Political Ecology Inquiries

Ecological Justice: An International Discourse
CEEP editors recently produced the volume Environmental Justice: Discourses in International Political Economy. It contains a range of international contributions on the themes of environmental justice and political economy, providing theoretical approaches and case studies on issues such as climate change, biodiversity threats, environmental commodification and globalization. Prominent amongst the contributors are Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, Daniel Faber, and Wolfgang Sachs. This volume consolidates a line of work on ecological justice that has emerged over several years at CEEP.

Examples of this work include:
Environmental Justice: Discourses in International Political Economy. 2002. John Byrne, Leigh Glover and Cecilia Martinez, eds. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers. [Cecilia is a CEEP alum.]

“The Political Economy of Acceptable Risk: The Case of Global Warming.” 1999. Katherine Bouton. PhD thesis. Winner of the Sussman Prize for Best Dissertation in Public Policy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“The Problem of Unsustainable Development: International Development Projects and the Environmental Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa.” 1994. Emmanuel Babatunde Durosomo. PhD thesis. . Winner of the Haskell Award in Political Economy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Energy, Technics and Postindustrial Society: The Political Economy of Inequality.” Martinez, Cecilia. 1990 PhD thesis. Winner of the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Energy, Ecology and Development – Conflicts & Choices
Economic development over the last 200 years has produced profound social change, yet the political and economic structures that guide such change often contain energy and environmental conflicts that taint claims of progress. Instead of empowering economical, political, cultural and ecological sustainability, development paths have frequently tied societies closely to urban-industrial production and consumption modes that have diminished social and ecological diversity. Consequently, even in the context of expanding international trade and production, the conditions of the world’s poorest nations and peoples has changed little. A number of energy and environmental, as well as social and political, implications arise from these conditions.

Examples of CEEP research include:
“Toward a Political Economy of Sustainable Energy in Ghana: A Paradigm Analysis of Energy-Development Relations.” 2002. Lawrence Agbemabiese. PhD thesis. Winner of the Sussman Prize for Best Dissertation in Public Policy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Sustainable Energy for Rural Livelihoods: The Potential for Renewable Energy to Assist Developing Countries in Pursuing Sustainable Rural Development.” 1998. Bo Shen. PhD thesis. Winner of the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Delaware.

The Political Economy of Energy-Corporate-Urban Integration in South Korea.” 1991. Jong-dall Kim. PhD thesis. Winner of the Haskell Award in Political Economy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Petroleum and Structural Change in a Developing Country: The Case of Nigera.” 1987. Peter Olayiwola. New York, Westport, and London: Praeger.
[Peter is a CEEP alum whose dissertation formed the basis for this book.]

Environmentalism, States, and New Social Movements
Liberal democratic assumptions about state and corporate power have been challenged by the burgeoning political influence of civil society, often motivated by the environmental and social costs of industrialization. Environmentalism has given rise to new social movements and expressions of political power that have carried forward more broadly liberating political agendas for democracy and civil rights.

Examples of CEEP research include:
“The Appropriation of the Meaning of Sustainable Development in the U.S.: Understanding One Dimension of Hegemony.” 2003. Raymond Scattone. PhD thesis. Winner of the Haskell Award in Political Economy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Restructuring Political Economy in an Era of Global Energy and Environ- mental Change: Toward a Civil Society Approach to Promote a Climate- Sustainable Future.” 2001. Sun-Jin Yun. PhD thesis. Winner of the Sussman Prize for Best Dissertation in Public Policy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Environmental Protest, the Authoritarian State and Civil Society: The Case of Taiwan.” 1995. Shih-Jung Hsu. PhD thesis. Winner of the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Grassroots Environmentalism and the Empowered Livelihoods Debate
For most of the world’s poor, local environmental resources provide the means for survival. Indigenous peoples, specifically face livelihood challenges as a result of expanding urban-industrial development. Social and environmental failures of conventional development have prompted reforms by international development agencies and by developing nations’ governments. However, omitted from these reforms is consideration of the integrity of indigenous communities and the commons resources these communities have stewarded over hundreds of years.

Examples of CEEP research include:
“Negotiating the Political Economy of Dispossession and Commodification: Reclaiming and Regenerating the Ancestral Domains of the Lumad of Mindanao, Southern Philippines.” 2001. Jessie Manuta. PhD thesis, Winner of the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Delaware.

“Sustainable Development in Theory and Practice: A Case Study of Costa Rica.” 1997. Cesar Cuello. PhD thesis. Winner of the Sussman Prize for Best Dissertation in Public Policy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Towards a Praxis of Sustainable and Empowered Livelihoods: Articulating the Grassroots Standpoint on Environment and Development Using Case Studies of the Namada and Enron Controversies in India.” 1996. Subodh Wagle. PhD thesis. Winner of the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Technological Regimes and Environmental Risk
Technology often creates and reinforces political and economic power, operating and influencing social and political life, with consequences for society and ecology alike. More typically considered as the product of social systems, technology can also powerfully shape social and political choices and serve vested political interests. Many features of contemporary societies are tied to these technological regimes, such as mass consumption, urbanization, automation, the rise of the military-industrial complex, global industrial production, and centralized political power.

Examples of CEEP research include:
Governing the Atom. 1996. John Byrne and Steven M. Hoffman, eds. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers. [Steve is a CEEP alum.]

“Toward Sustainable Development in the Indian Power Sector: A Critique of 50 Years of Power Development in India.” 1997. Chandrasekhar Govindarajalu. PhD thesis. Winner of the Haskell Award in Political Economy in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy, University of Delaware.

“Governing Change in Large Technological Systems: A Political History of Electricity in the United States.” 1992. Andrew Zimmerman. PhD thesis. University of Delaware.

“Technology Relocation and Structural Dependency: The Nigerian Experience with the Petroleum Industry.” 1991. Felix Edoho. PhD thesis. University of Delaware.

Roots of Political Ecology
Historical inquiry into the foundations of political ecology as an ideology, theory, and praxis through critical evaluation of seminal thinkers, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Lewis Mumford. This is an ongoing project of CEEP members with a series of Publications under development.