Edella Schlager

Edella Schlager

Melody S. Robidoux Foundation Fund Leadership Chair
Director of SGPP
Edella Schlager

Social Sciences 317

My research focuses on comparative institutional analyses of water laws, policies, property rights, and compacts in the western US. I am particularly interested in the design and performance of polycentric systems of water governance and how well such systems of water governance adapt to changing environmental, legal, and social circumstances. Journals I have published in include Land Economics, Policy Studies Journal, Publius, and the American Journal of Political Science. I am co-author of two books on western water governance, Common Waters, Diverging Streams: Linking Institutions and Water Management in Arizona, California, and Colorado (with William Blomquist and Tanya Heikkila); and Embracing Watershed Politics (with William Blomquist). I am also the lead editor of Navigating Climate Change Policy: The Opportunities of Federalism (with Kirsten Engel and Sally Rider).

My teaching centers on environmental policy and public policy. I teach both undergraduate and graduate survey courses on environmental policy, an undergraduate course on climate change policy; and a PhD seminar on theories of the policy process.