ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THE RULE OF LAW: ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND MOVEMENT POLITICS IN WEST GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES

This study examines the environmental movement in West Germany and the United States. The main argument is that the legal system exerted a major influence upon the movement's strategies and organization in both countries. Despite profound similarities in ideology and agenda, the American and the German environmental movement differ fundamentally with regard to strategy and organization. In the United States, environmentalists continue to operate in the form of loosely organized, litigious "public interest" groups; in Germany, the movement has been transformed into a parliamentary party (the Greens). Within a theoretical framework that combines elements of institutionalist theory (as developed by e.g., Katzenstein and Skocpol) and James Q. Wilson's theory of ideological ("purposive") group organization, the study argues that the continued existence of American "public interest" groups, and the German movement's transformation into a party, result primarily from institutional-legal structures and mechanisms.;The importance of law for political organization has been widely underestimated by political scientists, including the New Institutionalists. Further, an analysis of legal doctrines and their effects contributes to a better understanding of the state. Public interest litigation reflects the increasing fragmentation of the American state, and its lack of a coherent sense of public authority. The prohibition on such litigation in Germany is part of the Rechtsstaat tradition, which implies a much clearer sense of public authority and uses law as a means of insulating the state against ideological forces.;In the United States, ample opportunities for public interest litigation allow environmental groups to fight their causes in court, and to use the threat of litigation as a means of implementing regulatory programs. The costs of access and organization are extremely low for environmental groups; they are further decreased by the political system's willingness to fund "public interest" groups through grants and attorneys' fees. In Germany, opportunities for litigation are much more limited. This made it very hard for environmental groups to pursue their agenda in courts and in the bureaucracy, without incurring organizational costs which they could not afford. These factors contributed significantly to the movement's conversion into a party.