Abstract

IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENT WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ECOLOGICAL DEMOCRACY

Mrs. Jyotsana

Volume: 4 Issue: 4 2014

Abstract:

We begin by conceptualizing sustainability as the ratio of human welfare or quality of life to overall environmental impact. We propose an indicator of sustainability that uses infant survival a key component of the Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) as a measure of welfare. We combine two measures, the Ecological Footprint (EFP) and the Environmental Systems Indicator (ESI) into an overall measure of environmental impact. The ratio of the welfare measure to the impact measure (welfare per unit impact) is then a measure of sustainability. Recent work in the tradition of ecological modernization theory (EMT), the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and reflexive modernization theory (RMT) suggests that nations may make a transition towards environmental sustainability. We offer a theory of ecological democracy that hypothesizes the conditions under which nations might move towards sustainability. In particular, we suggest that three conditions are necessary. First, institutional arrangements and culture must promote altruism. Second, information on the analysis of environmental problems must be available. Third, the state must not be captured by capital, the military, religious groups or other special interests who will have little interest in sustainability. In contrast, EMT and EKC posit the institutions of traditional liberal democracy as sufficient to promote sustainability. In a preliminary empirical assessment using data on nations, measures of liberal democracy have a significant positive relationship to sustainability in the form predicted by theory. But the indicators of our three conditions for ecological democracy also behave as predicted by theory and are more strongly related to sustainability. This work is quite preliminary, ignoring, for example, ideas emerging from World Systems Theory (WST) but indicates that further analysis of measures of sustainability and of the conditions that favor sustainable development are warranted.

Back Download

References

• Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity. London: Sage Publications.
• Ecological Enlightenment: Essays on the Politics of the Risk Society. New York: Humanities Press.
• Dietz, Thomas, Paul C. Stern, and Robert W. Rycroft. 1989. 'Definitions of Conflict and the Legitimation of Resources: The Case of Environmental Risk.' Sociological Forum 4:47-70.
• Frank, David John, Ann Hironaka, and Evan Schofer. 2000. 'The Nation-State and the Natural Environment Over the Twentieth Century.' American Sociological Review 65:96- 116.
• Habermas, Jurgen. 1970. Towards a Rational Society. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Pres.
• Rees, William R. 1992. 'Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity: What Urban Economics Leaves Out.' Environment and Urbanization 4:121-130.
• Rees, William E. and Mathis Wackernagel. 1994. 'Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity: Measuring the Natural Capital Requirements of the Human Capacity.' Pp. 362-390 in Investing in Natural Capital: The Ecological Economics Approach to Sustainability, edited by A.-C. Jannson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
• Richerson, Peter J, Robert Boyd, and Brian Paciotti. 2002. 'An Evolutionary Theory of Commons Management.' In press in The Drama of the Commons, edited by E. Ostrom, T. Dietz, N. Dolsak, P. C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E. Weber. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
• Stern, Paul C., Thomas Dietz, and Linda Kalof. 1993. 'Value Orientations, Gender and Environmental Concern.' Environment and Behavior 25:322-348