ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the potential for the application of sociopolitical theories to the area of environmental policy. It considers some potential strategies, based on an understanding of important values and attitudes that can enhance public understanding, acceptance, and participation in the environmental assessment process. The chapter outlines some of the basic value assumptions of the American sociopolitical culture and the relationship of these values to public opinion theory. It examines consequences for the environment of the political culture by outlining the results of public opinion research concerning the environment. The chapter explores some of the effects that values may have on projects affecting the environment and some of the effects that such projects, may have on social, political, and economic assumptions. Research on and the actual use of environmental impact statements have focused on the technical, physical, and scientific implications of proposed projects much more than on the role of human values, attitudes, and beliefs in the environmental assessment process.
