Sociological Theory and the Environment

Riley E. Dunlap is Boeing Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sociology at Washington State University and past president of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Environment and Society. Frederick H. Buttel is professor of rural sociology and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is currently president of the Environment and Society Research Committee of the International Sociological Association. Peter Dickens is senior research fellow, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK. He is also fellow and director of studies at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. August Gijswijt retired as an environmental sociologist from the University of Amsterdam in 1998. In 1990 he and Gyorgy Szell founded the Research Committee on Environment and Science.

In the past few years, the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Environmental Sociology has emerged as one of the world's liveliest and most important for the exchange of ideas about the relationships between environment and society. This volume on sociological theory and the environment grows out of a particularly important international workshop on the same topic that was sponsored by that Research Committee, and it summarizes some of the most important thinking that has recently been done in the area. As such, it offers a valuable compilation of some of the most thoughtful work now available on this increasingly significant topic.

• Part 1 PrefacePart 2 I Introduction and OverviewChapter 3 1 Sociological Theory and the Environment: An Overview and IntroductionPart 4 II The Classical Tradition and Environmental SociologyChapter 5 2 Environmental Sociology and the Classical Sociological Tradition: Some Observations on Current ControversiesChapter 6 3 A Green Marxism? Labor-Processes, Alienation, and the Division of LaborChapter 7 4 Ecological Materialism and the Sociology of Max WeberChapter 8 5 Has the Durkheim Legacy Misled Sociology?Part 9 III Environmental Sociology and Twentieth Century Sociological TheoryChapter 10 6 Social Theory and the Environment: A Systems-Theoretical PerspectiveChapter 11 7 Dynamic Constellations of the Individual, Society, and Nature: Critical Theory and Environmental SociologyChapter 12 8 World-System Theory and the Environment: Toward a New SynthesisPart 13 IV Sociological Theory and Environmental Sociology in the Late 1990s: Modernity, Culture, and the Natural WorldChapter 14 9 Modernity, Politics, and the Environment: A Theoretical PerspectiveChapter 15 10 Inconspicuous Consumption: The Sociology of Consumption, Lifestyles, and the EnvironmentChapter 16 11 Social Theory and Ecological Politics: Reflexive Modernization or Green Socialism?Chapter 17 12 The Social Construction of Environmental Problems: A Theoretical Review and Some Not-Very Herculean LaborsChapter 18 13 When the Global Meet the Local: Critical Reflections on Reflexive ModernisationChapter 19 14 Cultural Analysis and Environmental Theory: An AgendaPart 20 V Sociological Paradigms and Environmental SociologyChapter 21 15 Paradigms, Theories, and Environmental SociologyPart 22 IndexPart 23 About the Editors24 About the Contributors