عنوان

A Theoretical Integration and Structural Equation Model of the Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability of Nations

T670

انگلیسی

A Theoretical Integration and Structural Equation Model of the Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability of Nations

[Thesis]

;supervisor: Kick, Edward L.

North Carolina State University: United States -- North Carolina

: 2012

214 Pages

Ph.D.

In the current context of environmental crises such as global warming and biodiversity loss, and economic and social problems including poverty, war, and hunger, sustainability advocates seek solutions that simultaneously address environmental, economic, and social dimensions in favorable ways. Implicit to this approach is an interdisciplinary framework that draws upon relevant perspectives on the causal relationships among these three dimensions. While sociological theorizations are virtually absent of a sustainability emphasis, dominant approaches in the large literature on development--its causal antecedents, effects, and related outcomes--serve as the point of departure for these investigations. These theories are supplemented with fundamental laws of nature taken from physical and natural science models in order to advance theory and empirics of sustainability in the sociological literature. The empirical assessment centers on conceptualization of the environmental dimension in ways that permit statistical analysis. Specifically, the synthesis of social, physical, and natural science models that theoretically inform the dissertation are applied as well to advance conceptualization of entropy that is at odds with environmental sustainability. Entropy is an under-utilized concept in the sociological literature on the environment that refers to unavailable matter and energy. Virtually all environmental degradation outcomes of interest commonly treated in the environmental sociology literature are symptomatic of general ecological disorder, or entropy. Drawing upon global political-economic approaches in sociology and related comparative analyses, a series of empirical assessments of causal models representative of the theoretically-derived relationships are offered in the context of entropic disorder. The results of this study confirm the theoretical and empirical benefits of assuming an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability. The theoretical benefits include specificity of precisely what constitutes environmental quality and its decline; findings support a number of key mechanisms identified in the sociological literature that are not supported when empirical tests fail to assume an interdisciplinary approach. Thus, there is promise to overcome anomalies in the cross-national literature in environmental sociology by incorporating these important strands of related theorizations. Findings also reveal the empirical benefits of using structural equation modeling techniques, which allow researchers to appropriately specify and test complex hypotheses--such as those derived from the integration of social, physical, and natural science models--that predict independent variables affect each other and the outcome in both direct and indirect ways. Findings reveal there are social and economic drivers of ecosystem vulnerability and resilience; these findings are uncovered from the interdisciplinary approach adopted in the analyses. Conclusions include the heightened ecosystem vulnerability resulting from positions of power in the world-system that boost modernization, which in turn compromises environmental sustainability. As well, certain forms of economic globalization are found to be at odds with environmental sustainability. Prolonged bouts of conflict and biocapacity losses are also at odds with social and environmental sustainability, and these two legs of sustainability are found to complement each other in the ways identified by the U.N. approach to sustainability. To sum, the empirical assessments uphold the synchronistic nature of two pillars of sustainability (social and environmental), but consistently find the current model of economic production and trends of economic globalization therein threaten environmental sustainability.

Social research

Sustainability

Social sciences

Entropy

Social sustainability

Environmental sustainability

Economic sustainability

Cross-national

Structural equation model

McKinney, Laura Ann

Kick, Edward L., supervisor

TL670.pdf

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