Arthur P J Mol
Biographic Data
| ID | 222723 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Arthur P J Mol |
| GIVEN NAMES | Arthur P J |
| FAMILY NAME | Mol |
| SIGNATURE | MOL A P J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wageningen University & Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4446-2595 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 96 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 810 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 92 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The Ecological Modernisation Reader: Environmental reform in theory and practice
Environmental reform by (inter)governmental agencies, private firms and industries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is a worldwide phenomenon. This definitive collection showcases an introduction to Ecological Modernisation Theory; state-of-the-art review essays by key international scholars and a selection of the key articles from a quarter-century of social science scholarship. It is aimed at students, researchers and policymakers inte…
Ecological Modernisation Reader: Environmental Reform in Theory and Practice
Decoupling livestock and crop production at the household level in China
Breaching the black box: The role of ramps in Thai sustainable palm oil certification
Certification of sustainable palm oil as organised through the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil is based on a simplified understanding of the global palm oil value chain – according to which instructions about production practices can be directly translated from the palm oil mill to the primary producer. The reality of palm oil provision is much more complex than this as is shown in the case of Thailand. On the basis of qualitative field study…
Experimenting with a novel technology for provision of safe drinking water in rural Bangladesh: The case of sub-surface arsenic removal (SAR)
Pesticide use practices among smallholder vegetable farmers in Ethiopian Central Rift Valley
Pesticide use is a common practice to control pests and diseases in vegetable cultivation, but often at the expense of the environment and human health. This article studies pesticide-buying and use practices among smallholder vegetable farmers in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, using a practice perspective. Through in-depth interviews and observations, data were collected from a sample of farmers, suppliers and key governmental actors. The …
Living under the dome: Individual strategies against air pollution in Beijing
Governance of agro-pesticide through private environmental and social standards in the global cut flower chain from Ethiopia
E-participation for environmental sustainability in transitional urban China
Revealing Curitiba's flawed sustainability: How discourse can prevent institutional change
Transparency
Transparency has gained in prominence and power since the 1960s, especially in holding economic and political powers accountable. The information and communications technology revolution only strengthened and internationalized this. With increasing power, however, transparency has also become an instrument of these powers. As such, transparency has lost its innocence of being of undisputable value for civil society
The environmental nation state in decline
The environmental nation state is not a formal category but a substantive one. The current set of national environmental state institutions originated in the late 1960s/1970s but has since changed in character. Many scholars note that since the new millennium, the environmental nation state in OECD countries is losing power and authority and is thus in decline, in line with wider concerns about the positions of states versus markets under conditi…
Ecological modernization theory
Transparency and information disclosure in China's environmental governance
Managing plastic waste in East Africa: Niche innovations in plastic production and solid waste
Paving the way for farm animal welfare in international relations: An EU–Brazil case study
As a sensitive area in international trade, animal welfare measures have encountered resistance in negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Consequently, alternative avenues have been pursued to reach international trade policy convergence. To further understand the contemporary trade politics of animal welfare, an empirical investigation was conducted on the interplay between European and Brazilian actors in the context of livestock p…
Towards a global environmental sociology? Legacies, trends and future directions
A current debate on environmental sociology involves how the subdiscipline should conceptualise and investigate the environment and whether it should be prescriptive and deliver policy recommendations. Taking this debate as a point of departure this article discusses the current and future role of sociology in a globalised world. It discusses how environmental sociology in the US and Europe differ in their understandings of sociology's contributi…
Governing the Organic Cocoa Network from Ghana: Towards Hybrid Governance Arrangements
In this paper, we examine the processes of initiation, construction and transformation of the organic cocoa network from Ghana. We address in particular how the state responded to and engaged with civil-society actors in the organic cocoa network and to what extent state involvement reshaped state-business-civil society relations? While most of the literature argues that globalization and liberalization processes weakened the state's position as …
Governing in a placeless environment: Sustainability and fish aggregating devices
Low carbon rural housing provision in China: Participation and decision making
Comparison of environmental performance for different waste management scenarios in East Africa: The case of Kampala City, Uganda
Managing Manure from China’s Pigs and Poultry: The Influence of Ecological Rationality
Environmental Pollution Liability Insurance in China: In Need of Strong Government Backing
Social sustainability of Brazilian biodiesel: The role of agricultural cooperatives
Bounded Biofuels? Sustainability of Global Biogas Developments
Compared to liquid biofuels biogas has hardly drawn any attention from social sciences researchers lately. Although the share of biogas and liquid biofuels in the energy portfolio of many countries are comparable, biogas systems are strongly place-based and are non-controversial in terms of sustainability. But is that a fundamental distinction between the two biofuel systems; or is it just a matter of time before biogas becomes globally integrate…
Sociology, environment, and modernity: Ecological modernization as a theory of social change
To minimize or at least substantially reduce damage to the natural resource sustenance‐base we urgently need institutional reform within modern society. Environmental sociologists have different views as to which institutional traits can be held primarily responsible for the environmental crisis. Examples include its capitalistic or industrial character as well as the complex, highly administrated technological system of modern society. We discus…
Ecological modernisation and institutional reflexivity: Environmental reform in the late modern age
In contrast to the early 1970s, in the early 1990s the environment does not seem to wither away from public and political agendas and even seems to be entering the 'economic agenda'. It can be hypothesised that the environment is on its way to becoming a crucial factor in the widely discussed transformation of modernity. To what extent do environmental considerations and interests contribute - or may contribute in the future - to the restructurin…
The environmental movement in an era of ecological modernisation
Ecological Modernization and the Global Economy
This paper explores what an ecological modernization perspective has to offer in an era marked by globalization. Globalization processes and dynamics are mostly seen as detrimental to the environment. The point that an ecological modernization perspective puts on the research agenda is that, although global capitalism has not been beaten and continues to show its devastating environmental effects in all corners of the world, we are moving beyond …
China's environmental governance in transition
In the face of unprecedented economic and industrial growth levels, China is rapidly developing its system of environmental governance. Coming from a conventional command-and-control approach to environmental policy, which fitted well its centrally planned economy, transitional China is swiftly reforming and diversifying its environmental approaches, instruments, arrangements and legal regulations. This article aims to grasp and assess the direct…
Environment, Modernity and the Risk-Society: The Apocalyptic Horizon of Environmental Reform
The apocalyptic dimension of the ecological situation seems to emerge in the present-day environmental debate. But in contrast to the early seventies, eco-alarmism in its present form seems to reflect growing uncertainties and anxieties related to the changing character of late modern society. Such uncertainties and anxieties do not only pertain to high-consequence risks, as exemplified by the Chernobyl accident, but also to local problems of pro…
Greening global consumption: Redefining politics and authority
Boundless Biofuels? Between Environmental Sustainability and Vulnerability
Biofuels currently appear to be one of the major controversies in the agriculture/environment nexus, not unlike genetically modified organisms. While some countries (such as Brazil) have for quite some time supported successful large-scale programmes to improve the production and consumption of biofuels, policy-makers and research institutions in most developed and developing countries have only recently turned their attention to biofuels. Threat…
China's ascent and Africa's environment
Ecological modernisation around the world: An introduction
Many contemporary environmental social scientists and commentators suggest that a major turn occurred in the 1980s with regard to the continuing undermining of sustenance bases of western industrial societies. The Brundtland report [WCED, 1987] is often denoted as the codification of that transformation, which was marked by other historical events as well, including the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Beyond…
The environmental nation state in decline
The environmental nation state is not a formal category but a substantive one. The current set of national environmental state institutions originated in the late 1960s/1970s but has since changed in character. Many scholars note that since the new millennium, the environmental nation state in OECD countries is losing power and authority and is thus in decline, in line with wider concerns about the positions of states versus markets under conditi…
The Future of Transparency: Power, Pitfalls and Promises
The growing attention to transparency is not an accidental and fashionable wave, soon to be replaced by another timely topic in environmental governance. Transparency is here to stay and to further develop in environmental politics, as it piggy-backs on a number of wider social developments. In assessing the achievements of transparency to date, this article concludes that it has on balance been positive for democracy. But this overall positive p…
Environment and Modernity in Transitional China: Frontiers of Ecological Modernization
The process of institutionalizing environmental interests and considerations in Western (especially, but not only, European) industrialized societies has been reflected and theorized upon by social scientists, many of whom have adopted the ‘ecological modernization’ framework. One of the key questions on the research agenda of ecological modernization is its appropriateness for developing or industrializing countries in other parts of the world. …
Small island developing states and international climate change negotiations: The power of moral “leadership”
Carbon flows, carbon markets, and low-carbon lifestyles: Reflecting on the Role of Markets in Climategovernance
The role of carbon markets in governing global carbon flows triggers substantial debates among policymakers, social movements and social scientists. The present debate on carbon markets is different from the earlier debate on market-based instruments in environmental politics. Carbon markets represent both more radical and more risky forms of governing global carbon flows, as illustrated by an analysis of both regulatory and voluntary carbon mark…
Globalization and the Transformation of Environmental Governance: An Introduction
In this introduction, the editors suggest a framework for the study of globalization and environmental governance, review important contemporary developments in supranational environmental governance, and introduce individual contributions to the special issue. Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton's distinction between hyperglobalist, skeptical, and transformationalist perspectives on dynamics of globalization is useful in the study of the trans…
E-participation for environmental sustainability in transitional urban China
Assessing urban recycling in low- and middle-income countries: Building on modernised mixtures
China and the environment: Domestic and transnational dynamics of a future hegemon
This article identifies the central themes that emerge from this issue regarding the development of environmental governance in China. In several respects China appears to be adopting a familiar Western model, including the emergence of more progressive environmental policies, expanding environmental capacities, a shift from regulation to governance and an increasing role for civil society. Yet China retains distinctive features, notably the cent…
Environmental authorities and biofuel controversies
The current generation of crop-based biofuels is heavily contested for its negative consequences for the environment and the poor. Hence, the current biofuel system needs to be transformed in the direction of what can be labelled ‘fair fuels’: (bio)fuels that are environmentally and socially sustainable. Conventional state environmental authorities have limited power and legitimacy to effectively regulate the sustainability of current global biof…
Urban environmental governance innovations in China
Ecological Modernization and Consumption: A Reply
This contribution balances Carolan's claim that ecological modernization perspectives fall short in adequately dealing with consumption, by referring to four major points. First, Carolan misinterprets ecological modernization where he claims that this perspective only argues for more production (and consumption). Second, Carolan is wrong in stating that ecological modernization has basically neglected issues of consumption as it has been part and…
Transparency and information disclosure in China's environmental governance
Towards a global environmental sociology? Legacies, trends and future directions
A current debate on environmental sociology involves how the subdiscipline should conceptualise and investigate the environment and whether it should be prescriptive and deliver policy recommendations. Taking this debate as a point of departure this article discusses the current and future role of sociology in a globalised world. It discusses how environmental sociology in the US and Europe differ in their understandings of sociology's contributi…
Social sustainability of Brazilian biodiesel: The role of agricultural cooperatives
Developments in Economic Valuation of Environmental Resources in Centrally Planned Economies
Environmental policy in centrally planned economies is nowadays based mainly on administrative measures, such as licences and standards. The realisation of environmental targets by physical planning, management, and regulation alone, however, is falling short of expectations. For that reason, economists in centrally planned economies have recently put forward various proposals for using economic mechanisms in environmental policy based on the eco…
Sociology, environment, and modernity: Ecological modernization as a theory of social change
To minimize or at least substantially reduce damage to the natural resource sustenance‐base we urgently need institutional reform within modern society. Environmental sociologists have different views as to which institutional traits can be held primarily responsible for the environmental crisis. Examples include its capitalistic or industrial character as well as the complex, highly administrated technological system of modern society. We discus…
Environment, Modernity and the Risk-Society: The Apocalyptic Horizon of Environmental Reform
The apocalyptic dimension of the ecological situation seems to emerge in the present-day environmental debate. But in contrast to the early seventies, eco-alarmism in its present form seems to reflect growing uncertainties and anxieties related to the changing character of late modern society. Such uncertainties and anxieties do not only pertain to high-consequence risks, as exemplified by the Chernobyl accident, but also to local problems of pro…
Ecological modernisation and institutional reflexivity: Environmental reform in the late modern age
In contrast to the early 1970s, in the early 1990s the environment does not seem to wither away from public and political agendas and even seems to be entering the 'economic agenda'. It can be hypothesised that the environment is on its way to becoming a crucial factor in the widely discussed transformation of modernity. To what extent do environmental considerations and interests contribute - or may contribute in the future - to the restructurin…
Ecological modernization: Industrial transformations and environmental reform
Environment and Global Modernity
Taking a global perspective, this book argues that we can only make sense of environmental issues if we consider them as part of a more encompassing process of social transformation
Ecological modernisation theory in debate: A review
Ecological Modernisation Theory has been faced with various challenges from different theoretical perspectives throughout the years. This contribution reviews the various debates ecological modernisation ideas have been engaged in. The article starts with a historical perspective on some of the earlier debates that paralleled Ecological Modernisation from its birth in the early 1980s to its maturation. These initial debates with earlier neo‐Marxi…
The environmental movement in an era of ecological modernisation
Developing countries: Ecological modernisation theory and industrialising economies: The case of Viet Nam
As Ecological Modernisation Theory has been developed against the background of European industrialised societies, the value and applicability of Ecological Modernisation Theory for developing or industrialising economies is often questioned. This article explores this controversy by taking Viet Nam as a case study. The analysis of environmental restructuring of contemporary economic developments in Viet Nam focuses on three major issues: state‐m…
Ecological modernisation around the world: An introduction
Many contemporary environmental social scientists and commentators suggest that a major turn occurred in the 1980s with regard to the continuing undermining of sustenance bases of western industrial societies. The Brundtland report [WCED, 1987] is often denoted as the codification of that transformation, which was marked by other historical events as well, including the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Beyond…
Globalization and Environmental Reform: Globalization and Environmental Reform
Ecological Modernisation around the World: Perspectives and Critical Debates
The Environmental State Under Pressure
The environmental state under pressure: an introduction / Arthur P.J. Mol and Frederick H. Buttel -- The treadmill of production and the environmental state / Allan Schnaiberg, David N. Pellow and Adam Weinberg -- Ecological modernization and the environmental state / Arthur P.J. Mol and Gert Spaargaren -- From the treadmill of production to ecological modernization? Applying a Habermasian framework to society-environment relationships / Dana R. …
The Environmental State Under Pressure (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy)
viii, 267 p. : 23 cm
The Netherlands in the UNFCCC Process –Leadership between Ambition and Reality
Ecological Modernization and the Global Economy
This paper explores what an ecological modernization perspective has to offer in an era marked by globalization. Globalization processes and dynamics are mostly seen as detrimental to the environment. The point that an ecological modernization perspective puts on the research agenda is that, although global capitalism has not been beaten and continues to show its devastating environmental effects in all corners of the world, we are moving beyond …
Globalization and the Transformation of Environmental Governance: An Introduction
In this introduction, the editors suggest a framework for the study of globalization and environmental governance, review important contemporary developments in supranational environmental governance, and introduce individual contributions to the special issue. Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton's distinction between hyperglobalist, skeptical, and transformationalist perspectives on dynamics of globalization is useful in the study of the trans…
Ecological Modernization, Governance, and Globalization: Epilogue
Participation and Environmental Governance: Consensus, Ambivalence and Debate
During the past four decades the governance of environmental problems – the definition of issues and their political and practical resolution – has evolved to include a wider range of stakeholders in more extensive open discussions. In the introduction to this issue of Environmental Values on ‘Environment, Policy and Participation’, we outline some features of these recent developments in participatory environmental governance, indicate some key …
Joint Environmental Policymaking in Europe: Between Deregulation and Political Modernization
The 1990s witnessed a debate on public-private partnerships and more consensual environmental policymaking to repair the "state failure" in conventional environmental regulation. One of the consequences in Europe has been new environmental policy arrangements that stand out by being both jointly formulated and/or implemented by the state and private actors and by having a voluntary element: joint environmental policymaking (JEP). Two questions ar…
Global institutional clashes: Economic versus environmental regimes
Most globalization scholars identify negative consequences for the environment in the neo-liberal orientation in current economic globalization processes. But at the same time, we can witness constant efforts at the supra-national level to institutionalize environmental interests and considerations in new institutions, arrangements and regimes. Many of the multilateral environmental arrangements give evidence of such developments. This paper aims…
Joint Environmental Policymaking in Europe: Between Deregulation and Political Modernization
The 1990s witnessed a debate on public-private partnerships and more consensual environmental policymaking to repair the "state failure" in conventional environmental regulation. One of the consequences in Europe has been new environmental policy arrangements that stand out by being both jointly formulated and/or implemented by the state and private actors and by having a voluntary element: joint environmental policymaking (JEP). Two questions ar…
Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Vol. 10: The Environmental State under Pressure
Material Flow and Ecological Restructuring in China: The Case of Phosphorus
Environmental problems are closely related to society' processing of materials through the entire economy. Because neither traditional environmental nor economic analytical methods can provide sufficient insight into the physical dimension of economies, this article presents an integrated methodology, combining a substance flow analysis (SFA) approach and an ecological restructuring analysis. This approach is applied to phosphorus (P) in China, o…
Communities as informal regulators: New arrangements in industrial pollution control in Viet Nam
A number of studies in developing countries show that in the absence of strict environmental regulation and strong enforcement, communities have emerged as a new informal regulators. In Viet Nam local communities in some cases are successful in forcing industrial polluters to reduce pollution or to change production processes into more environmentally sound directions. New subpolitical arrangements are formed, involving innovative relations betwe…
Political science (68 works) · Economics (59 works) · Business (43 works) · Sociology (36 works) · Law (33 works) · Politics (33 works) · Ecology (30 works) · Geography (29 works) · China (24 works) · Economic system (24 works)