Local growth coalitions and air pollution controls: The ecological modernisation of the US in historical perspective

Historians and political scientists have emphasized middle-class groups and reformers as the key factors in the initiation of US clean air policies. Utilising a historical approach, however, I argue that locally oriented economic elites, comprising what Logan and Molotch refer to as a 'growth coalition', are the central actors in politically advancing clean air regulations in the US. The political centrality of these elites has historically resulted in an approach to air pollution abatement that focuses exclusively on the development and application of 'clean' technologies.