Adam S. Weinberg

Complexity, Generality, and Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) offers researchers the opportunity to combine the intensiveness of case-oriented research strategies and the extensiveness of variable-oriented approaches in a single framework. QCA is specifically designed for a moderate number of cases, too few for variable-oriented research designs and too many for in-depth, case-oriented analysis. To illustrate QCAs applicability to moderate-sized data sets, we analyze data on forty-one villages in southern India reported in Robert Wades (1988) comparative study of villagewide collective action, Village Republics. Using QCA, we show that Wades explanation of village-wide collective action is incomplete. We complement his strictly ecological explanation with a sociological perspective and show that intervillage competition is an important condition for villagewide collective action.

Sustaining Ecotourism: Insights and Implications from Two Successful Case Studies

We draw on field research from Costa Rica and New Zealand to examine the potential for sustaining ecotourism projects over time. We find that successful ecotourism projects exist in a paradoxical or dialectical system with internal dynamics that tend to speed up the rate of tourism production. This poses a number of ecological, economic, and social problems. In general, the problems are known to local communities and public officials. The challenges are also technologically fixable and economically viable. The obstacles are political. The communities exist in larger political systems that lack the capacity to control economic action. In other words, the political process is not capable of keeping the economic system in check.

The Environmental Justice Movement: Equitable Allocation of the Costs and Benefits of Environmental Management Outcomes

We present a review of theoretical and methodological advances in the social scientific literature on environmental inequality/racism and argue for new directions in research efforts that pay more attention to (1) the historical forces driving environmental justice conflicts; (2) the complex role of stakeholders in these struggles; (3) the role of social inequality, particularly the trade-offs between environmental protection and social equity; and (4) the impact of social movement activity on the state of environmental protection. Drawing on a case study of an environmental justice conflict in the United States, we find that environmental inequality impacts many actors with often contradictory and cross-cutting allegiances. These struggles therefore become a moving drama—a process—rather than a cross-sectional outcome. We conclude with an analysis of environmental inequality on a global scale and argue that the role of transnational capital remains largely untheorized in the literature. We suggest new models for explaining environmental inequalitys causes and consequences.

The Environmental Justice Debate: A Commentary on Methodological Issues and Practical Concerns

Over the last decade, environmental sociology has produced a tremendous stream of research pertaining to environmental justice issues. In general, we now know that low income groups and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic wastes. In this paper, I argue that future research requires a shift in methodological approach. Learning how groups come to be exposed to toxic wastes requires an understanding of the organizational processes that shape decisions regarding production practices and regulatory enforcement strategies. I conclude by making three claims: (1) Documenting that disempowered groups are exposed to toxic wastes more than other groups is important. Disentangling whether race or class matters more is more dubious. (2) If we want to make claims about process, we should study process and not outcomes. (3) Insofar as we have to study outcomes, we should be more aware of which outcomes we want to study and what types of inferences we are able to draw from outcomes.

Legitimating Impotence: Pyrrhic Victories of the Modern Environmental Movement

The strengths and limitations of the modern environmental movement are assessed, using a contextual analysis, with a framework drawn from pragmatic analysis. Empirical summaries from recent policy-making supported by the movement: in community-based recycling, local toxic waste movements, and water pollution control document the fact that the movement has indeed developed some “sustainable resistance” in policy-making in the U.S. and at the Rio Conference. But it has also ignored those consequences of “environmental protection” which degrade the living conditions for many people of color and other low-income groups. The movements failure to form enduring coalitions for linking environmental protection to social justice limits the movements power, by permitting disempowered groups to be mobilized in opposition to environmental protection. We outline an alternative strategy, built around “sustainable legitimacy”, which will require changes in the composition and program of environmental movement organizations.

The University and the Hamlets Revitalizing Low-Income Communities Through University Outreach and Community Visioning Exercises

To what extent can a university be a resource in the revitalization of a low-income community? This article explores an effort by Colgate University to enhance economic development in two low-income hamlets in Central New York through community visioning programs. Community visioning is a process that helps communities identify indigenous assets and use them to develop action plans for community development. The author argues that Colgate has been instrumental in three respects: (a) by making the process knowable and doable; (b) by playing the needed role of outsider, which helped the community to progress beyond internal political divides; and (c) by involving students, which changed the social interactions, increasing both the depth and breath of public participation. The author presents ethnographic and interview data and finishes by arguing that universities are better suited to playing these roles than are government agencies, nonprofits, and private consultants.

The environmental justice debate: New agendas for a third generation of research

Environmental justice has become a major focus of research within the environmental social sciences. Early studies mostly examined the unequal distribution of natural resource hazards in an advanced capitalist political‐economy. More recent studies have quantitatively gauged the relationship between sociodemographic factors and exposure to toxic chemical pollution. In this article, I use presentations at the recent meetings of the American Sociological Association (Toronto, August 1997) to suggest where the third generation of research into environmental justice may be heading. The literature is at a crossroads. We know enough to argue that there is a problem, but we cannot clearly articulate relationships, causation, or policy demands. New research techniques and social theories may begin to allow us to accomplish these more ambitious tasks.

Distinguishing among green businesses: Growth, green, and anomie

Environmental social scientists have yet to deal with the growing phenomenon of green businesses. In particular, we need to have some response to the notion that green businesses are significant enough to require a shift in public policy support for enhancing their proliferation. We cannot do this, however, unless we have a better sense of what constitutes a “green business. “ I argue that one way to do this is by dimensionalizing green businesses. One way to dimensionalize green businesses is by how they manage the anomie that arises as organizations attempt to meet ecological goals with market means. The strategies that businesses develop to deal with anomie reveals central issues about how green ideas have been embedded within the organization.

The University: An Agent of Social Change?

Can universities be agents of progressive social change? How would we know if a university was acting as an agent of social change? Drawing on four case studies, I raise a number of questions to problematize our understanding of the university as an agent of social change. I outline a number of contributing factors that appear to explain successful cases. I conclude by arguing the relevancy of these cases for larger, and more traditional, sociological projects.

Environmental sociology and the environmental movement: Towards a theory of pragmatic relationships of critical inquiry

This article explores the question of: what is the relationship between environmental sociology and the environmental movement? In addition to the historical strong links between the two, both have grown tremendously in the last decade. This poses an interesting challenge/problem of practice for environmental sociology. Drawing on the American Pragmatist Movement, I argue that one possible relationship between the subdiscipline and the movement is that of critical inquirers, who constantly rewrite and revise the dominant signs and symbols of the movement, harnessing the vibrant intellectual community and rich research traditions of environmental sociology to enter into a grounded discourse that prevents the movement from becoming stale and/or oppressive, to pull from inventories of stored tools to construct new social spaces to occupy and ways to get there when the old spaces are no longer recognized as adequate, and to forge ahead of the movement, identifying prejudices, barriers, and unforeseen problems of past, current, or future actions.