Jamie Sommer
Biographic Data
| ID | 4148182 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jamie Sommer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jamie |
| FAMILY NAME | Sommer |
| SIGNATURE | SOMMER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Florida |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4050-6949 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Coping with Climate Change: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Irrigation Technology Outcomes in Gujarat, India
Previous research on climate change interventions highlights that adaptation and mitigation strategies must be tailored to local contexts to effectively benefit both people and the environment. However, there remains a gap in analyzing the effectiveness of locally specific climate-related technologies in enhancing food security, improving livelihoods, and addressing social dimensions such as women’s autonomy. The authors address that gap by drawi…
The Treadmill of Deconstruction: How Educational Power Can Combat Climate Change
While higher levels of education are typically associated with more environmental concern, and there is widespread concern for protecting the environment globally, there is less research on how educational spending impacts CO 2 emissions. We aim to assess how national education spending per student impacts CO 2 emissions. To examine this, we estimate a two-way fixed effects regression model with robust standard errors clustered by country and fin…
The effectiveness of environmental technologies in combating climate change: A cross National Analysis
Previous research finds a mixed relationship between environmental outcomes and technology. Despite this growing focus on technology’s capacity to mitigate environmental harms, less work has examined the impact that governance may have on such outcomes. To fill this gap in the literature, we use two-way fixed-effects (FE) linear regression with an AR(1) disturbance and Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimation with Panel Corrected Standard Error…
Cash for Conservation? The Environmental State, Public Payment for Ecosystem Services Programs, and Forest Loss in Low- and Middle-Income Nations
The authors draw on environmental state theory to inform this study, examining the relationship between public payment for ecosystem services programs and forest loss from 2001 to 2015 in low- and middle-income nations. The authors analyze data for a sample of 79 low- and middle-income nations using a two-stage fractional regression model to address the potential issue of endogeneity on the public payment for ecosystem services program measures. …
Does societal engagement impact CO2 emissions? A cross-national analysis
India, Repression, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange of Wood
A recent cross-national article by Sommer, Restivo, and Shandra finds that wood exports to India from peripheral nations are related to levels of forest loss in the peripheral nations. While it suggests new insights into how semi-peripheral nations engage in ecologically unequal exchange, we contend this finding is incomplete and offers only a partial explanation of forest loss. We draw on Evans’s idea of a “triple alliance” to argue that in an e…
Property and Pa-Tree-Archy: A Cross-National Analysis of Gendered Rights and Forest Loss in Low- and Middle-Income Nations
Although previous studies have examined the causes of deforestation from a cross-national, quantitative perspective, these studies tend to neglect the role of women in mitigating forest loss. Yet, evidence from case studies shows that when women own land they tend to protect forests, replant trees, and engage in agricultural practices that place less pressure on forests. Building on this work, we use ordinary least squares regression models to an…
Does Freedom of Domestic Movement Impact Forest Loss? A Cross-National Analysis
On the one hand, previous research argues that growth in rural populations leads to forest loss from clearing trees to make room for the growing population and their farming needs. On the other hand, research is also concerned with how deforestation drives people out of rural areas, leading to overurbanization. From this work, it is clear that the movement of people has an important relationship to forest loss, but it is less clear what the auton…
Democracy, accountability, and forest loss: A cross-national analysis of low- and middle-income nations
The existing cross-national research on democracy and forest loss has produced contradictory results. On the one hand, some studies find that democracy is related to less forest loss because of electoral accountability and guaranteeing political rights and civil liberties. On the other hand, studies find that democracy is related to increased forest loss in low- and middle-income nations because leaders promote policies that prioritize economic g…
Environmentally Related Taxes and Forest Loss: A Cross-National Analysis of Low- and Middle-Income Nations
In recent years, environmental state theory has argued that nations have implemented laws and regulations along with spending money on conservation to address environmental problems. However, questions remain about the effectiveness of such policies. The authors draw on environmental state theory to frame this study in which they examine if higher levels of environmentally related forestry taxes correspond with lower levels of forest loss in low-…
Nongovernmental organizations, collective payments for ecosystem services programs, and forest loss: A cross‐national analysis
Objective We evaluate the debate concerning the impact of collective nongovernmental organization payment for ecosystem services on forest loss in low‐ and middle‐income nations. Methods We analyze data for a sample of 79 low‐ and middle‐income nations using a two‐stage least squares regression model to address endogeneity on the payment for ecosystem services variable. Results We find that collective nongovernmental organization led payment for …
Environmental Spending and Forest Loss
Since the early 2000s, environmental-state research has focused on the unique capacity and positionality of the state to address environmental degradation and sustainability. More recently, there has been a call in the literature to consider empirically how the environmental state has impacted the environment cross-nationally. We respond to this call by testing the hypothesis that more government spending for environmental protections corresponds…
The ESG Onramp: From Organized Hypocrisy to Normative Practice
ESG can be described as the environmental, social, and governance practices institutionalized by companies over time. Much of the previous literature in this area cites these “pro-social” corporate restructuring, re-branding, or policy changes as emerging from scrutiny, or pressures from a company's stakeholders, shareholders, peers, and the public to incorporate more transparency, equity, environmental protection, and social responsibility in it…
Connecting Bureaucratic Structures to Forest Loss
In this article, we link ideas from Evans concerning embedded autonomy to forest loss. In doing so, we hypothesize that higher levels of meritocratic hiring, firing, and promotion decisions in a government’s bureaucracy should correspond to less forest loss in low- and middle-income nations. We test this hypothesis by analyzing data from 78 low- and middle-income nations with ordinary least squares regression and two-stage instrumental variable r…
Comparison of Covid-19 home-testers vs. laboratory-testers in New York State (excluding New York City), November 2021 to April 2022
Background: Though the use of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) home testing kits is increasing, individuals who use home tests are not accounted for in publicly reported COVID-19 metrics. As the pandemic and the methods for tracking cases evolve, it is critical to understand who the individuals excluded are, due to their use of home testing kits, relative to those included in the reported metrics. Methods: Five New York State databases were li…
Narratives of Environmentalism in National Laws
For several decades, national environmental framework laws have come into existence to define its citizens’ environmental rights and duties, as well as express how the government will manage and protect the environment. However, previous research has not considered how a nation’s highest form of law promising environmental protection and management conveys its role or supports relevant parties. To fill this gap, we do a narrative analysis to see …
Climate Change Policies and Control of Corruption: A Cross-National Analysis of CO2 Emissions
Given current climate change issues, scholars have recently focused on how different adaptation and mitigation policies may be effective at improving the environment. On the one hand, researchers argue that climate change policies will help reduce environmental problems like CO 2 emissions due to their focus on green energy and markets. On the other hand, many argue that these policies are too small in scope, reformist, and do not address the und…
Corruption and Palm Oil in a Cross-National Perspective: How India Contributes to Forest Loss in Peripheral Nations
Drawing on the ecologically unequal exchange theory, we assess whether palm oil exports from peripheral nations to India are related to increased forest loss in the peripheral nations in the context of petty and grand corruption, which has not been done before. We go on to build upon previous cross-national work by examining if petty and grand corruption interacts with the ecologically unequal exchange of palm exports from peripheral nations to I…
Government revenue composition and forest loss: A cross‐national study of low‐ and middle‐income nations
Introduction We draw on social contract theory and resource curse literatures to assess the relationship between government revenue composition and forest loss in low‐ and middle‐income nations that collect higher levels of revenues from a broad base of individuals and companies should have less forest loss. Methods We use two‐stage instrumental variable regression models to test how a government's revenue source impacts forest loss for a sample …
Clientelism and Forest loss in a Macro-Comparative perspective
For several decades, cross-national scholars have aimed to understand why democracy tends to be related to increased forest loss, despite theory suggesting the exact opposite directional relationship. Recently, Sanford (2021 Sanford, L. 2021. “Democratization, Elections, and Public Goods: The Evidence from Deforestation.” American Journal of Political Science doi: 10.1111/ajps.12662.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) fin…
Building Something Better: Environmental Crises and the Promise of Community Change
The impacts of corruption on forest loss: A review of cross‐national trends
This research lays out the debates and contradictory findings regarding the impacts of corruption on forest loss in a cross‐national context, specifically in low‐ and middle‐income nations. After, I describe how these inconsistent findings may be due to difficulties in untangling the complexities of corruption definitionally and then operationalizing it in a cross‐national context. Then, I review the advances in corruption data collection and mea…
Gender-mainstreaming, governance, and the environment: An analysis of forest loss
Gender mainstreaming is the push in international governance and development to use women’s empowerment, inclusion and labor to be more inclusive and help solve development issues. Research has found that when women are involved in projects, environmental outcomes are more likely to succeed. Over the past 30 years, environmental bilateral development aid has been increasing. Extant research has theorized the relationship between environmental aid…
Governing trade: A cross-national study of governance, trade, and CO2 emissions
Defend women’s rights and save the trees: A cross-national analysis of women’s immovable property rights and forest loss
Appetite for Destruction? China, Ecologically Unequal Exchange, and Forest Loss
We test the hypothesis from the theory of ecologically unequal exchange that agricultural exports to China are related to increased forest loss in low- and middle-income nations exporting to it. We do so by analyzing data for 75 low- and middle-income nations using ordinary least squares regression. We find support for our hypothesis that flows of agricultural exports from low- and middle-income nations to China are related to increased forest lo…
Grand and petty corruption: A cross-national analysis of forest loss in low- and middle-income nations
Cross-national research that examines the impact of corruption on forest loss has yielded contradictory findings. These findings may be due to the use of aggregate measures of corruption. I use newly available data to examine how grand corruption in the executive branch and petty corruption in the public sector impacts the change in forest loss from 2001 to 2014. The specific question of this research concerns whether both petty corruption in the…
World society and the natural environment
We review the world society approach to explaining macrohistorical change generally and as it relates to the natural environment specifically. Our review includes work describing the rise of the environmental world society as well as empirical evidence of the consequences of national ties to world society for policy adoption, practices, and individual attitudes at the national level. Additionally, we suggest the application of world society theor…
The United States Agency for International Development and forest loss: A cross-national analysis of environmental aid
Among scholars of international development, there is a debate regarding the effectiveness of bilateral aid to improve the natural environment. Here we focus on evaluating whether United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) aid in the environmental sector reduces forest loss. Little empirical evidence exists on this question, partly because of the challenge of modeling such a relationship, given the problem of endogeneity whereby…
Building Something Better: Environmental Crises and the Promise of Community Change
Corrupting Ecologically Unequal Exchange? India and Forest Loss in a Cross-National Perspective
Drawing on ecologically unequal exchange theory and previous cross-national research, the authors assess whether wood exports from peripheral nations to India are related to increased forest loss in the exporting nations. The authors also build on this perspective by assessing if corruption interacts with the ecologically unequal exchange of wood exports to India. In this regard, the authors hypothesize that corruption creates an 'institutional c…
India, Palm Oil, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: A Cross-national Analysis of Forest Loss
Drawing on ecologically unequal exchange theory and previous research, we assess whether palm exports from low- and middle-income nations to India increase forest loss in exporting nations. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for a sample of 91 low- and middle-income nations, we find support for our main hypothesis that palm exports sent from low- and middle-income nations to India are related to increased forest loss in the exporting n…
China, Mining, and Forests: A Cross-National Test of Ecologically Unequal Exchange
Previous research suggests that China’s growing demand for minerals may adversely impact the natural environment in nations that export mining products to China. However, we are not aware of cross-national research that empirically tests if forest loss in low- and middle-income nations corresponds with their mineral exports being sent to China. Therefore, drawing on ecologically unequal exchange theory and previous research, we assess whether min…
Aiding fossil fuel dependency: A cross-national analysis of energy sector aid, national autonomy, and CO2 emissions in 122 nations
In the past two decades, sociological research has flourished on the environmental impact of global financial flows from wealthy to poorer nations. The majority of this research, however, focuses on private financial flows such as foreign direct investment or World Bank lending. By contrast, this study examines how public aid dollars (energy sector foreign development aid) contributes to environmental degradation in developing nations. We also ex…
The World Bank, contradictory lending, and forests: A cross-national analysis of organized hypocrisy
This article draws on the theory of organized hypocrisy to test the hypothesis that World Bank lending in different sectors has contradictory impacts on forests. The authors use ordinary least squares regression to analyze newly available satellite imagery data on forest loss from 2001 to 2014 for a sample of 89 low and middle income nations. The analysis finds support for the theory of organized hypocrisy. The results indicate that World Bank st…
Do China’s Environmental Gains at Home Fuel Forest Loss Abroad: A Cross-National Analysis
The theory and empirical research on ecologically unequal exchange serves as the starting point for this study. We expand the research frontier it in a novel way by applying the theory to China and empirically testing if forestry export flows from low-and middle-income nations to China are related to increased forest loss in the exporting nations. In doing so, we analyze data for 75 low-and middle-income nations using ordinary least squares regre…
The Factors that Drive Forestry Export Ties: A Network Perspective
Forestry exports are considered one of the major drivers of forest loss worldwide, especially for developing nations. Building on these insights, this article considers the factors that explain forestry flows using a network perspective. Using network data from measuring forestry export flows between all nations from 1997 to 2012, this article offers an explanation for what factors contribute to the network ties of exporting nations in the global…
State Spending and Governance: A Cross-National Analysis of Forest Loss in Developing Nations
Conservationists and academics have long investigated the factors that impact forest loss in low- and middle-income nations. Characteristics of the state, namely state spending, may impact forest loss in low- and middle-income nations, although this relationship has been understudied and the limited research that exists has yielded contradictory results. I begin by reevaluating the relationship between state spending and forest loss using robust …
Government revenue composition and forest loss: A cross‐national study of low‐ and middle‐income nations
Introduction We draw on social contract theory and resource curse literatures to assess the relationship between government revenue composition and forest loss in low‐ and middle‐income nations that collect higher levels of revenues from a broad base of individuals and companies should have less forest loss. Methods We use two‐stage instrumental variable regression models to test how a government's revenue source impacts forest loss for a sample …
Clientelism and Forest loss in a Macro-Comparative perspective
For several decades, cross-national scholars have aimed to understand why democracy tends to be related to increased forest loss, despite theory suggesting the exact opposite directional relationship. Recently, Sanford (2021 Sanford, L. 2021. “Democratization, Elections, and Public Goods: The Evidence from Deforestation.” American Journal of Political Science doi: 10.1111/ajps.12662.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) fin…
Gender-mainstreaming, governance, and the environment: An analysis of forest loss
Gender mainstreaming is the push in international governance and development to use women’s empowerment, inclusion and labor to be more inclusive and help solve development issues. Research has found that when women are involved in projects, environmental outcomes are more likely to succeed. Over the past 30 years, environmental bilateral development aid has been increasing. Extant research has theorized the relationship between environmental aid…
Defend women’s rights and save the trees: A cross-national analysis of women’s immovable property rights and forest loss
Climate Change Solutions: Beyond the Capital-Climate Contradiction
Non-governmental organizations, boomerangs, and forest loss: A cross-national analysis
On the one hand, some research finds that higher numbers of domestic non-governmental organizations (NOGs) are related to less forest loss, while others find that higher numbers of international NGOs are related to less forest loss. Moreover, some find that neither domestic nor international NGOs have an impact on forest loss. We argue that Keck and Sikkink’s insight regarding a boomerang pattern of influence between domestic and international NG…
Power and Politics in the World-System: A Cross-National Analysis of Environmental Governance
While various researchers and practitioners agree that it will be hard to restructure our current global and local systems to adapt to and mitigate climate change, there is unsurprisingly great disagreement in how and if this can be accomplished and on what level(s), or if this is even what needs to be accomplished. These conversations have continued with the introduction of the “Anthropocene.” The dominant interpretation of the concept poses sev…
Women and Political Participation in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam: A Preliminary Analysis of the Local Impact of Transnational Advocacy Networks in Climate Change Adaptation
Corruption and Palm Oil in a Cross-National Perspective: How India Contributes to Forest Loss in Peripheral Nations
Drawing on the ecologically unequal exchange theory, we assess whether palm oil exports from peripheral nations to India are related to increased forest loss in the peripheral nations in the context of petty and grand corruption, which has not been done before. We go on to build upon previous cross-national work by examining if petty and grand corruption interacts with the ecologically unequal exchange of palm exports from peripheral nations to I…
Governing trade: A cross-national study of governance, trade, and CO2 emissions
Clientelism and Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis
Carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ) emissions are rapidly increasing across the world. While national governments are usually seen as having the power, authority, and ability to make significant reductions in their CO 2 outputs, cross-national research rarely focuses on the institutional structures of states that moderate their CO 2 emissions. Previous research that focuses on internal state factors largely focus on democracy and find wildly conflicting resu…
Water, Sanitation, and Health in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Cross-national Analysis of Maternal and Neo-natal Mortality
We examine the impact of access to an improved water source and sanitation facility on maternal and neo-natal mortality. We analyze data from a sample of 32 Sub-Saharan African nations from 1990 to 2005 using a two-way fixed effects regression model. We find that access to both improved water and sanitation facilities are associated with decreased maternal and neo-natal mortality. We also consider other structural barriers or facilitators of good…
Grand and petty corruption: A cross-national analysis of forest loss in low- and middle-income nations
Cross-national research that examines the impact of corruption on forest loss has yielded contradictory findings. These findings may be due to the use of aggregate measures of corruption. I use newly available data to examine how grand corruption in the executive branch and petty corruption in the public sector impacts the change in forest loss from 2001 to 2014. The specific question of this research concerns whether both petty corruption in the…
World society and the natural environment
We review the world society approach to explaining macrohistorical change generally and as it relates to the natural environment specifically. Our review includes work describing the rise of the environmental world society as well as empirical evidence of the consequences of national ties to world society for policy adoption, practices, and individual attitudes at the national level. Additionally, we suggest the application of world society theor…
The United States Agency for International Development and forest loss: A cross-national analysis of environmental aid
Among scholars of international development, there is a debate regarding the effectiveness of bilateral aid to improve the natural environment. Here we focus on evaluating whether United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) aid in the environmental sector reduces forest loss. Little empirical evidence exists on this question, partly because of the challenge of modeling such a relationship, given the problem of endogeneity whereby…
Women and Political Participation in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam: A Preliminary Analysis of the Local Impact of Transnational Advocacy Networks in Climate Change Adaptation
The World Bank, contradictory lending, and forests: A cross-national analysis of organized hypocrisy
This article draws on the theory of organized hypocrisy to test the hypothesis that World Bank lending in different sectors has contradictory impacts on forests. The authors use ordinary least squares regression to analyze newly available satellite imagery data on forest loss from 2001 to 2014 for a sample of 89 low and middle income nations. The analysis finds support for the theory of organized hypocrisy. The results indicate that World Bank st…
State Spending and Governance: A Cross-National Analysis of Forest Loss in Developing Nations
Conservationists and academics have long investigated the factors that impact forest loss in low- and middle-income nations. Characteristics of the state, namely state spending, may impact forest loss in low- and middle-income nations, although this relationship has been understudied and the limited research that exists has yielded contradictory results. I begin by reevaluating the relationship between state spending and forest loss using robust …
The African Development Bank, Organized Hypocrisy, and Maternal Mortality
We draw on the theory of organized hypocrisy and examine how different forms of lending by the African Development Bank affect maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by using a two-way fixed effects model for a sample of 33 Sub-Saharan African nations from 1990 to 2010. We find that the bank's structural adjustment lending in the health sector is associated with increased maternal mortality, and its reproductive health investment lend…
(Re)defining heteronormativity
In this article, we examine definitions tied to the term heteronormativity. Taking a random sample of articles from Gender Studies and SociIndex, and a purposive sample of articles from various journals with the highest citation count and relevancy to the field, we analyze how meanings of heteronormativity transformed from the time of its conception until the present. We find that the word has deviated from its original meanings, with subsequentl…
Do China’s Environmental Gains at Home Fuel Forest Loss Abroad: A Cross-National Analysis
The theory and empirical research on ecologically unequal exchange serves as the starting point for this study. We expand the research frontier it in a novel way by applying the theory to China and empirically testing if forestry export flows from low-and middle-income nations to China are related to increased forest loss in the exporting nations. In doing so, we analyze data for 75 low-and middle-income nations using ordinary least squares regre…
Corruption and Health expenditure: A Cross-National Analysis on Infant and Child Mortality
The Factors that Drive Forestry Export Ties: A Network Perspective
Forestry exports are considered one of the major drivers of forest loss worldwide, especially for developing nations. Building on these insights, this article considers the factors that explain forestry flows using a network perspective. Using network data from measuring forestry export flows between all nations from 1997 to 2012, this article offers an explanation for what factors contribute to the network ties of exporting nations in the global…
Exporting Forest Loss? A Cross-National Analysis of the United States Export–Import Bank Financing in Low- and Middle-Income Nations
Dependency theory argues that due to unequal economic relationships, including exports, multinational corporations, and loans from multilateral lending institutions, high-income nations exploit the labor and resources of low- and middle-income nations. We extend this line of reasoning to the United States Export–Import Bank, as it has recently come under scrutiny for its lending in the forestry sector of low- and middle-income nations. Although t…
The United States, Bilateral Debt-for-Nature Swaps, and Forest Loss: A Cross-National Analysis
We engage with the theoretical and empirical literature on the effectiveness of debt-for-nature swaps in promoting environmental protection. We present cross-national evidence that US bilateral debt-for-nature swaps are associated with less forest loss. Using a two-stage instrumental variable regression model to analyse a sample of 85 low- and middle-income countries from 2001 to 2014, we find that higher amounts of debt reduction and higher amou…
Global governance in forestry: A cross-national analysis
On the one hand, researchers argue that global governance in forestry is fragmented and ineffective. On the other hand, some argue that global forestry governance is key to reducing forest loss related to climate change issues. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for a sample of 155 nations, this research tests the association between one type of global governance, the number of ratifications of environmental treaties that include oblig…
The Pathway to Improving Human and Economic Development: Girls’ Secondary Education, Governance, and Education Expenditures
An extensive field of research identifies girls’ secondary education as central to improving human and economic development. Despite improvements in girls’ secondary education enrollment, there are still over 34 million female adolescents out of school—the majority in developing nations. While gender equity in education has improved, girls still lag behind boys in secondary education enrollments. Building on existing research, we argue that the f…
Non-governmental organizations, boomerangs, and forest loss: A cross-national analysis
On the one hand, some research finds that higher numbers of domestic non-governmental organizations (NOGs) are related to less forest loss, while others find that higher numbers of international NGOs are related to less forest loss. Moreover, some find that neither domestic nor international NGOs have an impact on forest loss. We argue that Keck and Sikkink’s insight regarding a boomerang pattern of influence between domestic and international NG…
Clientelism and Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis
Carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ) emissions are rapidly increasing across the world. While national governments are usually seen as having the power, authority, and ability to make significant reductions in their CO 2 outputs, cross-national research rarely focuses on the institutional structures of states that moderate their CO 2 emissions. Previous research that focuses on internal state factors largely focus on democracy and find wildly conflicting resu…
Power and Politics in the World-System: A Cross-National Analysis of Environmental Governance
While various researchers and practitioners agree that it will be hard to restructure our current global and local systems to adapt to and mitigate climate change, there is unsurprisingly great disagreement in how and if this can be accomplished and on what level(s), or if this is even what needs to be accomplished. These conversations have continued with the introduction of the “Anthropocene.” The dominant interpretation of the concept poses sev…
India, Palm Oil, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: A Cross-national Analysis of Forest Loss
Drawing on ecologically unequal exchange theory and previous research, we assess whether palm exports from low- and middle-income nations to India increase forest loss in exporting nations. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for a sample of 91 low- and middle-income nations, we find support for our main hypothesis that palm exports sent from low- and middle-income nations to India are related to increased forest loss in the exporting n…
Appetite for Destruction? China, Ecologically Unequal Exchange, and Forest Loss
We test the hypothesis from the theory of ecologically unequal exchange that agricultural exports to China are related to increased forest loss in low- and middle-income nations exporting to it. We do so by analyzing data for 75 low- and middle-income nations using ordinary least squares regression. We find support for our hypothesis that flows of agricultural exports from low- and middle-income nations to China are related to increased forest lo…
Gender-Focused Bilateral Aid in the Environmental Sector
According to feminist political ecology, women are uniquely and disproportionately affected by forest loss in many low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) because of gender divisions with regard to labor, land access, and forest resources. However, most macro-comparative theories of development (including economic dependency, ecological modernization, treadmill of production, world society, and neo-Malthusian theories) tend to ignore gender. We d…
Corrupting Renewable Energy: A Cross-National Analysis of CO2 Emissions
Many nations are investing heavily in renewable energy sources to support their development. However, there is debate among researchers concerning whether renewable energy leads to reductions in CO 2 emissions. Renewable energy sources should reduce CO 2 emissions, yet some researchers have observed a "displacement paradox," in which renewables are used alongside fossil fuel energy instead of displacing it, and therefore CO 2 emissions are not su…
China, Mining, and Forests: A Cross-National Test of Ecologically Unequal Exchange
Previous research suggests that China’s growing demand for minerals may adversely impact the natural environment in nations that export mining products to China. However, we are not aware of cross-national research that empirically tests if forest loss in low- and middle-income nations corresponds with their mineral exports being sent to China. Therefore, drawing on ecologically unequal exchange theory and previous research, we assess whether min…
The impacts of corruption on forest loss: A review of cross‐national trends
This research lays out the debates and contradictory findings regarding the impacts of corruption on forest loss in a cross‐national context, specifically in low‐ and middle‐income nations. After, I describe how these inconsistent findings may be due to difficulties in untangling the complexities of corruption definitionally and then operationalizing it in a cross‐national context. Then, I review the advances in corruption data collection and mea…
Economics (39 works) · Political science (30 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (25 works) · Development economics (21 works) · Geography (20 works) · Energy, Environment, Economic Growth (17 works) · Economic growth (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Business (14 works) · Law (12 works)