' tourism as 'quality' tourism, and by acknowledging that populist market demand may lead to stereotypical approaches to minorities or ecotourism not helpful to equitable development. Future debate should focus on common ground between regulators and business, and on shared responsibility for excluding 'free-rider' companies not willing to adopt practices.

Are Environmental Social Movements Socially Exclusive? An Historical Study from Thailand

World Development, Dec 1, 2007

Environmental social movements in developing countries are often portrayed as democratizing but m... more Environmental social movements in developing countries are often portrayed as democratizing but may contain important social divisions. This paper presents a new methodology to analyze the social composition and underlying political messages of movements. Nearly 5,000 newspaper reports 1968-2000 in Thailand are analyzed to indicate the participation of middle and lower classes, and their association with "green" (conservationist) and "red-green" (livelihoods-oriented) environmental values. Results show middle-class "green" activism has dominated forests activism, but lower-class "red-green" activism has grown for forests and pollution. Newspapers, however, portray all environmentalism as "democratization," suggesting that the possible exclusiveness of some environmental norms is unacknowledged.

Book review: The palm oil controversy in Southeast Asia: a transnational perspective

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2013