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    Sustainability Inverted

    How Environmental Policies Control People

    Part of American and Comparative Environmental Policy

    Author Jin Sato
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    Paperback
    $50.00 US
    | $66.00 CAN
    The MIT Press
    On sale May 19, 2026 | 304 Pages | 9780262053433
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    What environmental policies do to people, beyond what they do to the climate, forests, air, or water.

    Sustainability Inverted explores the hidden politics of environmental policy and the unintended consequences of “inversion” policy—policies that turn potential local collaborators into adversaries, thus creating relationships that undermine the very objectives the policies seek to achieve. Jin Sato argues that the key to addressing inversion lies in rebalancing the disrupted relations of interdependence and empowering individuals and organizations closer to the ground. The result is a more sustainable policy direction, the wisdom of which has been overlooked in favor of self-reliance and independence in developmental goals.

    Based on extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia, this book vividly illustrates how the state exploits the most lucrative resources while local communities are left with what are deemed “communal resources.” Consequently, these local people, who are supposedly partners in conservation efforts, become adversaries of the state. The book offers a fresh perspective on fostering interdependency among communities and challenges the conventional wisdom in the Global North that excessively prioritizes technology as a solution to environmental problems.
    ENDORSEMENTS

    “Professor Sato offers an incisive framework without flamethrowing, but rather through a highly constructive structural analysis of relationships among conservation initiatives, politics, and international interactions. Professor Sato’s insights hold far beyond the Southeast Asian region.”
    —William Ascher, Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics, Claremont McKenna College

    “In a masterful comparative study of four Asian nations, Jin Sato refocuses our attention from the manifest intentions of environmental policy to the actual processes of implementation. When policy interventions become the problem as opposed to the solution, this turns local communities into adversaries instead of collaborators—which Jin Sato calls ‘inversion.’ This book will take its place alongside others that redirect our attention from the reality that states and markets would have us believe in, to the reality that local communities actually inhabit.”
    —Michael R. Dove, author of Hearsay Is Not Excluded

    "Sustainability Inverted invites us to question the entrenched power and incentive structures undermining environmental management. By illuminating social and political interdependencies, Jin Sato articulates a compelling strategy for unlocking the cooperation essential to effective and just global environmental governance."
    —Joshua Fisher, author of Managing Environmental Conflict
    Jin Sato is a Professor of Development Studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo.
    Jin Sato View titles by Jin Sato
    Preface
    Acknowledgments
    Introduction: The Invisible State Power
    Chapter 1 Mechanisms: From dominance over nature to dominance over people
    Chapter 2 Knowledge: A Scientist Stands with Pollution Victims
    Chapter 3 Exclusion: Comparative history of environmental states in Japan and Thailand
    Chapter 4 Release: The Cambodian government relinquishes control over fisheries
    Chapter 5 Compulsion: Maintaining irrigation infrastructures in Indonesia
    Chapter 6 Solution: Promise and challenge of intermediary groups
    Conclusion: Renewing Interdependency
    References
    Index
    additional book photo

    About

    What environmental policies do to people, beyond what they do to the climate, forests, air, or water.

    Sustainability Inverted explores the hidden politics of environmental policy and the unintended consequences of “inversion” policy—policies that turn potential local collaborators into adversaries, thus creating relationships that undermine the very objectives the policies seek to achieve. Jin Sato argues that the key to addressing inversion lies in rebalancing the disrupted relations of interdependence and empowering individuals and organizations closer to the ground. The result is a more sustainable policy direction, the wisdom of which has been overlooked in favor of self-reliance and independence in developmental goals.

    Based on extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia, this book vividly illustrates how the state exploits the most lucrative resources while local communities are left with what are deemed “communal resources.” Consequently, these local people, who are supposedly partners in conservation efforts, become adversaries of the state. The book offers a fresh perspective on fostering interdependency among communities and challenges the conventional wisdom in the Global North that excessively prioritizes technology as a solution to environmental problems.

    Reviews

    ENDORSEMENTS

    “Professor Sato offers an incisive framework without flamethrowing, but rather through a highly constructive structural analysis of relationships among conservation initiatives, politics, and international interactions. Professor Sato’s insights hold far beyond the Southeast Asian region.”
    —William Ascher, Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics, Claremont McKenna College

    “In a masterful comparative study of four Asian nations, Jin Sato refocuses our attention from the manifest intentions of environmental policy to the actual processes of implementation. When policy interventions become the problem as opposed to the solution, this turns local communities into adversaries instead of collaborators—which Jin Sato calls ‘inversion.’ This book will take its place alongside others that redirect our attention from the reality that states and markets would have us believe in, to the reality that local communities actually inhabit.”
    —Michael R. Dove, author of Hearsay Is Not Excluded

    "Sustainability Inverted invites us to question the entrenched power and incentive structures undermining environmental management. By illuminating social and political interdependencies, Jin Sato articulates a compelling strategy for unlocking the cooperation essential to effective and just global environmental governance."
    —Joshua Fisher, author of Managing Environmental Conflict

    Author

    Jin Sato is a Professor of Development Studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo.
    Jin Sato View titles by Jin Sato

    Table of Contents

    Preface
    Acknowledgments
    Introduction: The Invisible State Power
    Chapter 1 Mechanisms: From dominance over nature to dominance over people
    Chapter 2 Knowledge: A Scientist Stands with Pollution Victims
    Chapter 3 Exclusion: Comparative history of environmental states in Japan and Thailand
    Chapter 4 Release: The Cambodian government relinquishes control over fisheries
    Chapter 5 Compulsion: Maintaining irrigation infrastructures in Indonesia
    Chapter 6 Solution: Promise and challenge of intermediary groups
    Conclusion: Renewing Interdependency
    References
    Index

    Photos

    additional book photo

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