World Society and Polity Integration and National Production and Consumption Carbon Intensity of Well-being

• In Event: 156 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Environment and Global Responses to Climate Change

Abstract

Research on the carbon intensity of well-begin (CIWB) provides a way to simultaneously assess a country’s sustainability in terms of both environmental and human well-being. This is a burgeoning area of inquiry with much focus on the role of economic development, yet the effects of other aspects of global integration are relatively unexplored for the CIWB. I utilize macro comparative sociological perspectives to investigate the extent to which theories of global integration help explain variation in countries’ CIWBs over time. Specifically, I evaluate propositions drawn from neoinstitutional world society and world polity theory to assess the effects of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), environmental international non-governmental organization (EINGOs), and international governmental organizations (IGOs). I use statistically rigorous longitudinal modeling techniques to analyze data from 81 countries for the period from 1990 to 2011. I also examine subsets of more and less developed countries and compare production and consumption based measures of the CIWB. I find world society / world polity integration is only associated with a reduction in the CIWB in more developed nations, and only when using the production measure for CO2 emissions. In less developed countries this form of integration is associated with an increasing CIWB. This research extends the scholarship on world society and world polity global integration and how effects can vary at different levels of development, and it contributes to a better understanding of the complexities of sustainability in an unequal global system.

Author

• Jennifer E. Givens, Utah State University