Sociology

The present study empirically examines the influence of external debt on the change in the proportion of the total population living in urban slum conditions in the less developed countries between 1990 and 2005, drawing from the political economy of the world-system theoretical perspective. Ordinary least squares panel regression illustrates external debt as a percent of gross national income has a statistically significant positive effect producing higher levels of urban slum growth. This effect obtains across all developing countries but is particularly strong among sub-Saharan African nations. Further, urban population growth 1960-1990 exhibits a positive effect contributing to higher urban slum growth. The results support the hypothesis that debt burden is an important factor producing higher levels of urban slum growth in the less developed countries between 1990 and 2005. This effect, moreover, is particularly strong among sub-Saharan African countries relative to developing countries within other regions of the world.

The biophysical environment is not tangential to the social; it is only tangential to conventional sociological thought. Environmental sociology arose in the 1970s based on this presupposition, but over time theory and empirical research has generally adopted either a social constructionist or natural realist ontology. Despite rejection of the Durkheimian dictum of explaining social facts through the invocation of other social facts, and thus refusal to presuppose human exemptionalism from ecological constraints, scholarship continues to reflect this nature/culture divide. When environmental sociologists focus on one side or the other of the nature/culture divide the intertwining and conjoint constitution of the social and the biophysical-material is obscured. The intent of the present essay is to articulate a co-constructionist ontological position sensitive to the temporal emergence of hybridity between the social and the natural and amenable to recognition of salient dynamics not readily envisioned from either side of the nature/culture divide. In doing so, the argument builds upon prior metatheoretical scholarship in environmental sociology and science and technology studies and highlights ontological conundrums that must be confronted in order to further the move towards a viable co-constructionist posture.

Controlled flooding at the Glen Canyon Dam has been employed since 1996 to mimic the seasonal flooding of the pre-dam Colorado River and therein restore ecological habitat crucial to native flora and fauna downriver in the Grand Canyon. The present essay situates these high-flow experiments (HFEs) within a neo-Weberian theoretical perspective attuned to a qualified posthumanist critique. Controlled flooding comprises the effort to obtain greater balance between ecological and instrumental rationalization processes while confronting the complex and contingent interplay of the natural and the social. The HFEs are not simply an experiment in habitat renewal but an interpretive and operational shift signaling a greater resolve to evolve with nature, but they also illustrate the challenges inherent to large-scale ecological restoration. Nonetheless, controlled flooding portends important lessons for sustainability research in regards to the need to reflect upon, learn from, and adjust socio-natural relations in response to ecological degradation and change.

The degree to which social well-being is predicated upon levels of material consumption remains under-examined from a large-N, quantitative perspective. The present study analyzes the factors influencing levels of maternal mortality in 2005 among 92 peripheral countries. We incorporate into regression analysis the ecological footprint, a comprehensive measure of natural resource consumption, and alternative explanatory variables drawn from previous research. Results illustrate ecological footprint consumption has a moderately strong direct influence shaping lower levels of maternal mortality. Path analysis reveals export commodity concentration has a negative effect on level of ecological footprint demand net the strong positive influence of income per capita. This illustrates cross-national trade dependency relations directly influence natural resource consumption opportunities and thereby indirectly contribute to higher maternal mortality levels within the periphery of the world economy. The results confirm material consumption is an important dimension of improvement in maternal mortality.

We discuss and elaborate upon the theory of cross-national ecological unequal exchange. Drawing upon world-systems theoretical propositions, ecological unequal exchange refers to the increasingly disproportionate utilization of ecological systems and externalization of negative environmental costs by core industrialized countries and, consequentially, declining utilization opportunities and imposition of exogenous environmental burdens within the periphery. We provide a descriptive overview of theoretical and empirical efforts to date examining this issue. Ecological unequal exchange provides a framework for conceptualizing how the socioeconomic metabolism or material throughput of core countries may negatively impact more marginalized countries in the global economy. It focuses attention upon the global uneven flow of energy, natural resources, and waste products of industrial activity. Further, the recognition of the distributional processes of ecological unequal exchange is relevant to considerations of both the socioeconomic and environmental imperatives underlying the pursuit of sustainable development, as it contributes to underdevelopment within the periphery of the world-system. We conclude by highlighting the interconnections between uneven natural resource flows, global environmental change, and the challenge of broad-based sustainable development.

We evaluate the argument that international trade influences disproportionate cross-national utilization of global renewable natural resources. Such uneven dynamics are relevant to the consideration of inequitable appropriation of environmental space in particular and processes of ecological unequal exchange more generally. Using OLS regression with slope dummy interaction terms, we analyze the effects of trade upon environmental consumption, as measured by per capita ecological footprint demand for 2002, delineated by country income levels. Based upon data for 137 countries, analyses reveal low and lower middle-income countries characterized by a greater proportion of exports to the core industrialized countries exhibit lower environmental consumption. The results contradict neoclassical economic thought. We find trade shapes uneven utilization of global environmental space by constraining consumption in low and lower middle-income countries.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted more than 100 atmospheric atomic detonations at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) between 1951-1962 depositing radioactivity throughout the United States but particularly the rural communities just “downwind.” The monitoring of radioactivity and efforts to warn downwind residents, however, failed to ensure their safety. I engage in archival analysis of AEC documents to examine decision-making in reference to radioactive fallout. In recounting the socio-natural history of atmospheric testing at the NTS, the present study argues operational conduct was lethargic due to the adoption of specious organizational heuristics. They included the assumption that fallout is subject to predictable atmospheric dispersion, has non-cumulative, undifferentiated effects on people, and that downwind residents were prone to unreasoning panic. Thus AEC officials were continually chasing problems after they arose and in the absence of containment of fallout focused on containment of public perception and dialogue. The study concludes by highlighting the lessons relevant to contemporary socio-technical activities.

The intent of the present study is to engage in content analysis of position papers by major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) defining and arguing for recognition of the ecological debt through the Internet. The objectives consist of analysis of the discourse or shared meaning and delineation of the narrative structure and major claims advanced between NGO’s embracing the concept. We utilize Toulmin’s (2003 [1958]) model of argument analysis to derive a descriptive interpretive framework outlining elements of the discourse. The results illustrate the argument is comprised of four interrelated claims. They include: 1) Northern development and present disproportionate production and consumption are founded upon a socio-ecological subsidy, or the underpayment and, at times, explicit looting of the natural resource assets and labor power of Southern countries; 2) the current development model is flawed and, therefore, the Southern external financial debt should be cancelled as it promotes the socio-ecological subsidy; 3) levels of Northern production and consumption are predicated on the North-South socio-ecological subsidy and are therefore unsustainable; 4) equity for present and rational obligations to future generations demands Northern countries begin paying back the accrued socio-ecological subsidy, an obligation defined as the ecological debt. The principal claim, in turn, asserts the ecological debt consists of the objective and moral obligations Northern countries owe for the inequitable acquisition of the labor power, natural resource assets, and utilization of the global commons without suitable recompense to Southern countries.

We utilize first-difference panel regression analysis to assess the direct effect of urban slumprevalence on national level measures of under-5 mortality rates over the period 1990 to 2005.Utilizing data on 80 less developed countries, the results illustrate increasing urban slumprevalence over the period is a robust predictor of increasing child mortality rates. This effectobtains net the statistically significant influence of gross domestic product per capita, fertilityrate, and educational enrollment. Cross-sectional analyses for 2005 that include additionalcontrols provide further evidence of the mortality / urban slum relationship. The results confirmurban slum prevalence growth is an important contextual dynamic whereby the socialproduction of child mortality is enacted in the less developed countries.

This study addresses some key issues in mental health care for children in foster-care systems nationwide. Despite language in federal legislation that urges mental health screenings for all children upon entry to foster care, many children are still falling through the cracks due to lack of access to care and lack of continuity of care across placements. This paper is particularly concerned with children who have been exposed to trauma and are at high risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), especially those who are between one and three years old, a crucial stage for personality development. PTSD is a serious condition which can follow a traumatic event or repeated psychological or physical trauma, characterized by intrusive thoughts or reliving of the trauma (flashbacks), emotional numbing or depression and dissociative reactions, among other symptoms. In light of the fact that the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition, to be released this year, will include a subtype of PTSD specifically for children under six, the proposal focuses on screening for PTSD in infants and toddlers. It solves the problem with access to and follow-up of care (making sure that initial recommendations for psychological screening and treatment are actually sought out) by recommending that child welfare agencies hire practitioners at the master’s level to deal with parental-rights-termination cases. These practitioners should be trained in evidence-based mental health practices. They can be new hires, or agencies can use federal grant money which is already allotted to states for additional training of existing staff. Communities will eventually see a financial gain from this practice in the form of reduced Medicaid spending and better outcomes for adult children exiting the system.

Since so many people have looked at the undergraduate version of this paper, I wanted to make the updated version available. I presented a talk at the Pacific Sociological Association's annual meeting in Long Beach, CA based on this version.

This qualitative discourse analysis study examines 12 documents accessed from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee for Science, Space, and Technology’s website. Documents were textually and contextually analyzed, compared to the mainstream counter-discourse, and situated within a sociological framework of cultural hegemony and elite theory. Documents under the search term “climate change” were more scientifically worded, but compared with those searched for under the term “global warming” only subtle differences were found. Analyses examines these differences, and explores how and why the overarching themes of scientific bias and uncertainty, discrediting mainstream science, conspiracy between the Obama administration and elite scientists, and, to a lesser degree, economic damage were used to frame climate-change doubt. The study finds that underlying themes in this particular discourse of denial included hypocrisy, trust and betrayal, justice and fairness within capitalism, obstruction and impasse, and distraction and diversion.