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Robinson A 223
George Mason University
4400 University Dr, MSN3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030

Phone

703.993.1404

Fax
703.993.1399

Email
pbalint@gmu.edu

 

Peter J. Balint

Short bio

I am associate professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University (with a joint appointment in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy). I teach courses on environmental policy and on research methods and data analysis. For the past decade, my primary research focus has been on community-based natural resource management—a policy approach designed to integrate conservation and community development in rural areas of poor countries. I have conducted research on this topic in Central America, Central Asia, and Eastern and Southern Africa. In a second research focus, I have explored so-called wicked problems—large-scale, long-term policy dilemmas in which multiple and compounding risks and uncertainties combine with sharply divergent public values to generate contentious political stalemates. In particular, several colleagues and I studied the US Forest Service’s ongoing struggle to develop a broadly acceptable management plan for Sierra Nevada region of California. Finally, in the past year I have begun two new lines of inquiry: Asian and comparative environmental policy, and the bureaucratic lifecycles of US environmental agencies.

I have a PhD in environmental policy (University of Maryland, 2000); an MS in conservation biology (University of Maryland, 1998); an MA in education (State University of New York at Albany, 1972); and a BA in English (Haverford College, 1971). Before entering the University of Maryland in 1996 to study environmental issues, I taught English for more than 20 years in the inner-city alternative public high schools of Albany, NY.

 

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