What are the conservative, managerial and radical paradigm in Environmental Sociology?

Introduction

The association between societal well-being and environmental quality is increasingly becoming a topic of sociological interest. Environmental sociology is a sub discipline within the field of sociology that studies of the interactions between the physical environment, social organization, and social behavior. Environmental sociologists typically place special emphasis on studying the social factors that cause environmental problems, the societal impacts of those problems, and efforts to solve the problems. They also look at the social processes by which certain environmental conditions become socially defined as problems (Andersen, M.L 2009).

Definition of key terms

Environment may be broadly understood to mean our surroundings. It can be divided into non-living and living components. The Environment provides resources which support life on the earth and which also help in the growth of a relationship of interchange between living organisms and the environment in which they live (Rangarajan, 2006).

Environmental sociology is the study of the reciprocal interactions between the physical environment, social organization, and social behavior. Within this approach, environment encompasses all physical and material bases of life in a scale ranging from the most micro level to the biosphere (http://socioweb.tripod.com/).

Environmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of the environment (http://environment-ecology.com/environment-writings/114-environmental-sociology.html).

Conservative is the process of disposed to preserve existing conditions, institution, restore traditional ones and to limit change (www.bussinessdictionary.com).

Over the past three decades environmental sociology has developed a considerable breadth of approaches examining the factors underlying environmental degradation and, more recently, social organizational arrangements promoting environmental improvement. In Environment, Energy, and Society, a new Synthesis, Craig R. Humphrey, Tammy L. Lewis, and Frederick H. Buttel survey this history and highlight the contemporary concerns of environmental sociology. 

Their goal is to pull together the various strands of structuralist oriented work in the field to provide an overview and reasoned critique of accomplishments to date. The most innovative aspect of the book is their adoption of the three classical sociological paradigms rooted in the work of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx (Humphrey, et al 2002).

The conservative paradigm is Durkheim, Managerial paradigm is Weber and Radical paradigm is Marx conceptual models serve as analytical frameworks from which the authors orient the work of contemporary environmental social scientists relative to one another and in reference to current society-environmental issues (Humphrey, et al 2002).

The conservative perspective posits cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes as the key social forces in human societies. In contrast, the managerial perspective focuses upon political power and domination, and the radical approach highlights conflict and social class dynamics.

Under conservative paradigm in environmental sociology, in discussing tropical deforestation, for example, conservative paradigmatic argues that stress population growth in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and the consequent competition for forest resources is an underlying factor for environmental degradation. The most population in Less Developed Countries use forest resources in different activities like polls for making shelter, firewood, charcoal, agricultural activities and land for residence. 

In contrast, the managerial perspective in environmental sociology highlights the role of the state in many Less Developed Countries and international lending organizations as lead institutions promoting road-building and other infrastructure projects enhancing access to forest land and contributing to deforestation in return for state revenue, often oriented towards debt repayment obligations.

The radical perspective in environmental sociology, in turn, focuses upon capitalist international trade and the pressure upon Less Developed Countries to allow access to forest lands for export-oriented capital accumulation. Such processes are driven by national and international capital interacting with the overabundance of low-wage labor in Less Developed Countries. The result is deforestation in response to capital accumulation efforts and international expansion of market dynamics (Alford, and Friedland. 1985).

CONCLUSION

Following the development of these core notions of environmental sociology in the late 1970s and early 1980s, environmental sociology came to be strongly influenced by trends in environmental mobilization and in sociology at large. The first major influence was the explosion of attention to global warming and global environmental change from 1988 onward. Also Dunlap and Catton (1994), have demonstrated that public attention to global change facilitated growth in environmental sociology. Further, and perhaps most significant, dissemination of scientific information about global change served to shore up the confidence and resolve of many environmental sociologists that their theories can and should give priority to the material-ecological substratum of social structure and social life (Dunlap and Catton 1994).

   

References

Andersen, M.L. and Taylor, H.F. (2009). Sociology: The Essentials. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth

Alford, R.R. and Friedland, R. (1985), Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy.

           New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dunlap, R. E. & Catton, W. R., Jr. (1994), struggling with human exemptionalism: The rise,

             Decline and Revitalization of environmental sociology. American Sociologist Publishers.

Humphrey, C. R., Lewis, T., & Buttel, F. H. (2002). Environment, energy and society (2^nd

         ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Mahesh Rangarajan Ed., Environmental Issues in India: A Reader, New Delhi, 2006.

Written By AUSI CHIWAMBO (2014)-Teofilo Kisanji University