Protecting Public and Planet: Regulating Environment and Health in the EU and the US

Mitchell Smith,

Director of Graduate Studies, Political Science, at the University of Oklahoma

During the first decade of the 21st century, the United States adopted a more relaxed regulatory posture in the face of critical challenges to public health and the environment.  This is true of regulation of reuse and recycling of end-of-life products including autos and electronic components, of potentially hazardous chemicals, and of health claims on food labels.  Coincidentally, the European Union gravitated toward more restrictive regulation in these very same areas, establishing more stringent controls on the recycling of autos at the end of their useful lives; health claims on food labels; and a more rigorous regime for regulation of chemicals.  How might we explain these diverging regulatory trajectories of the world’s two largest market economies in an era of rising public awareness of dangers to the public and the planet?

Mitchell P. Smith’s work focuses on comparative and international political economy, with a particular emphasis on European integration. After receiving his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, he spent two years as an economic analyst at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. He earned his M.P.A. Degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he studied international political economy, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University's Department of Politics. He has been a Fulbright Fellow in European Union Affairs, a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, Belgium and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Registration: Please register until the 27th of February at coe.dbp@cbs.dk.

Organized by the Department of Business and Politics (DBP) and the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at CBS.