The Political Economy of Air Quality Monitoring: A Preliminary Analysis

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 18. Political Economy of Environmental Regulation

Abstract

Sociological theories of culture, politics and the economy assert that the relationship between state and economy has consequences for the variety and quality of knowledge produced by the state. In this analysis, I extend this idea to the production of data on dangerous airborne pollutants in the United States. Using Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial models of pollutant observation counts at the county level, I find that the share of the county population employed in polluting industries, as well as the share of minorities and foreign born, is negatively associated with observation counts of these pollutants, after controlling for other relevant variables. Moreover, these models indicate that -- contrary to what is intended by the Clean Air Act -- the pollution levels of previous years do not have a significant relationship with the number of observations in subsequent years. This has important implications for the advancement of environmental justice, the study of inequalities in health outcomes, and for theories of knowledge and knowledge production. In particular, this analysis challenges the (often unstated) presupposition that data produced by state agencies is not subject to the same social processes as other representations of reality. Various model specifications and robustness checks are discussed, as well as plans for further analysis.

Author

• Peter Ore, University of Arizona