Policy Sciences and the Human Dignity Gap: Problem Solving for Citizens and Leaders

This book presents a comprehensive and actionable framework for individuals and leaders seeking to promote human dignity within healthy environments. Rooted in the policy sciences approach, it equips readers with the essential concepts, tools, and skills necessary to address indignity and unhealthy conditions collectively.

Despite international commitments and domestic laws advocating for human dignity, a glaring "human dignity gap" persists in numerous regions and problem contexts. This book sheds light on this disparity, examining its manifestations in global environmental change, development efforts, water insecurity, wildfires, human-wildlife conflict, access to public health, and much more. While existing scholarship often focuses on legal rights, the authors emphasize untapped opportunities for everyday citizens and leaders to foster human dignity within their communities and beyond.

By offering fresh perspectives, practical concepts, and exercises, this book empowers readers to bridge the performance gap, ultimately enabling the realization of human dignity from the grassroots level. It provides innovative strategies and frameworks to address this pressing global issue, making it an invaluable resource for scholars, policymakers, and concerned citizens alike.

Susan G. Clark is Professor Emeritus at Yale University’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, USA. She is a Fellow at the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Clark is also a fellow in the World Academy of Art and Science and Science and Policy Advisor for Frontiers in Environment and Ecology, The Ecological Society of America. Her interests include interdisciplinary problem solving, decision making, governance, policy processes, leadership, conservation biology, organization theory and management, natural resources policy, and the policy sciences. She is currently teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on natural resource policy, problem solving, and grand strategy.

Evan J. Andrews is a Senior Research Fellow with Too BIG To Ignore: A Global Partnership for Small-Scale Fisheries Research (TBTI) and a postdoctoral fellow in the transnational research hub, Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI), based in the Department of Geography of Memorial University, Canada. He holds a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship (2023-2025) and is a current member of the Executive Council for the Society of Policy Scientists. His interests lie in making change by understanding social-ecological change, including in coastal and marine systems, and advancing human dignity through effective policy processes and transdisciplinary collaborations. He is co-Principal Investigator of Moving Together for Marine Conservation (2022-2026) and the co-founder and network lead of TBTI Canada.

Ana Lambert is pursuing her Ph.D. in Human Geography at the University of Manchester, UK. Previously, she was the Latin America Program Manager for the Wildlife Conservation Society's "Illegal Wildlife Trade" program. Ana holds a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Instituto Tecnologico y Estudios Superiores del Occidente (ITESO), Mexico. Shehas extensive academic and working experience in Latin America, the United States, Africa, and Australia, which spans the disciplines of social science, engineering, and wildlife conservation.