Ecological Modernization in Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

Ecological modernization theory (EMT) has emerged as a major theoretical and policy-making perspective. Despite its growing influence, EMT has significant limitations both as a descriptive and as a prescriptive theory. Taking the Darwinian revolution’s rejection of essentialism and developmentalism as the touchstone for ecological thinking, the author argues that EMT is premised on a nonecological foundation. The nonecological underpinnings of EMT preclude its elaboration into a descriptive theory capable of conceptualizing the interactions between social structures, human agency, and biophysical environments. As a prescriptive theory, these same assumptions marginalize people and projects that depart from EMT’s restricted vision of modernization. The author concludes by contrasting EMT with an evolutionary perspective on social change, premised on the concept of a socially constructed adaptive landscape, which combines population thinking with moderate constructionist insights into agency and culture. From the latter perspective, EMT’s prescriptive claims can be interpreted as a form of strategic essentialism.

An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models

“…These positions embed the expectation that human ingenuity (technology as broadly understood) will ensure humanity's ability to survive through unforeseen innovations that will overcome natural and artificial barriers to human survival (McLaughlin, 2012;Mol & Spaargaren, 2006). This suggests that since the Stubbs and Cocklin (2008) orientation to sustainable business is aligned with a "broad view of EM," the factors in their "illustration of a systems-based SBM" are insufficient as a foundation for strongly sustainable frameworks (or guidance).…”

Ecological modernization in U.S. agri-environmental programs: Trends in the 2014 Farm Bill

“…The EM perspective serves as a useful analytic frame for describing developments in environmental policy due to its widespread adoption in policymaking circles (Coffey and Marston, 2013;McLaughlin, 2012;Mol et al, 2013). In the case of agrienvironmental policy, this includes incorporation of the language of ecological modernization in discourses influencing these policies (Lenihan and Brasier, 2010).…”

“…Despite these criticisms, there is significant support for EM as a descriptive theory of a modernization process underway in many areas, though rarely applied to agriculture. Even the most ardent critics of EM as social theory note its usefulness in describing ongoing processes, particularly in environmental governance in modernized, Western nations (Foster, 2012;McLaughlin, 2012;York and Rosa, 2003). The efficacy of this approach for ameliorating rural environmental problems is beyond the scope of this paper; rather, I will use EM theory to frame and explain changes in agri-environmental policy in the U.S.…”

“green fix” as crisis management. or, in which world is malmö the world's greenest city?

“…The ideology of the green fix is a version of eco-modernism (York and Rosa 2003;Mol 2010;York et al 2010;McLaughlin 2012). While ecomodernism proper contends that growth and sustainability are compatible, the green fix gives it a slightly different twist: sustainability is here a means to growth.…”