Degrees

About

Benjamin Cashore is Professor of Environmental Governance & Political Science at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is Director of the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance and is courtesy joint appointed in Yale’s Department of Political Science. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto, BA and MA degrees in political science from Carleton University, and a certificate from Université d'Aix-Marseille III in French Studies, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University during the 1996-1997 academic year. He has held positions as Assistant Professor, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University (1998-2001); postdoctoral fellow, Forest Economics and Policy Analysis Research Unit, University of British Columbia (1997-1998), and as a policy advisor to the leader of the Canadian New Democratic Party (1990-1993).

Cashore’s major research interests include the emergence of private authority, its intersection with traditional governmental regulatory processes, and the role of firms, non-state actors, and governments in shaping these trends. His book, Governing Through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-state Authority (with Graeme Auld and Deanna Newsom) was awarded the International Studies Association’s 2005 Sprout prize for the best book on international environmental policy and politics. Published by Yale University Press in 2004, the book identifies the emergence of non-state market driven global environmental governance, and compares its support within European and North American forest sectors. Cashore’s latest effort on this topic consists of a 622 page, 16 country analysis, Confronting Sustainability: Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Societies, that he co-edited with Fred Gale, Errol Meidinger and Deanna Newsom.

His current efforts include a major international comparison (with Constance McDermott) of 20 countries’ domestic forest policy regulations, (under provisional acceptance from CABI Press); a comparative study on firm responses to forest certification in the US forest sector (with Auld, Prakash and Sasser); and an analysis (with Bernstein) of the emergence of non-state market driven global governance generally.

Cashore is also co-editor of Forest Policy for Private Forestry (with Teeter and Zhang), CAB International; and coauthor of In Search of Sustainability: The Politics of Forest Policy in British Columbia in the 1990s (with George Hoberg, Michael Howlett, Jeremy Raynor and Jeremy Wilson) from the University of British Columbia Press. He is also author or co-author of several articles that have appeared, or forthcoming, in the American Journal of Political Science, Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration,, Business and Politics, Policy Sciences, Global Environmental Politics, Regulation and Governance, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Forest Policy and Economics, the Journal of Forestry, Canadian Public Administration, Canadian-American Public Policy, the Russian Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Forestry Chronicle, as well as chapters in several edited books published by Oxford University Press, Ashgate Press, Macmillan UK, Transaction Press, the University of British Columbia Press, the University of Toronto Press, CAB International, Forstbuch Press, and IUFRO.

In addition to the Sprout prize, he was awarded (with Steven Bernstein) the 2001 John McMenemy prize for the best article to appear in the Canadian Journal of Political Science in the year 2000 for their article, "Globalization, Four Paths of Internationalization and Domestic Policy Change: The Case of Eco-forestry in British Columbia, Canada."