Frederick H Buttel - Böcker

Sociological Theory and the Environment is a comprehensive survey and assessment of sociological theories of the relations between societies and their 'natural' biophysical environment. This book touches on and addresses virtually all of the major perspectives, focal points, and debates in environmental sociology today—classical and twentieth century social theories, macro-micro linkage issues, globalization and development, reflexive modernization, ecological modernization vs. 'limits' viewpoints, modernity and post modernity, risk society, constructionalism-realism, environmental movements/identities, consumption and environment, cultural sociologies of the environment, and so on. At the same time, the book aims to go beyond an inventory of environmental sociological theory. Sociological Theory and the Environment stresses how new ground can be broken in the articulation of environmental sociology with major classical and contemporary sociological theories.

This accomplished book argues that we can only make sense of environmental issues if we consider them as part of a more encompassing process of social transformation. It asks whether there is an emerging consensus between social scientists on the central issues in the debate on environmental change, and if concerns about the environment constitute a major prop to the process of globalization?

The book provides a thorough discussion of the central themes in environmental sociology, identifying two traditions: ecological modernization theory and risk society theory.

This accomplished book argues that we can only make sense of environmental issues if we consider them as part of a more encompassing process of social transformation. It asks whether there is an emerging consensus between social scientists on the central issues in the debate on environmental change, and if concerns about the environment constitute a major prop to the process of globalization?

The book provides a thorough discussion of the central themes in environmental sociology, identifying two traditions: ecological modernization theory and risk society theory.

For a long time in industrialized countries the state occupied a comfortable and unquestioned position in dealing with environmental problems. Since the 1960s we have witnessed the rather smooth institutionalization of environmental tasks in state policies and politics, leading to the emergence of the "environmental state". In the 1980s, the ideologies of deregulation and privatization formed the start of the debate on the environmental state and the 1990s left the debate facing new challenges. First, the debate became broader and more sophisticated, moving away from simple deregulation and privatization arguments and toward the issue of political modernization and reinventing government. Second, in addition to the ongoing debate on the environmental state within national boundaries, the processes of and political debates on globalization led to new challenges in the viability of the (nationally ordered) environmental-regulatory state. Third, the debate widened geographically, from Europe and the North American continent to the central and East-European countries undergoing transition away from centrally planned economies with all-dominating states, and to states in the so-called South. Various analytical frameworks and social theories are now being applied to understanding and evaluating the nature of these social processes, transformations and continuities related to the environmental state. This text provides a thorough examination of these issues with particular emphasis on the treadmill-of-production and the ecological modernization perspectives. The volume draws upon case studies and evidence from environmental states in the North American continent, Western Europe, Africa, Southeast and East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.

Why is global development so unequal in its social impact? How are global relations represented in local developments, and vice versa? What role do social movements play in shaping global development? These are some of the questions animating this state-of-the-art collection of essays. Subdivided into sections posing research, policy, and strategic questions regarding contemporary social change, this volume brings together scholars well-known for challenging conventional wisdoms in the sociology of global development. In exploring development, these chapters range across the global North and South, economic sectors, policy scales, state/civil society relations, social models, and changing compositional and contextual dimensions of capitalism. Authors introduce conceptual innovations regarding the spatial boundaries of development, sovereignty and the politics of globalization, food regime analysis, recompositions of rural activity, the question of the national bourgeoisies role in the developing world, the health dimensions of food and farming, and the salience of regional governance in sustainable development. Methodologically, this collection breaks new ground with essays reinterpreting commodity chain analysis, accounting for the impoverishing impact of resource extraction, incorporating social movements into the analysis of development, and historically specifying contemporary trends in global development.