Globalization And the Environment

Globalization and the Environment Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series Editor DAVID FASENFEST Wayne State Unive...

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Globalization and the Environment

Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series Editor DAVID FASENFEST Wayne State University

Editorial Board JOAN ACKER, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon ROSE BREWER, Afro-American and African Studies, University of Minnesota VAL BURRIS, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon CHRIS CHASE-DUNN, Department of Sociology, University of California-Riverside G. WILLIAM DOMHOFF, Department of Sociology, University of California-Santa Cruz COLLETTE FAGAN, Department of Sociology, Manchester University MATHA GIMENEZ, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder HEIDI GOTTFRIED, CULMA, Wayne State University KARIN GOTTSCHALL, Zentrum für Sozialpolitik, University of Bremen BOB JESSOP, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University RHONDA LEVINE, Department of Sociology, Colgate University JACKIE O’REILLY, WZB, Berlin MARY ROMERO, School of Justice Studies, Arizona State University CHIZUKO URNO, Department of Sociology, University of Tokyo

VOLUME 5

Globalization and the Environment Edited by

Andrew Jorgenson and Edward Kick

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2006

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Detailed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the internet at http://catalog.loc.gov LC Control Number: 2006043940

ISSN 1573-4234 ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15132 1 ISBN-10: 90 04 15132 X © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Contents Globalization and the Environment: An Introduction .......................... ANDREW K. JORGENSON AND EDWARD L. KICK

1

The Ecology and the Economy: What is Rational? ................................ IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN

13

Cornucopia or Zero-Sum Game? The Epistemology of Sustainability ............................................................................................ ALF HORNBORG

23

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century: A Case of Recursive Exploitation ................................ THOMAS J. BURNS, EDWARD L. KICK AND BYRON L. DAVIS

37

Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment: A Global Perspective .............................................................................. JEFFREY KENTOR AND PETER GRIMES

61

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change: A World-Systems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions ................................................ J. TIMMONS ROBERTS, PETER GRIMES AND JODIE MANALE

79

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System ............................................................................................ RICHARD YORK AND EUGENE A. ROSA

119

The Flow of Hazardous Exports in the World-System: The Case of the Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico ................................ R. SCOTT FREY

133

Large Dams as Development: Re-structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho ...................................................................................................... YVONNE BRAUN

151

The Shifting Nature(s) of “Development”: Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests ............................................................ PAUL K. GELLERT

173

Matter, Space, Energy and Political Economy: The Amazon in the World System ............................................................................................ STEPHEN G. BUNKER

193

vi • Contents

Integrating Resource Consumption into Macrosociological Analyses of Global Social Change and Environmental Degradation .............. ANDREW K. JORGENSON, JAMES RICE, JESSICA CROWE AND JULIE RICE Ecological Degradation and the Evolution of World-Systems ............ CHRISTOPHER CHASE-DUNN AND THOMAS HALL

213

231

Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution .................................................................................................... SING CHEW

253

References ...................................................................................................... About the Authors ...................................................................................... Index ..............................................................................................................

291 335 339

Andrew K. Jorgenson and Edward L. Kick Globalization and the Environment: An Introduction

All human societies now experience with mounting intensity the interpenetrating expansion of a worldeconomy that has existed since at least the middle 1400s. This world-economy is driven by its logic to meet crisis after crisis in what has become a truly globalized process of capital accumulation (e.g. AbuLughod 1989; Arrighi 1994; Chase-Dunn 1998; ChaseDunn and Hall 1997; Chew 2001; Frank 1978, 1998; Frank and Gills 1993; Kentor 2000; Moore 2003; Pomeranz 2000; Wallerstein 1974, 1979). Rapid technological growth coupled with environmental circumstance have become both the fuel to and product of this expansion, while tightening a multifaceted and global division of labor that makes even far distant events crucially important for every member of humanity. Rationalized production and the allure of consumption universalize surplus value, which itself has become legitimized as a manifestation of an inherent human requirement to maximize prot (e.g. Marx 1906; see also Foster 1999, 2002; Harvey 1999). In recent decades, global economic forces working in tandem with new forms of global governance, culture, military reach, and technological networks have checked the principal political-military, economic, and ideological challenge to capitalism – Eastern bloc-style socialism. (Some argue that we now are addressing the remaining challenges posed

2 • Andrew K. Jorgenson and Edward L. Kick

by a fundamentalist Islamic opposition.) Newly institutionalized forms of market expansion and global governance [e.g. Bretton Woods, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, World Economic Forum] nonetheless have created other problematics or contradictions. One salient contradiction is the threat that the many faces of “globalization” pose to the human race in the form of environmental retrogress (e.g., global warming, deforestation, desertication) and the potential for longer-term catastrophes (e.g. Broswimmer 2002; Foster 2002; Grimes 1999; Homer-Dixon 1999) such as global starvation and unbridled civil and international conict. Despite these dynamics, what we feel is generally missing in the mounting literature on globalization, “neo-liberalism,” and scientic studies of the environment is a theoretical foundation with parallel empirical examinations of global structures and their environmental consequences and antecedents. Fortunately, world-systems’ formulations over the last three decades have fashioned in a profound way our optic for viewing the unfolding of the world around us, including the dynamics of the natural environment. True, critics have emerged to joust with world-system straw-men and declare them defeated, but the vigor of the challenge in itself testies to the potency of the world-systems paradigm. Among world-systems practitioners the emerging relevancy of the paradigm to key environmental concerns is evident in the present effort as well as in diverse events such as the twenty-rst annual conference of the Political Economy of the World-System section (PEWS) of the American Sociological Association (ASA), entitled “Ecology and the WorldSystem” (1997, University of California, Santa Cruz); the PEWS and ASA Environment and Technology sections’ co-sponsorship of the 2001 conference “Globalization and the Environment: Prospect and Perils” (Anaheim, California); and the recent international symposium on “World-System History and Global Environmental Change” (2003, University of Lund, Sweden). There is a general and cross-discipline consensus emerging that despite its many apparent and near-universal successes, the capitalist world-economy faces crises related to key dilemmas including environmental impact and widespread ecological destruction (e.g. Grimes 1999; Hornborg 2001; Roberts and Grimes 2002; Wallerstein 1999). Global modes of production based on unbridled accumulation and consumption are intimately linked to the prospects for unchecked environmental degradation. More concretely, global dependency on the essentially unlimited extraction of natural resources and intensication of pollution due to world-wide commodity produc-

Introduction • 3

tion and consumption pose ecological threats of heretofore unimaginable magnitude. The “core-semiperiphery, periphery,” and “core-periphery” models of production, consumption, exchange and dependency provide historically grounded approaches to a wide array of environmental and ecological outcomes (e.g. Bergesen and Parisi 1997; Jorgenson 2003; Kick et al. 1996; Moore 2003; Roberts and Grimes 2002; Smith 1994). Under these interpretations, environmental impact and degradation can be seen as both a cause and a consequence of structural relationships that apportion both wealth and suffering differentially across the world-system (Boswell and Chase-Dunn 2000; Bunker 1985; Burns, Kentor, and Jorgenson 2003; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Evans 1979; Jorgenson and Burns 2004). Global governance structures often referred to as the “globalization project” (e.g. McMichael 2000) or the “Washington Consensus” (e.g. Chase-Dunn, Jorgenson, Reifer, and Lio 2005; Robinson 2004) in consort with world economic institutions [e.g. the World Bank], international military forces [e.g. the new NATO], and an emerging world culture (see Meyer et al. 1997) create and sustain asymmetrical relationships that lead to unevenly distributed human well-being and environmental degradation. These structures, whether treated separately or viewed more properly as a Trojan horse of neoliberal “laissez-faire” capitalism, are positioned by beneciaries as full of benecence and “evolutionary,” based on a selected set of assumptions wrested from the propositions of modernization theory (e.g. Rostow 1971; Smith 1776), comparative advantage theory (e.g. Magee 1980), and neoclassical economics (e.g. Ricardo [1821] 1951). It is unsurprising that the justications for the policies and programs designed, implemented, and enforced by global institutions largely rest on the carefully positioned rhetoric of “growth,” “efciency,” “free trade,” and “prosperity” (Robinson 2004; Went 2002). It is proposed that the regional ecologies and natural environments of less-developed countries and hinterlands in already wealthy countries will benet from these institutionalized practices and concomitant social structural conditions (e.g. Grossman and Krueger 1995). Processes of social change such as these in the modern world-system are often treated under the rubric of “globalization,” which continues to be a buzzword in political discourses that employ ideas about global integration and competition to justify actions and interrelated policies (e.g. McMichael 2000; Shiva 2002; Stiglitz 2002). Social scientists working in the worldsystems tradition have scientically dened (and empirically charted)


structural globalization as being composed of different but highly interrelated dimensions of broadening and deepening interaction networks – especially political-military, economic, and cultural globalization (e.g. Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chase-Dunn 1999; Chase-Dunn, Kawano, and Brewer 2000; Chase-Dunn, Jorgenson, Reifer, and Lio 2005; Chase-Dunn and Jorgenson 2003a, 2003b, forthcoming; see also Kick 1987; Kick et al. 1995; Snyder and Kick 1979). We reject the view that these dimensions somehow constitute discrete social realities that should be studied separately by various theoretical perspectives or academic disciplines. Instead, we contend that while it is useful to distinguish between them in order to understand how they have affected one another, they reect highly interdependent structural features and related political-economic practices in the world-economy that globally impact the well being of humans and the global biosphere. Of course, globalization in this sense is not new analytically or empirically. Scholars working in the world-systems tradition have addressed analogous long-term historical cycles, trends, and transformations in the capitalist worldeconomy since the paradigm’s inception alongside dependency interpretations decades ago. What is new in the articles appearing in this volume is that they examine both longer-term and recent empirical and theoretical developments in the world-systems literature and how the increasing scale and intensity of systemic processes in the capitalist world-economy coupled with new non-economic forms of global structuring, impact the natural environment in particular, alongside the living conditions of human populations across the globe. We hope this collection of articles serves as an introduction to this growing and multidisciplinary area of scholarship for readers who are new to the world-system approach or globalization issues. We hope as well that it updates readers who are familiar with earlier macrosociological studies of the human impacts on the global system, but who are not as familiar with recent efforts to link environmental outcomes and antecedents to world-system processes. Immanuel Wallerstein initiates this collection with an essay that in earlier form spurred debate on the world-system and global environment at the international symposium on “World-System History and Environmental Change.” Wallerstein urges us by all means to engage in scientic and intellectual analysis of global environmental change, but to accompany this with a focus on the task of “rationality” in the sense of morally evaluating our world and alternatives to it. He likens the endless accumulation of capital,

Introduction • 5

a dening feature of the system, over centuries, to a mounting “burden of the past” and disproportionate share of environmental damage felt by dependent classes in the global discussion of labor. He laments the absence of collective fora for debating both the global distribution of well-being and hazard, but sees particular promise in the World Social Forum [WSF]. Arguably, the WSF represents a “new turn in the history of antisystemic movements,” which can lead to a more democratic world with a truly rational distribution of benets and concomitant reductions in global and localized hazards. Author Alf Hornborg systematically contrasts opposing general perspectives on economic development and concomitant ecological degradation. The rst perspective he treats is the traditional neoclassical model in economics, which has been employed in dominant areas of discourse regarding further economic development as the long-term solution to environmental problems. The second perspective is the “zero-sum” world-systems approach that treats environmental destruction in more peripheral regions of the world as an outcome of economic dynamics in core areas of the world-economy. Hornborg provides a heavy-handed critique of the incomplete logic and essentially unrealistic view of neoclassical interpretations and their inability to address the unequal impact of core-based production and consumption on the natural environment across regions in the world-system. His critical appraisals of neoclassical interpretations and more favorable assessment of alternative logics set the stage for the empirical analyses offered in subsequent chapters. In “A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century: A Case of Recursive Exploitation”, Thomas Burns, Edward Kick, and Byron Davis use multivariate regression analysis to examine the effects of several social and demographic antecedants to deforestation across different zones of the world-system. In sharp contrast to previous studies focusing on earlier decades, Burns, Kick, and Davis nd that net of other factors deforestation has become more pronounced in the peripheral regions of the world-economy as opposed to the semiperiphery. There are a number of social forces between the periphery and semiperiphery that explain part of the dynamic. However, Burns, Kick, and Davis emphasize that increases in deforestation in the periphery of the system is, to an important degree, a function of “recursive exploitation” in which the semiperiphery is structurally disadvantaged relative to the core, but is able to work exchanges in their favor by involving peripheral countries in their global exchange networks. When


considered more broadly, one implication of this dynamic is that powerdependency linkages across the system operate to the cumulative advantage of nations nearer to the top of the hierarchy with precisely the opposite effect for those nearer the bottom. A rather noteworthy contribution of their chapter is the application of a methodology (slope-dummies) that allows for a more thorough and direct application of regression models to address how social factors and environmental outcomes operate differently across zones of the world-economy. This method models non-linear relationships without partitioning the sample into the small segments, with their confounding implications for cross-national studies that test world-systems propositions. In the chapter titled “Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment: A Global Perspective”, authors Jeffrey Kentor and Peter Grimes examine the impact of three aspects of foreign investment dependence on carbon dioxide emissions between 1980 and 1996: foreign capital penetration, foreign investment concentration, and foreign subsidiary growth. In a cross-national panel regression analysis of 30 countries between 1980 and 1996, they nd that foreign investment concentration and the growth of foreign subsidiaries have signicant positive effects on growth of CO2 emissions. Kentor and Grimes suggest several reasons for these ndings. In broad terms, the dominance of foreign investment and foreign subsidiaries limits the state’s ability to pursue economic policies in its own interests, including those regarding environmental degradation. The ability to manipulate state policy may encourage transnational corporations to relocate their more highly polluting industries to these “weak” countries. Further, foreign investment is more concentrated in those industries that require more energy. Also, the movement of inputs and outputs resulting from the global dispersion of production over the past 30 years is likely to be more energy-expensive in countries with poorer infrastructure. Finally, power generation in the countries receiving foreign investment is considerably less efcient than within the countries of the core. In a related selection titled “Social Roots of Environmental Change: A WorldSystems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” Timmons Roberts, Peter Grimes, and Jodie Manale employ cross-sectional and lagged OLS regression techniques to a sample of 154 countries and examine the impacts of a country’s world-system position, domestic class, and political factors on a nation’s carbon dioxide intensity. This outcome variable is related to that of Kentor and Grimes’ study, but rather than studying absolute levels of emissions, Roberts, Grimes, and Manale examine the amount of carbon dioxide

Introduction • 7

released per unit of economic output. Their ndings indicate a Kuznets distribution of carbon dioxide intensity in relation to world-economy position. More specically, the relatively least efcient consumers of fossil fuels appear to be countries falling within the upper periphery and semiperiphery. Moreover, semiperipheral and peripheral countries with relatively higher levels of debt, higher levels of military expenditures, more repressive political infrastructures, and larger export-oriented economies tend to be the least efcient consumers of fossil fuels. Even with a differently measured indicator of emissions, these ndings coincide rather well with those of Kentor and Grimes. Countries in the semiperiphery and upper periphery also tend to be those experiencing relatively higher levels of foreign capital dependence. In the next chapter, titled “Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System”, authors Richard York and Gene Rosa utilize a world-systems perspective to analyze the cross-national variation in two forms of anthropogenic pollutants with serious social and environmental implications: sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Collectively these two pollutants are the principal causes of acid deposition in industrial societies. York and Rosa pay particular attention to how the structural characteristics of national economies, which are largely a function of relative position in the world-economy, affect sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. In the analyses, they assess the effects of the distribution of GDP in different sectors, which moves beyond the more common and somewhat limited approach of controlling for the overall capital intensity of nation-states. By doing so, York and Rosa nd evidence suggesting that the economic and productive effects do indeed vary by sectors. Urbanization also proves to increase emissions of these two pollutants, an indication that more “modernized” and primarily core nations are disproportionately responsible for global environmental degradation. Consistent with Kentor and Grimes and Roberts et al.’s analyses, some evidence is found suggesting that foreign investment dependence affects pollution emissions. York and Rosa’s study also underscores the importance in considering forms of emissions other than carbon dioxide, which usually receives the most attention by environmental social scientists. R. Scott Frey offers an in-depth case study of the Maquiladoras located on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border. In his chapter, “The Flow of Hazardous Exports in the World-System: The Case of the Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico”, Frey systematically describes how core-based transnational corporations externalize environmental and ecological degradation


resulting from production processes to peripheral regions, a process which has continually increased through the broadening and deepening of material production in the world-economy. Various global governance organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization have enacted policies promoting and supporting TNC practices and the export-oriented industrial policies of the Mexican and other peripheral states. The study demonstrates some of the potential environmental consequences of interconnections between forms of political and economic globalization. Moreover, Frey provides evidence that illustrates how these negative environmental outcomes adversely impact the quality of life for the already exploited human populations living in regions surrounding the Maquiladora centers. In “Large Dams as Development: Re-Structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho”, Yvonne Braun provides an in depth qualitative case study of the social and environmental impacts of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project [LHWP]. This water project is one of the ve largest dam-development projects in the world today, and the funding for the project comes primarily from the World Bank as well as the African Development Bank, the European Community, and various European funding agencies. In general, this study illustrates how the LHWP serves to reorganize and commodify resources for the benet of the nation-state. In particular, common and accessible rural natural resources, such as wild vegetables, herbs, pastoral lands, and water are reorganized during the development process of the dam project at the great social and environmental expense of the indigenous rural populations and for the overall material gain of the nation-state. Braun provides an on the ground example of the environmental and social consequences of development projects supported by the more dominant global governance institutions, part and parcel of the “globalization project”. In the next chapter, titled “The Shifting Nature(s) of Development: Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests”, author Paul Gellert examines the case of Indonesia and the Asian crisis more generally as marking a shift in the discourse and practices of development. He argues that in Indonesia there was a change from an ideology of authoritarian state developmentalism to neoliberal globalism. Gellert also considers the ecological contradictions of (1) the “miracle” in Indonesia and (2) the IMF-led structural adjustment in the region through a focus on its forest sector. Structural adjustment included unusual forestry sector reform conditions that were also favored by non-

Introduction • 9

governmental critics of President Suharto. There was also an ironic convergence of some populist critics and neoliberal reformers in a discourse against the former authoritarian state. Overall, Gellert’s study clearly shows that while there are important differences between authoritarian state developmentalism and neoliberal globalization, there are signicant continuities in how the environment and natural resource base are marginalized and fundamentally exploited in both models of development. Following Gellert, in the selection titled “Matter, Space, Energy, and PoliticalEconomy: The Amazon in the World-System”, Stephen Bunker argues that it is absolutely necessary to analyze the material processes of production in space as differentiated by hydrology, climate, topography, and distance between relevant places. He contends this approach would signicantly increase our understanding of the expansion and intensication of the social and material relations of capitalism that have created and sustained the dynamic growth of the world-system from the local to the global. Drawing from his extensive research of the Amazon Basin, Bunker discusses the spatio-material congurations that structured local impacts on global formations from within this region. He offers critiques of the tendencies in the globalization and worldsystems literature to apply spatial metaphors without investigating how space affects the material processes around which social actors organize the political-economy. Through this analysis Bunker shows that the 400-year-long sequence of extractive economies in the Amazon has reected the shifting demands of industrial production headquartered in core regions. This thorough study illustrates how such processes can be more accurately understood by focusing on spatio-material congurations of local extraction, transport, and production. In the next chapter, titled “Integrating Resource Consumption into Macrosociological Analyses of Global Social Change and Environmental Degradation”, Andrew Jorgenson, James Rice, Jessica Crowe, and Julie Rice review recent approaches from different social scientic disciplines that incorporate resource consumption into their theoretical frameworks and analyses. Jorgenson et al.’s primary objective is to challenge other researchers to pay more attention to these areas. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of resource consumption in the emerging modern world-system of earlier centuries, and a summary of relatively new analytical approaches to consumption and degradation, largely developed by political-scientists. This is followed by a review of central environmental sociological perspectives, such as Schnaiberg and


Gould’s “treadmill of production,” and the consumption-based environmental impacts of military infrastructures and technological developments, recently termed the “treadmill of destruction.” Jorgenson et al. continue with a discussion of ecological modernization theory and critiques of this orientation, and conclude with a review of recent studies of the ecological footprints of nations and the presentation of GIS descriptive analyses of the relationships between world-system position, deforestation, and the per capita footprints of nations. Next, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall build upon their prior work in comparative world-systems analysis to explore the impacts of anthropogenic ecological degradation on the evolution of world-systems over the past one hundred thousand years. In their chapter, titled “Ecological Degradation and the Evolution of World-Systems”, Chase-Dunn and Hall draw from anthropological research concerning population pressure and ecological degradation. Results suggest that the expanding spatial scale of sedentary world-systems corresponds to the expanding scale of environmental degradation. In the long run, more hierarchical and complex systems face similar environmental and social problems that simpler and smaller systems faced, despite the impacts of institutional developments that temporarily lessen the constraints of ecology and demography. Chase-Dunn and Hall argue that the deep historical patterns of ecological degradation are central in the evolution of human institutions and other social structures, and are rather likely to continue to be so in the future. This study helps to place the research of other social scientists that typically focus on the contemporary world-economy or particular earlier historical periods and regions in the context of the central roles that ecological factors and human caused environmental degradation have played in the evolution of world-systems throughout human history. In the last chapter, titled “Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and WorldSystem Evolution”, Sing Chew examines in long historical terms the rare but transformative crisis periods in human history, linking them to a broad array of ecological predecessors and outcomes. Sing Chew’s target is the unfolding of crises across literally thousands of years, and his agenda is thickened by placing “nature back into social analysis.” He identies a theoretically generalized history of Dark Ages during which system transformations include socioeconomic and political declines, ecological degradation, climatological shifts, and “natural disturbances.” In an uncommon journey, Sing Chew takes

Introduction • 11

us to the Bronze Age world-system and the onset of a globalization process and world-system inception starting 5000 years ago. He contextualizes deforestation as but one manifestation of natural system/social system connections that cycle with rhythms of adaptation and recovery. Climate changes, famines, political upheavals, and decentralization of authority are linked for Egypt during the 2200 B.C. – 1700 B.C. era, while the debilitating impacts on Gulf trade of these upheavals in Egypt and socio-economic collapse of Southern Mesopotamia and Northwestern India are outlined. Removed in time though they are, the system crises of the Dark Ages are relevant as they highlight the limits of system reproduction and the need for resolution of system contradictions through recovery in the natural environment. Sing Chew emphasizes that across world history and today culture-nature relations have been recalibrated by the development of new technologies to replace older inefcient ones and by the discovery of “new virgin areas” for natural resource extraction. The unresolved question is whether we stand at the edge of a new ecological downturn period with its signicant potential for massive social transformations. We would like to thank all contributing authors, David Fasenfest, Sara Hall, James Rice, Jessica Crowe, and Brill for helping to make this project possible. We hope that this timely collection of empirical studies and analytical essays will lead to a better collective understanding of how the capitalist world-economy impacts the global ecological system, and assist in the development and implementation of more informed international policies and practices that will reduce the negative impacts of production, accumulation, and particular global governance practices on the biosphere and human populations living throughout the world.

Immanuel Wallerstein The Ecology and the Economy: What is Rational?*

Rationality is, more than we admit, in the eye of the beholder. It has something to do with the optimal means to achieve a goal, any goal, what Weber called “formal rationality.” And it has something to do with the relative wisdom of the goal that is given priority, what Weber called “substantive rationality” (Rationalität materiell). I think it would be useful to approach the issue in terms of what I see as the three mental operations in which scholars/scientists necessarily engage when dealing with any topic. There is the intellectual task of attempting to discern what the phenomenon is, what were its origins, what are its links with other phenomena. what has been its trajectory, and what we may anticipate its future trajectory to be. In the modern world, this intellectual task has been the domain in which scholars/scientists are considered to be the specialists. It is they who regularly study the phenomena, develop their explanations, verify them to the extent that they can, and report their results to the wider community of scholars/scientists, and sometimes to the general public.

* Paper delivered at Keynote Session of Conference, “World System History and Global Environmental change,” Lund, Sweden, 19–22 September 2003.

14 • Immanuel Wallerstein

But assuming this is well done, or reasonably well done, we are not through with our mental operations. We have the necessary task of moral evaluation. Have the results of the past trajectory of the phenomenon enabled us to realize ends that we consider to be moral ends? Has the phenomenon been morally progressive, regressive, or neutral? What alternatives existed in the past that might have resulted in more substantively rational objectives? (And if they exist, why weren’t they taken, which is an intellectual question?) Most important of all, given the existing reality, in which direction ought we to be heading? Proponents of value-neutral objectivity have always insisted that this moral evaluation was outside the dened role of the scholar/scientist. But not all of us have agreed. Gunnar Myrdal (1958) laid great emphasis in his writings on what he called “value in social theory” and refused to segregate this moral task from that of intellectual analysis.1 Finally, even if we have accomplished as much as we feel we can do in the intellectual and moral evaluation of a phenomenon, there remains, quite clearly, the political question. In the light of our intellectual analysis, how would it be possible in the present to move towards the achievement of our designated moral objectives? What historical choices do we have? What kind of long-run strategy and short-run tactics will lead us most probably in the direction we think the world ought to move? Scholars/scientists are constantly adjured to leave these political judgments to others – politicians, specialists, citizens. But of course we are all citizens, and we are all in fact specialists in something (usually something relevant). Leaving these judgments to others means endorsing de facto what these others do, even if we think in fact that it is in error. The rich literature about global environmental change moves uneasily and a bit fuzzily among these three mental operations, without always formulating clearly the distinctions. For, while it is true that no scholarly or scientic activity can ever segregate the intellectual, moral, and political tasks into different spheres for different persons, it is not true that the three conjoined tasks are identical. And it is true that, if we are unsure on which ground we are standing, which mental operation we are pursuing at any given moment, then we are more prone to error in judgment. So, I would like to review what I think have been and ought to be the issues before us in these

1

See my discussion of Myrdal’s views (2001).

The Ecology and the Economy • 15

three mental operations, when the phenomenon in which we are interested is global environmental change. When we confront the intellectual issues, there is little debate that global environmental change is a constant of the earth’s history, indeed one that precedes by far the existence of human beings on the planet. We also agree that humans have constantly affected in serious ways the ecology of the planet.2 Human actions have no doubt been motivated by efforts to survive and ourish, and one way to read the earth’s history is to see it as the story of the rise to primacy in the animal world of homo sapiens. The problem has been that, in this rise to the top, human actions have had the consequence of undermining the “conditions of production” in ways that may ultimately sap the ability of humans and others to survive on this planet. While some environmental historians analyze this symbiotic (and in many ways) hostile relationship of humans and the natural environment (especially the soil, what grows on it, what is located under it) as a continuous historical reality, others see a dramatic worsening of this constant with the advent of capitalism as the dening system of the modern world, what Marx discussed as the “metabolic rift,” a theme taken up in some detail in recent years by John Bellamy Foster (2000),3 and discussed as the “second contradiction of capitalism” by James O’Connor.4 The basic difference between a capitalist system and other kinds of historical systems is the minimization of effective constraints on the endless accumulation of capital, which is the dening feature of a capitalist system. This is why capitalism may be said to have created “a new, historically unprecedented relationship . . . between the economic process and nature”

2 See the brief, but clear, discussion of historically early ecological transformations in J. R. McNeill & W. H. McNeill, (2003, chs. I and II). 3 Foster (p. 156) cites Marx (Capital, I, 637–638): “[A]ll progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil. . . . Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the technique and degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth – the soil and the worker.” 4 “The basic cause of the second contradiction is capitalism’s economically selfdestructive appropriation and use of labor power, urban infrastructure and space, and external nature or environment – ’self-destructive’ because the costs of health and education, urban transport, and home and commercial rents, as well as the costs of extracting the elements of capital from nature, will rise when private costs are turned into ‘social costs.’” (O’Connor, 1988, 177). The article with this title rst appeared in Capitalism, Nature, and Socialism, No. 1, Fall 1988. It is also reprinted in T. Benton, ed., The Greening of Marxism, New York: Guilford, 1996, 197–221 with four commentaries.


(Deléage, 1994, 38). Under capitalism, the search for prots necessarily presses producers to reduce their costs at the two key bioeconomic moments, that of the extraction of raw materials and that of the elimination of the waste of the productive process.5 The behavior that maximizes the prots of any given producer is to pay absolutely nothing for the renewal of natural resources and next to nothing for waste disposal. This so-called externalization of costs puts the nancial burden on everyone else, which has historically meant that, for the most part, no one has paid. This therefore has meant, as J. R. McNeill (2002, 11) has put it, that the “most serious overexploitation” of nature has been at precisely these two points: “sinks for wastes” and “renewable, biological resources.” After 500 years of such serious abuse in our modern world-system, we live today with an enormous “burden of the past” (Ponting, 2002). And the question that is regularly discussed is whether or not we can somehow surmount this burden of the past. The usual concept with which we discuss this analytical question is that of “sustainable development,” dened by the Brundtland Commission as development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, 2). There is in the rst place the question of whether this is still ecologically possible. I suppose it probably is, although J. R. McNeill does throw some doubt on this when he cites Machiavelli, to open his chapter entitled “Epilogue: So What?” (2000, ch. 12, 357), in which Machiavelli talks about ailments that in the beginning are “easy to cure and difcult to understand” and which later are “easy to understand and difcult to cure.” The real question however is not an ecological question but a political question. Is sustainable development possible within the framework of a capitalist system? I have already expounded once my view that, at the present time, there is “no exit” (1999) within our existing historical system. On the other hand, I do not believe that our historical system is going to last that much longer, for I consider it to be in a terminal structural crisis, a chaotic transition to some other system (or systems), a transition that will last at most 5

It is not that there are zero constraints. Richard Grove (1995) makes the case that colonial governments often enacted environmentalist regulations. (Indeed, he credits them with being the originators of the environmentalist movement.) He is no doubt right about their role, but this does not necessarily negate what I am arguing. States have frequently represented the middle-range interest of capital accumulation against the typically short-range view of most individual entrepreneurs.


another 25–50 years. I therefore believe that it could be possible to overcome the self-destructive patterns of global environmental change into which the world has fallen and establish alternative patterns. I emphasize however my rm assessment that the outcome of this transition is inherently uncertain and unpredictable.6 Since I believe that the world-system is in a process of crisis and transition, the moral question of the direction in which we wish to go is inescapable on our agenda. And I observe that most persons engaged in studying global environmental change feel as well that this is true. But what are the moral questions? First of all, there is the question of reparations. As we know, environmental damage may have affected all people, but it has not affected all people equally. There are important class differentials. Even if damage is diffuse, one can escape some of its effects with money. Even more important, there are signicant geographic differentials, which correlate highly with the core-periphery axial division of labor. This is why Martinez-Alier (2002, ch. X) can speak of an “ecological debt” resulting from both the uncompensated negative externalities of raw-materials exporting countries and the use by wealthy states of the space of poorer countries for such things as carbon dioxide sinks. This is of course not some terrible accident. It was built into the structure of the capitalist system from the beginning. Moore (2003, 309) states this well: The “local” environmental transformations precipitated by these [expanding] frontiers [of Europe] were not simply consequences of European expansion; they were in equal measure constitutive of such expansion, condition as well as consequence. Degradation and relative exhaustion in one region after another were followed by recurrent waves of global expansion aimed at securing fresh supplies of land and labor, and thence to renewed and extended cycles of unsustainable development on a world-scale.

Ramachanda Guha (2002) discusses this same issue when he asks the question, “How Much Should a Person Consume?” The implication in the question is that some consume too much (greed) which results in other consuming too little (injustice). Guha bemoans that the issue of imbalanced consumption is too little discussed. And asking why, he cites Carl Sauer, who attributes it to Occidental culture, which has the “recklessness of optimism” and

6

I have expounded all this in Wallerstein (1998). See also Prigogine (1996).


fails to understand “the difference between yield and loot” (cited p. 50). But it is not a question of Occidental culture but rather of capitalist culture. And the difference between yield and loot is the difference between middle-range prots and short-range prots. Moralizing does not help us to respond to the moral questions. Nor is Garrett Hardin’s “lifeboat ethics” (1998) as a response to the critical situation either analytically possible or morally ethical. First of all, it mistakes the fundamental issue. Were we somehow to reduce world population miraculously by half overnight, this would not eliminate the crisis, merely postpone the moment of systemic collapse. Furthermore, it is clearly politically impractical. It would require massive warfare, and quite probably wreak as much havoc on those who wished to stay in the lifeboat as those they were trying to expel or keep out from it. As for its morality, it is but a variant of what R. H. Tawney called “the Tadpole Philosophy” (1952, 109). Tawney is speaking of the ability of some to achieve much within a capitalist system, as though it were some consolation for social evils that “exceptional individuals can succeed in evading them,” and that the noblest use of their talents “were to scramble to shore, undeterred by the thought of drowning companions.” Judgment about the past however is the least of our moral issues, and probably the least useful to which to devote our energies. The real question is the construction of a more morally acceptable mode of global environmental change. I assume that change is unavoidable, but that there exist some ways of channeling it, limiting it, making its outcome more palatable. Here we come to the other question Martinez-Alier has outlined (1994, 23) so clearly: The ecological critique of mainstream economics is based on the question of unknown future agents’ preferences and their inability to come to today’s market, and therefore the arbitrariness of the values given at present to exhaustible resources or to future social and environmental costs. . . . In sum, the ecological critique points out that because of the temporal dimension in material life, the economy involves allocations of waste and diminished resources to future generations.

Here we are not discussing the relationship between the rich and the poor, the core and the periphery, but the living and their future descendants. The relationship of the generations is larger than the issue of the living and their descendants. Grosso modo, there are four generational claimants to


the distribution of resources at any given time: the young, the adults, the elderly, and the unborn. Much of modern politics, not only the politics of the environment, is concerned with this distributive question. Take, for example, the question of health. On the assumption that there exists a given quantum of resources to devote to health needs, what percentage should be allocated (by whatever mode of allocation we use) to children, adults, and the elderly. The unborn enter the picture as well when we decide how much resources we should devote to long-term and long-shot investments in medical research whose benets may only be seen 25–50 years from now, if then. Similar questions can be raised about educational allocations. And obviously, they are central when we discuss the bioeconomic allocations involved in ecological decisions. There is no simple or self-evident mode of deciding the proper allocation among the four generational claimants. In a capitalist system, the allocations are made primarily by the adults in their own favor, which are in fact “lifeboat ethics.” It is when we try to nd an alternative moral mode of allocation that we see the difculties involved in substantive rationality. It is here too that we see the wisdom in the long philosophical debates in which pre-modern historical systems regularly immersed themselves, in a sense to decide precisely such generational allocations and their morality. I have no ready-made formula to offer. But I do think we are called upon to discuss such questions publicly, openly, often, and politically, and to search collectively for optimal allocations, while leaving open the possibility of regular rediscussion and redivision of resources. We at present have no collective mode of doing this. So that brings us to the political question. Can we arrive at such a collective mode of debating and deciding generational allocations? And if so, what might this mode look like? Note that I have said generational allocations. I might have said class, race, gender allocations. I didn’t for one reason that seems obvious to me. As long as class, race, and gender generate sharp inequalities in social life, there is no hope of sensible generational allocations. So a prerequisite to generational rationality is a major reduction in class, race, and gender inequalities, such that the inequalities that remain are at a structurally minimal point. This will never happen as long as we are located within a capitalist world-system. Happily, I don’t think we shall be too much longer. I cannot make this argument here but I have done so elsewhere (Wallerstein, 1998). We are, as I have said, in the middle of a transition, but also a transition


whose outcome is inherently uncertain. That is to say, it is quite possible that in 2050, when capitalism is no more, we shall be living in a system that is equally or more hierarchical and inegalitarian than the present one. But it is also possible that we shall be living in a relatively democratic, relatively egalitarian historical system. The outcome will be decided by the political activity of everyone now and in the next 25–50 years. To be a political victor will almost surely require a good analytical understanding of the historical alternatives, as well as a sharp moral commitment to an alternative vision. The politics of the world today are triple: There is the conict among the major loci of capital accumulation (the U.S., western Europe, and Japan/East Asia) for primacy in the next 50 years. This struggle for hegemony is a constant of our present system, and it is now open once again with the clear decline of the U.S. Secondly, there is the struggle between the North and the South. This is also inherent in the ever more polarizing reality of the capitalist world-economy. And nally there is the struggle between what I shall call metaphorically the camp of Davos and the camp of Porto Alegre (Wallerstein, 2003). While the rst two struggles are no doubt terribly important and dominate the concerns of most people who are politically active and continue a long-existing pattern of political division, it is the third struggle that is new. It is a product of the fact that the world-system is in structural crisis. The two camps are ghting not over the realities of the present system but over what will replace it. Make no mistake. The camp of Davos, even though they don’t say it and perhaps many or even most of its members don’t realize it is not ghting to preserve capitalism but to replace it with something different in which they will maintain their privileges and authority. The World Social Forum (WSF), whose initial meetings were in Porto Alegre, thinks of itself as a “movement of movements.” Its governing slogan is “another world is possible.” This is not mere sloganeering. Porto Alegre represents a new turn in the history of antisystemic movements. They are not seeking power within the modern world-system. They are laboring to make sure that, in the bifurcation through which we are going, the outcome will be that of a more democratic and egalitarian world. The very structure of the WSF represents a rejection of the basic strategy of the historic antisystemic movements, the so-called Old Left. The Old Left was oriented to obtaining state power, state by state. And it believed that its organizations had to be unied, centralized, and more or less tightly struc-


tured. The WSF brings together movements without any central structure, and certainly no discipline. They are movements of different scope – local, national, regional, worldwide – and of different primary concerns – gender, race, environment, the work place, land reform, etc. These movements are adjured to listen to each other, learn from each other, and cooperate without denouncing each other for their failures. Furthermore, the WSF cuts seriously across the North-South divide. The WSF has been marvelously successful in the rst few years of its existence. It has placed itself in the center of the world stage, and it has forced the powerful to recognize that they are a force with which to be reckoned. It has energized movements across the globe, with some new optimism and creative impulse. BUT . . . it is now in danger. The problem the WSF faces is that thus far it has been a movement sticking its nger in the dike, stopping egregious proposals put forth within the framework of the WTO, opposing the arrogant impositions of the IMF, encouraging local movements in their immediate struggles against local tyrannies. These are tasks that have to be done. But they are negative tasks. They stop still worse from happening. A world movement, especially a movement of movements, cannot survive for too long on this negative diet. They need to see alternatives in action – short-run and middle-run, which therefore may portend a long-term construction of a different historical system. This will not be easy. For one thing, the very structure of the WSF limits the ability to engage in collective decision-making of a positive program. It is as though it had to evolve slowly from the base. And, while not organizationally impossible, it is certainly not the most rapid path. We have been talking about rationality. The WSF is not formally rational in its structure. But its structure reects the kind of substantive rationality it hopes to promote. Global environmental change? It will go on, of course. Substantively rational decisions about global environmental change? This is a political question. And environmental movements will get essentially nowhere in the next 25–50 years if they cannot nd a symbiotic relationship with all the other kinds of antisystemic movements. It’s not a question of merging into one big pot, but of creating a family of movements whose underlying affectionate ties will balance out the inevitable differences of emphases and priorities. It’s not a question of saying that everyone is right in promoting their “local” priorities. It is a question of earnest discussion about the pluses and minuses of these priorities.


Finally, a word should be said about the camp of Davos. It is not at all a unied, homogeneous camp. It is divided between the intelligent minority who have normally controlled things and the larger groups of persons with narrower vision and more aggressive tactics. The latter want to smash the camp of Porto Alegre. The former wish to edulcorate it, coopt it, and adapt its objectives to their needs. They come to seduce the camp of Porto Alegre. But in the end, the world they wish to construct will still be deeply inegalitarian and undemocratic. The intelligent minority of the powerful can be awfully persuasive, combining sensible argument with apparently large concessions, and a new rhetoric. They also of course have money and guns. The camp of Porto Alegre can work with them to stem the radical right from their most immediate and most destructive impulses. But the camp of Porto Alegre cannot really work with the what I am calling the intelligent minority of the powerful in constructing a new system, not if they want this system to be substantively rational. So we have to tread a difcult political line. This requires not only moral commitment but intellectual acuity. The recent history of environmental movements illustrates all the political pitfalls that we face.

Alf Hornborg Cornucopia or Zero-Sum Game? The Epistemology of Sustainability

Introduction On the very rst days of the new millennium, newspapers in Sweden – as elsewhere – devoted some editorial space to assessing the state of the world. The leading daily Dagens Nyheter expressed puzzlement over a survey showing that a large percentage of Swedish youth were not particularly optimistic about the future. Why this worry about global ecology, the editor asked, now that the pessimistic prophecies of the Club of Rome could be dismissed once and for all? Yet, the previous day, in the same newspaper, an environmental journalist had observed that the state of the world environment is considerably worse than most people in the richer countries realize. The problem, he said, is that these people can choose to stay ignorant about the South’s environment simply by switching television channels. Here were thus two very different messages on global ecology offered in the same newspaper.

Author Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Rowman and Littleeld Publishers for permission to reprint signicant portions of this text, originally published as chapter 2 in my book The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment, AltaMira Press, 2001 (see www.altamirapress.com).

24 • Alf Hornborg

Similarly contradictory were its assessments of global inequality. On New Year’s Eve, an editorial proclaimed that the Marxist notion that the afuence of the rich is based on other people’s impoverishment could be decisively dismissed. In the very same issue of Dagens Nyheter, however, an entry with the heading “Renaissance for Marx” reports that a new biography of Karl Marx is the season’s bestseller in Britain. The next day, there is a two-page interview with the Marxist sociologist Manuel Castells, introduced as “the hottest intellectual in the world,” who perceives the present as characterized by a process of unprecedented social polarization and warns that the conict may soon become critical. How are we to understand these schizophrenic messages on global environment and development that surround us as we enter the third millennium? Judging from mainstream public discourse, faith in technology and economic growth seems stronger than ever. The WCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 – the climax of three decades of negotiations on global issues – solidied an ofcial creed suggesting that growth is the general solution to environmental problems (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). The key concept, of course, became “sustainable development.” This creed is now often referred to as “ecological modernization” (Hajer 1995). Meanwhile, however, there remains a widespread countercurrent of skepticism, passive and invisible for the most part, but remarkably powerful when demonstrating strength enough to overturn the important World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle on the eve of the old millennium. Many people must be asking themselves today if the critics in the 1970s were really so completely wrong about the conict between growth and environment, and if WCED’s interpretation of global issues is really the only one possible. The 1970s saw a widespread concern that the economic growth of industrial sectors occurred at the expense of the Third World and the global environment. According to the WCED paradigm, however, growth is of benet for both the global economy and global ecology. We may refer to the two paradigms as “zero-sum game” versus “cornucopia” theories of growth. It might seem as if the choice between zero-sum game and cornucopia models should be a simple empirical question. What do the data say? It no longer seems feasible, however, to identify “simple empirical” questions in the social sciences. The global interconnections are too complex. The opposite camp generally seems to be able to turn each specic piece of informa-

The Epistemology of Sustainability • 25

tion inside out by putting it in a different context and approaching it from a different perspective. In a book the subtitle of which is Measuring the Real State of the World, Danish statistician Björn Lomborg (2001) contradicts Worldwatch Institute, Greenpeace, and the World Wide Fund for Nature by suggesting that what have been perceived as global problems of inequality and environmental deterioration are mostly illusions. One by one, he dismisses all our worries about resource depletion, per capita food production, increasing gaps between rich and poor, deforestation, acidication, species extinction, chemical pollution, and global warming. The conclusion that not just some of but all these worries are illusory is indeed remarkable. It is obvious that both the compilation and the interpretation of statistics to a large extent boil down to whether we wish to see this or that pattern. This is not a simple question of manipulation, but of a fundamental human desire to see veried by data the patterns we imagine to exist in the world. But how do we choose these patterns or interpretations to begin with? To the extent that we do choose our models, it is evident that our considerations are not concerned solely with the criterion of credibility. We like to think that our most fundamental criterion for “truth” is whether a specic interpretation of causal connections can explain the most aspects of our global predicament, but the widespread paradigm shift that has occurred since the 1970s instead suggests that a more crucial consideration is which interpretation we can live with. In the industrialized nations in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was an existential space, so to speak, for radical criticism. Especially among younger people, there was a widespread faith in the capacity of collective, social movements to transform fundamental structures in society. When faith in the future and collective change withered in the mid-1970s, a great many people in the North probably found the idea that their afuence was based on the impoverishment of the South and the global environment unbearable and thus impossible to accept. An important factor underlying this shift was the increasing mobility of globalized capital. Faced with the threat of unemployment, local populations everywhere grew more careful in their criticism of power (cf. Bauman 1998). To the extent that some of the indignation over environmental problems and global inequality persisted, it was generally transformed from revolutionary fervor to resignation. Globalization thus implied contradictory impulses that condemned both the embittered in the South and the conscience-stricken in the North to a

26 • Alf Hornborg

predicament of perpetual cognitive dissonance. Through media they came into ever-closer contact with global inequalities, while at the same time it seemed increasingly evident to them that there was virtually nothing they could do about them. This may explain some of the market for the new genre of “green-bashing,” counter-environmentalist books like Lomborg’s. Many readers probably felt comfortable with Lomborg’s wholesale denial of environmental concern. But there are more subtle ways of disarming indignation than simple denial. What ecological modernization has achieved is a neutralization of the formerly widespread intuition that industrial growth is at odds with global ecology. The environmental concern of young people is now being redirected into special educational establishments designed to promote the message that the adverse effects of economic growth can best be amended with more growth. The discursive shift since the 1970s has been geared to disengaging concerns about environment and development from the criticism of industrial capitalism as such. But the central question about capitalism should be the same now as it was in the days of Marx: Is the growth of capital of benet to everybody, or only to a few at the expense of others? However much contemporary debate tries to sweep this question under the carpet, it will continue to reappear, albeit in new forms. Since Marx’s time, it has been extended primarily in two directions. On one hand, questions of injustice and unequal exchange have transcended the local relation between worker and capitalist and been applied to the global exchange between industrial centers and their peripheries; on the other hand, there have been attempts to include global ecology in the same analysis. Judging from much contemporary public discourse, asking questions about unequal exchange would seem obsolete or irrelevant for today’s world. Concepts like “imperialism” and “exploitation” have well-nigh vanished in the sustainababble following the Rio conference. Yet, Marx’s basic intuitions seem impossible to eradicate, however hard the neo-liberal discourse of the 1980s and 1990s has tried. Björn Hettne (1990) shows how thinking about global development has oscillated through the past century. In the mid-twentieth century, the dominant paradigm was based on a Eurocentric concept of modernization that, through the work of Walt Rostow and others, translated global inequality into a temporal axis that dened the future for the “underdeveloped” countries. “Development aid” was viewed as a global, Keynesian welfare policy that in the end would be of benet both to the poor and to


the rich. In the 1970s, the dependency theory of Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, and others gained prominence in connection with demands for a “New Economic World Order” and the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in bargaining oil prices. It argued for a kind of zero-sum perspective, in which the afuence of the “metropolis” or “core” was to be understood as based on the impoverishment of the “satellite” or “periphery.” In the 1980s, however, a neo-liberal “counterrevolution” swept away both Keynesianism and dreams of a new world order. Milton Friedman, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) redened poverty as mismanagement and opened the world to an even tougher brand of capitalism. In 1990, Hettne believed that a new counterpoint may have been emerging in the form of “anti-modern” and marginalized groups such as environmental movements, feminists, peasants, indigenous peoples, and the unemployed. In the decade that followed, however, the most publicized criticism of unfettered capitalism came from multimillionaire George Soros, who expressed deep worries about the omnipotence of money and the growing vulnerability of globalized capitalism. Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, it seemed that Hettne’s prediction was perhaps being substantiated by the globalized, motley alliance of anti-capitalist demonstrators who captured the headlines in Seattle.

The Zero-Sum Perspective: Failures and Prospects It is valid to ask why dependency theory has lost so much of its former inuence in development studies. Was it because the development strategy it inspired – isolationism – proved such a failure? Hettne (1990) reminds us that the attempts of Chile and Nicaragua at “de-linking” were soon countered by measures from more powerful nations aiming at “destabilization” of these deviants. Meanwhile, the Newly Industrialized Countries of southern Asia were rewarded for their opportunism and willingness to submit to the conditions of global capital. Instead of dismissing dependency theory, we might refer to Wallerstein’s (1974) observation that “development” is to advance from periphery to semi-periphery. Conversely, we can understand the current “underdevelopment” of major parts of the former Soviet Union as a process of peripheralization. Seen in this perspective, development and underdevelopment are the results of movements of capital in the world system, and the shifts of afuence in the 1980s and 1990s can be seen as a

28 • Alf Hornborg

conrmation not of the recommendations of dependency theory but of its fundamental, zero-sum model. There is evidently an inclination to dismiss the theoretical understanding of the dynamics of the world system – like the Marxist perspective as such – as soon as the practical implications someone has derived from it prove a failure. This is tragic, because it should be quite feasible to arrive at a correct analysis of a problem without (yet) having developed a good solution. Brewer (1990) lists several major types of criticism that have been directed at dependency theory. According to Brewer, the argument that core areas have a “monopoly” and that they “exploit” their peripheries does not include explicit, theoretical denitions of these concepts, but rather amounts to tautology. It is particularly problematic that the theory does not dene a central concept like “surplus” or explain in which ways metropolis-satellite relations are to be seen as projected in geographical space. Brewer argues that nations are not really relevant entities in this context. He also criticizes dependency theory for not being able to explain why certain countries seem to be able to break free from their dependency. The critics are right in that there is an element of tautology in dependency theory as long as the “core” or “metropolis” is dened as the place where accumulation occurs, while “accumulation” is dened as what occurs in the core. There are, however, more substantial specications, such as the focus of the Prebisch-Singer theorem on the structural logic of exchange relations between industrial sectors and those sectors that deliver their raw materials. It is nevertheless true that the concept of “surplus” – that which is transferred from periphery to core – is not dened in a clear manner. For more or less self-sufcient subsistence economies, Paul Baran (1957) offered a simple denition of “surplus” as the difference between what is produced and what is consumed, but for societies engaged in production for the market, it is necessary to refer to some measure other than money (market prices) to be able to argue that a particular exchange is exploitative. To solve this problem and produce a more rigorous argument, dependency theory could build on concepts from the natural sciences such as energy (see below). Brewer is also right in that nations are not relevant units, simply because core-periphery relations cannot in any but the crudest manner be represented in terms of spatially demarcated areas. Gunder Frank (Frank 1966) instead argued that they were to be conceptualized as polarizing exchange relations at different levels of scale both within and between countries. These polar-


ized ows can be traced even in local contexts such as the exchange between a hacienda owner and his workers. This geographical indeterminacy has been accentuated by the increasing globalization of capital ows, which make it all the more difcult to identify the “core” as a spatially distinct social unit or actor. There is no necessary congruity between the spaces where the appropriated resources are accumulated, where the capitalists live, and where they have their bank accounts. Yet capital continues to generate obvious spatial patterns, as anyone can see on nightly satellite photos. Such images lend concrete, visual support, for instance, to statistics which say that the average American consumes 330 times more energy than the average Ethiopian. When new parts of the world system succeed in attracting capital – that is, when they “develop” – it shows clearly in the satellite images, as in the strong contrast between the dark northern and luminous southern half of the Korean peninsula. It must be of relevance to world-system theory that the United States’ share of world energy consumption is 25%, while 20% of the world’s people do not have access to enough energy to successfully maintain their own body metabolism. This obviously also has an environmental dimension. The richest 20% of the world’s population consume 86% of the aluminium, 81% of the paper, 80% of the iron, and 76% of the lumber (Brown 1995). Per capita carbon dioxide emissions in 1990 were around ve tons in the United States but only 0.1 tons in India. (Remarkably, however, many people in the industrialized North continue to believe that it is their mission to educate people in the South on how to live and produce sustainably, as if the North was setting a good example, and as if environmental problems in the South were the result of ignorance rather than impoverishment.) If rates of energy dissipation are an essential component in the inequitable dynamics of the world system, it must be a central theoretical challenge to integrate perspectives from the social and natural sciences to achieve a more complete understanding of capital accumulation. An explicit attempt to connect dependency theory and energy ows is Stephen Bunker’s (1985) study of underdevelopment in the Amazon. He shows how the “extractive” economies of peripheral Amazonia are at a systematic disadvantage in their exchange with the “productive” economies of industrialized sectors. The ows of energy and materials from the former to the latter tend to reduce complexity and power in the hinterland while augmenting complexity and power in the core. Extractive economies generally cannot count on a cumulative development

30 • Alf Hornborg

of infrastructure as can the productive economies in the core, because economic activities in the former are dispersed and shifting according to the location of the extracted materials. As the stocks of natural resources become increasingly difcult to extract as they are depleted, an intensication of extraction will tend also to increase costs per unit of extracted resources, instead of yielding the economies of scale associated with intensication in the industrial core. Bunker’s analysis suffers from his inclination to view energy as a measure of economic value (cf. Hornborg 2001), but in other respects his underlying intuition is valid. The luminous agglomerations of industrial infrastructure in the satellite photos are the result of uneven ows of energy and matter, and these processes of concentration are selfreinforcing, because the increasingly advantageous economies of scale in the center progressively improve its terms of trade and thus its capacity to appropriate the resources of the hinterland. Extractive economies are thus pressed to overexploit nature, while those parts of the landscape in industrial nations that have not been urbanized can instead be liberated from the imperative to yield a prot and rather become the object of conservation programs. Environmental quality is thus also an issue of inequitable global distribution. “Environmental justice” is merely an aspect of the more general problem of justice within the framework of world-systems theory.

The Cornucopia Model: Is Growth Really Good for the Environment? The preceding arguments to me seem logically coherent, credible, and persuasive. I am thus all the more curious about the alternative interpretation – what I refer to as the “cornucopia” model, that is, the currently hegemonic worldview that declares capital accumulation in the core completely innocent with regard to poverty and environmental problems in the South. An unusually accessible and instructive example of this worldview comes from Swedish economist Marian Radetzki (1990, 1992), whose essays address the overarching question of whether there is a positive or negative correlation between economic growth and environmental quality. He observes that the worst environmental destruction occurs in the poor rather than the richer countries and concludes from this that environmental quality improves as the economy grows and becomes “denser.” The explanation, says Radetzki, is that the intensity of environmental damage decreases as per capita GNP


increases. This intensity is dened as the quantity of “environmental resources” that are expended to generate one unit of GNP. Intensity of environmental wear is reduced because with growth there is a tendency for “material intensive” production to be replaced by the production of services. Meanwhile, there is an increase in the willingness of consumers to pay for a clean environment the more afuent they become, and environmental policies in wealthier nations encourage the development of new environmental technologies. Instead of intensifying the consumption of “environmental utilities,” these nations can substitute services from “human and physical capital” for those of natural resources. For this reason, forests and other natural resources are not diminishing in the industrialized countries. Instead, much of the landscape is reverting to something approaching a “natural state.” Growth and technological development make it possible to invest, for example, in aquaculture instead of depleting wild sh stocks, plantations instead of cutting down rain forests, and swimming pools instead of exploiting natural beaches. Radetzki concludes that it is thus possible to maintain continued economic growth, and that there is in fact an unlimited potential for “sustainable growth.” Radetzki’s texts are useful reading because they summarize, in a nutshell, the logic of an economist’s approach to the relation between growth and environment in a way that makes it very clear how the basic assumptions of the cornucopia model differ from those of the zero-sum game model. An essential difference is evidently Radetzki’s assumption that an economic activity and its environmental consequences coincide geographically. If environmental quality is relatively high where growth is high (and vice versa), he concludes that growth reduces environmental damage, instead of (or perhaps without hesitating at?) the equally feasible interpretation that the environmental consequences of growth have been shifted to other parts of the world system. It is in fact unclear if Radetzki discusses the “environment” as a local or a global phenomenon. It seems unlikely that he would consider it a solution to environmental problems to have them shifted to someone else’s backyard, but some of his arguments leave it an open matter. He writes, for instance, that growth makes it feasible to legislate so as to increase production costs for polluting industries, which has led to “a considerable shift of environmentally damaging activities from richer countries to poorer, where costly environmental policies are absent” (Radetzki 1990:8–39; my translation). “The environment,” he continues, “is to a very large extent a concern of the wealthy.” It is to be noted that this reasoning is offered in a context

32 • Alf Hornborg

where he argues for growth as a solution to environmental problems. If we assume that Radetzki is not advocating a continued shifting of pollution to poorer countries, as at least one prominent World Bank economist1 actually has done, we must draw the conclusion that his vision of the future is that all people in the world shall be “wealthy.” This strikes me as impossibly naïve, considering that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Between 1947 and 1987, the ratio of per capita income between the richest and the poorest countries increased from 50:1 to 130:1 (Adams 1993). Not only is the growth recipe in a global perspective politically naïve, but it also disregards the fundamental objection that processes of resource depletion and environmental destruction will increase with wealth, after all, even if they are shifted to other locations and thus vanish from sight. We have already mentioned emissions of carbon dioxide, which are 50 times higher for the average American than for the average citizen of India. Mathis Wackernagel and his colleagues have estimated that if all the people in the world were to reach the same standard of living as that in the richest countries, they would require three additional Earths (Wackernagel and Rees 1996; Wackernagel et al. 1997). Although the global access to “ecoproductive” land decreased from 5 to 1.7 hectares per capita between 1900 and 1990, the per capita “footprints” of the richer countries increased from 1 to between 4 and 6 hectares. To accumulate money is ultimately to be able to increase one’s claims on other people’s resources. It is evident that these claims cannot increase indenitely, because the resources are not unlimited. When Radetzki argues that there is a positive connection between economic growth and environmental quality, we must ask what this connection looks like. Does growth simply dissolve environmental problems as such (and not just locally), or does it shift them to poorer areas? Again and again we are inclined to interpose the crucial question: “Where?” Where is environmental quality improved? Where is it realistic to build articial micro-environments (such as swimming pools) that reduce wear on the local environment, and where are the natural resources procured with which to build them? Where can the landscape revert to a “natural state,” and from where are the resources appropriated that substitute for its former yields?

1 On December 12, 1991, World bank chief economist Lawrence Summers, using inpeccable economic arguments, suggested that the World Bank should be encouraging a migration of ”dirty” industries to less developed countries.


Two fundamental objections can be directed at Radetzki’s argument, both of which concern the capacity of the market and monetary measures to conceal other dimensions of economic processes. When he claims that intensity of resource use decreases as per capita GNP increases, we may forget that whereas resource use is a physical reality, GNP is “only” a symbolic reality. GNP is ultimately a measure of the terms of trade (world market prices) that a country has been able to secure for its products and services in exchange for those of other countries. GNP is thus a measure that reects a country’s position in socially negotiated, global exchange relations. Rather than say that intensity of resource use decreases per unit of GNP per capita, we can just as well say that the prices of a nation’s products increase faster than its resource use. This could be understood as an expression of increasing margins of prot in industrial sectors as a consequence of increasingly advantageous terms of trade vis-à-vis the raw materials sectors. To conclude, from what Radetzki says about the relation between resource consumption and GNP, that growth is good for the environment would be tantamount to saying that it does not matter if environmental damage increases, as long as GNP increases faster. But the crucial question, of course, should be whether environmental damage increases in absolute terms. The second objection can be directed at the claim that growth and technological development make it possible to substitute the services of “human and physical capital” for those of nature. The issue boils down to what we mean by “substitute.” From a local perspective it might appear possible to “substitute” labor and capital for land; this approach became fundamental to industrial society from the very start. But to the (large) extent that these extra inputs of labor and technology are made possible by utilizing natural resources from another part of the world system (e.g., by importing food for the labor force or fossil fuels for the machines), it is questionable if it is valid to claim that labor and capital really can “substitute” for land. From a global and physical perspective it is to a very large extent an illusion that the stocks of natural resources can be increased with the help of more labor and capital. The faith in “substitution” shows the extent to which economic science has emerged as a local (originally British) perspective that really does not ask questions about the global management of resources beyond the territory of the individual nation. As long as the primary knowledge interest of a science is to generate growth strategies for individual companies or nations, it is only natural that

34 • Alf Hornborg

its fundamental assumptions should differ from those required of a science of global resource management. Only when the world is viewed as a nite and in certain respects closed system are we able to discover that what is locally perceived as a cornucopia may in fact be a component in a global zero-sum game. This discovery must be allowed to shake the very foundations of the two centuries-old assumptions of economics. We must nally ask ourselves whose knowledge interests our research is to serve: the individual corporation, the individual nation, or all of humanity? To build an understanding of global interconnections between ecology and economy that serves the knowledge interests of global resource management and environmental justice, rather than national or corporate growth, we need to reconceptualize several aspects of development theory. Instead of visualizing nations as autonomous territories the environmental condition of which reects, in a simple and immediate way, their own economic activities, we must learn to think of the world as a system, in which one country’s environmental problems may be the ip side of another country’s growth. Those of us who live in the privileged, afuent core would be amiss to use our green forests and fertile elds as evidence that worries about global ecology are unfounded, because the liberation and recovery of previously impoverished landscapes to a large extent has been made feasible by the import of resources from peripheral areas both within and between nations. The most difcult but perhaps also most important point is to learn to view technological development as an expression of capital accumulation, and thus ultimately of unequal relations of exchange with less “developed” sectors of world society. Growth and technological development in some parts of the world system are thus organically linked to underdevelopment and environmental deterioration in others. If we want to work for global environmental justice, we rst need to develop a new theoretical understanding of technology as a redistribution of resources made invisible by the vocabulary and ideology of the market. This unequal exchange of resources can be made visible only by identifying, beneath the ows of monetary exchange value, measures of real resources such as energy, labor time, and hectares of productive land. I am inclined to think that our preparedness to abandon the “cornucopia” model of growth and technology for a “zero-sum game” perspective will be connected to wider, existential concerns. It would probably be naïve to think that a majority of people in the wealthier nations, out of a pure quest for truth and solidarity with the distant and anonymous masses of the South,


would choose an interpretation of reality that could be expected to subject them to deep and continuous, ethical conict. Perhaps their afuence would rst have to be seriously jeopardized in order for such a paradigm shift to occur at any substantial scale. Above all, we may assume that the zero-sum game perspective will be acceptable only if accompanied by a concrete and attractive vision of how the fundamental logic of capital accumulation can be transformed or domesticated in the name of global solidarity. For a large part of the twentieth century, the Marxist worldview offered one such vision that attracted a substantial part of humanity. Very few would today deny that that vision was incomplete and misguided in several respects. If we were to endeavor a new vision, it would probably have to proceed further in its questioning not only of the market, but of even more fundamental, modern institutions such as money and technology. To domesticate the market, a longterm aim might be to split it horizontally so as to render local subsistence and global communication two parallel but distinct and incommensurable domains. Changes in that direction could amount to an immunization of local ecosystems and human life-worlds vis-à-vis the ravages of global capital ows. This would also serve to restrain the unevenly distributed growth of technological infrastructure, so that the machinery of the wealthier nations does not continue to expand at the expense of the very life-space of the global poor.

Thomas J. Burns, Edward L. Kick and Byron L. Davis A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century: A Case of Recursive Exploitation

Introduction In tracing world ecological degradation over a period of ve millennia, Sing Chew (2001) points out that “. . . the history of civilizations . . . and states is also the history of ecological degradation and crisis . . . [as such] . . . ecological relation is as primary as the economic relation in the self-expansionary processes of societal systems . . .” (pp. 1–2). Particularly over the last half of the twentieth century with its expanding global markets, there has been a dramatic upsurge in the rate at which deforestation is occurring (Chew 2001:141 ff.; also see Noble and Dirzo 1997). While deforestation is a worldwide problem, prior research indicates that the rate of deforestation, as well as its causes, tends to vary markedly by a country’s position in the world system (Burns et al. 1994; Kick et al. 1996). Thus, while the history of the modern world is replete with illustrations of the ecologically destructive nature of geographic expansion of the system (Moore 2000; Smith 1994; Tarr 1991), it is important to note that where a nation stands in the modern global hierarchy, and the national characteristics stemming from it, inuence the proximal causes, amounts, and types of environmental degradation it experiences (Colinvaux 1980; Ponting 1991).

38 • Thomas J. Burns, Edward L. Kick and Byron L. Davis

In an increasingly globalized world economy, national inequalities continue to manifest themselves in a stark fashion. Wallerstein (1974, 1979, 1984, 2003) has argued that the current capitalist world-economy or world system, which emerged in the 16th Century and continues to evolve, is characterized by a global division of labor as well as exploitation and unequal exchange that has generated and maintained a relative structural inequality across core, semiperipheral, and peripheral “zones” of the world-economy. This general view has been expanded upon extensively, and we do not replicate that discussion here. Rather, we refer the reader to a number of works elaborating this perspective (Chase-Dunn 1998; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997b; So 1990; Frank 1979 & 1980; Kentor 2000; Snyder and Kick 1979; Kick et al. 1995 & 1998; Bollen 1983; Modelski and Thompson 1996; Terlouw 1993). Researchers have empirically examined the impacts of these unequal global relationships on various national level outcomes. Examples of these, among many others, include economic growth (Chase-Dunn 1975; Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985; Rubinson and Holtzman 1981; Kentor 1998; Kentor and Boswell 2003), and urbanization (Timberlake and Kentor 1983; Kentor 1981; Smith 1996, 2003; London and Smith 1988; Taylor 2003). Within the past decade, there also has been a growing interest in attempting to understand environmental problems in a world-system framework. A number of cross-national studies have been done from the world-system perspective that shed light on problems such as greenhouse gas emissions (Roberts and Grimes 1997, 1999, 2002; Burns et al. 1997, 2001); international patterns of accumulation and transfer of hazardous waste (Frey 1995, 1998, 2002); the ecological footprint (Jorgenson 2003; also see Jorgenson and Burns 2004; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003); as well as studies of deforestation (Burns et al. 1994, 1998; Kick et al. 1996; for earlier case studies see Bunker 1984, 1985). In this study, we build on and expand prior work in order to understand more clearly the worldwide problem of deforestation, particularly as it has taken place in the modern era.

The World-System and Environmental Consequences We examine relationships between the world-system position of nations, their national attributes, and their consequent environmental proles. We theorize that due to world-system impacts, national deforestation rates will vary crossnationally in systematic ways. While these impacts are witnessed directly,

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century • 39

they also are manifested indirectly via national institutions and demographic as well as geographic dynamics. The causal forces we specify culminate in interpretably different deforestation consequences for core, semicore, semiperiphery, and periphery nations. Our specication is informed by a range of case studies (e.g. Bunker 1984, 1985) and quantitative cross-national efforts (e.g. Burns et al. 1994, 1997, 1998, 2003; Kick et al. 1995, 1996; Rudel 1989; Roberts and Grimes 1997; Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998, 1999; Ehrhardt-Martinez, Crenshaw, and Jenkins 2002) that when taken together permit the formation of a more coherent approach to the linkages among international dynamics, national properties, and deforestation consequences. Our theoretical formulations and analyses respond in part to prior work in the area that does not consider the full range of world-system or dependency processes. Ehrhardt-Martinez (1998, 1999), for example, sees a theoretical vacuum in this area. While her work does include a world-system/ dependency variable, it does not adequately test for a range of world-system dynamics, despite evidence from prior work (e.g. Kick et al. 1996) that these dynamics, including interactions between world-system and domestic processes, have signicant power in explaining national variation in environmental degradation – particularly deforestation. An additional and related limitation of much of the work in this area is the examination of forest change in developing societies only (see EhrhardtMartinez 1998, 1999; Allen and Barnes 1985; Rudel 1989; Rudel and Roper 1997). While developing societies clearly are crucial areas of concern, it is also important to consider the fragile nature of boreal forests and the state of temperate forests (Chew 2001:150 ff.), many if not most of which are in what could be considered core or semicore countries. Additionally, a number of macro-level social processes are likely to emerge from empirical cross-national research only when considering the world as a whole, rather than limiting the focus to one part of it (see Tilly 1984). Due to their respective positions in the world system, core countries tend to be the most technologically and economically advanced in the world. Also, because of natural geographic, economic, and political advantages stemming from their relative position in the global hierarchy, huge amounts of resources are available to countries of the core (Fain et al. 1996/1997; Lenski and Nolan 1984). These dynamics are no small consideration when analyzing changes in the world’s forest cover. It bears noting that about half of the world’s forests are located in industrialized countries of the core or the semicore (WRI


1994:135). When the technology and wealth of core countries are coupled with their abundant forests, a far greater physical opportunity to deforest and to reforest is provided than for the other zones (Burns et al. 1994; also see Rudel 1998). Thus, the increased efciencies of core production, and alternative resources available to them, may in some cases help to facilitate favorable forestation consequences there. Further, as prior work on the world wood trade indicates, at least some of the deforestation in the periphery and especially in the semiperiphery, is attributable to world-system dynamics that favor core or semicore countries (Kick et al. 1996). One of the primary stimuli to industrializing economies is their export market. The natural and animal resources of the non-core, such as forests and cattle, represent such prime commodities for export. One would expect such exports to generate deforestation in semicore and semiperipheral countries, just as they do in the periphery1 (Lang 2002; Behrens, Baksh, and Mothes 1994; Sierra and Stallings 1998). The industrializing countries of the semicore and semiperiphery are potentially upwardly mobile in the world system (So 1990; Wallerstein 1979; Arrighi and Drangel 1986; Terlouw 1993; Burns et al. 1997) and, as a result, are in many respects undergoing more rapid change than either peripheral or core nations. Prior research has suggested that the dynamics of this process, particularly economic growth, expand the availability of capital for a range of activities that can exploit domestic resources (Rudel 1989). A series of ndings from prior work, in fact, indicate that in terms of at least some outcomes and at some time periods, environmental degradation is most severe in the industrializing countries of the semiperiphery (Burns et al. 1994; Kick et al. 1996; Roberts and Grimes 1997) or the semicore (Burns et al. 1997) – that is, in the middle ranges of the world-system hierarchy rather than at either the high or low end. This has led some researchers to refer to an environmental “Kuznets” effect (c.f. Kuznets 1955), in which there is nonlinear relationship between development variables, such as urbanization or economic growth, and environmental degradation (e.g. Burns et al. 1994, 1997, 1998; Bergesen and Bartley 2000; Kick et al. 1996; Roberts and Grimes 1997;

1

As a number of researchers have pointed out (e.g. Guess 1979, 1991; Hecht 1985), much of the deforestation in developing countries is attributable to land-clearing for the purpose of livestock ranching. Much of the meat from the eventual slaughter of the livestock is then exported to more developed countries.


Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998, 1999; Ehrhardt-Martinez et al. 2002; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003). Yet it is important to point out that some dynamics may follow a linear relationship while others may not. For example, Burns et al. (1997), in a study linking greenhouse gas emissions with world-system processes, found that position in the world-system hierarchy was linearly related with national emissions of one greenhouse gas (CO2), while emissions of another greenhouse gas (methane) tended to be heaviest in semicore countries. Prior work on deforestation (Burns et al. 1994) nds that for the period from 1965 to circa 1990, deforestation was indeed more severe in the semiperiphery than in either the periphery or the core. This effect, at least in terms of forest change dynamics, may be attributable in part to reforestation programs in the core and, to a lesser extent, in parts of the semicore. It is worth considering that the lower rates of deforestation in the periphery than in the semiperiphery may have been an historical artifact. Peripheral countries continue to experience the greatest population growth, which puts a strain on resources of all sorts. Further, while peripheral countries are the least urbanized, many of them are urbanizing rapidly, as they are increasingly drawn into the dynamics of the world system. Yet the semiperiphery has been in a trajectory of urbanization longer than has the periphery. In fact, much of the urbanization of the semiperiphery is likely connected with the increasing incorporation into the world system and its export-based economies. Also, the increasing consumption associated with the modernization process is likely to be catalyzed by urbanization there. Ironically, the overdevelopment of urban areas and the social dislocation associated with it often precipitates encroachment into forested regions (see Burns et al. 1994; Postel and Ryan 1991; Anderson 1990). This “rural encroachment” (Burns et al. 1994), coupled with other in-migration patterns such as refugee migration (Homer-Dixon 1994, 1999; Guess 1979; Schmink and Wood 1992), often results in forested regions’ eventual “development” into agricultural or even industrial usage (Koop and Tole 1997; Rudel 1988 & 1989). Some developing countries have even instituted policies promoting migration to such areas (Miller, Reid, and Barber 1991; Guess 1991) (e.g. to foster national defense goals, despite the fact that development in forested areas for agricultural or other uses has been directly linked to environmental degradation in general, and deforestation in particular) (Anderson 1990; Nazmi 1991). A vast proportion of out-migrants from urban to rural areas in the


periphery of the world-system additionally tend to be relatively poor, unskilled and undereducated, and thus have little to hold them in the cities. This combination has been shown to be associated with a number of aspects of environmental degradation (Ghimire 1994; Niang 1990). Perhaps more alarming is recent work that has begun to describe a process in which technological diffusion leads to increasing “efciencies” of logging and other deforesting practices. An increasing worldwide awareness of an impending shortage of forest products may tend to increase demand for wood from any source. These are accompanied by other shifting constraints in the world economy such as lowered shipping and transportation costs as worldwide exchange practices move increasingly in the direction of “free trade,” particularly the variety championed by the World Trade Organization (e.g. Fink, Mattoo, and Neagu 2002; also see Cukrowski and Fischer 2000; Leonard 1988). The widening gap in environmental regulation between the consuming countries of the core and the lack of it, particularly in the periphery, shifts capital’s cost-benet ratio in the direction of a number of environmentally devastating practices toward the periphery (e.g. Xing and Colstad 2002; Mitchell and Cutter 1997; Bello 1992). There is, moreover, a continuing tendency to externalize environmental costs (e.g. Steininger 2001). The changing face of the logging industry is worth noting as well. It is becoming increasingly common for a company based in, for example, a semiperipheral country such as Indonesia, to sponsor logging efforts in other semiperipheral or peripheral countries. The combination of aforementioned factors may make it “cost effective” for the exploitation of resources from a South Asian or perhaps East African country. For lack of a better term, we might refer to this pattern as “recursive exploitation,” in which a nation in the semicore or semiperiphery is at a disadvantage to one in the core yet is able to work exchanges in its favor when they involve the semiperiphery or periphery. This would include practices such as those we have just described, in which, for example, a semiperipherybased company extracts resources from a weaker country in the same tier, or a lower tier, than itself. While historically there has been somewhat of a “regional bias” in international trade (Ludema 2002), what could be considered a region may itself be enlarging with increasing economies of scale, decreasing shipping costs, and favorable trade conditions (Jovanovic 2003). Thus, changing (and in many ways worsening) worldwide economic conditions and external capital investments may drive signicant cutting of


peripheral forests (Ambrose-Oji et al. 2002). While the magnitude of deforestation in the periphery has been relatively restricted by marginal technological development and somewhat circumscribed international trade linkages in the past (see Kick et al. 1996), the shifting balance may well be in the direction of even greater and more efcient exploitation of the natural resources of the periphery. In addition to world-system processes, it is important to consider other explanatory variables that theorization and empirical research have indicated are key causal agents in deforestation. We consider particularly the effects of population and afuence within the context of human ecology theory. We then turn to questions about whether these factors are likely to interact with world-system processes and what those interactions mean in terms of ecological degradation in general and deforestation in particular.

Population Dynamics and Relative Affluence in the World-System As Malthus (1798/1960) pointed out over two centuries ago, population is an important factor in the long-term survival of the planet (for more recent statements in this tradition, see Ehrlich 1968; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990, 1991; also see Cohen 1995). Increasing numbers of people using resources tend to have a cumulative impact on the environment (Hunter 2000; Preston 1996; WRI 2000). But even in this case, the human organizational environment of that population often makes a profound difference. A commonly utilized theoretical framework consequently posits that population (P) interacts with afuence (A) and technology (T) to produce environmental impact (I) (Commoner 1992, 1994; Commoner, Corr, and Stamler 1971; Ehrlich and Holdren 1970, 1971, 1972; Dietz and Rosa 1994; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2002, 2003). As the “IPAT” model implicitly acknowledges, taking population in isolation misses the dynamics of the causes of environmental degradation because the strain on resources varies so widely from one unit of population to another (for a detailed theoretical discussion see Dietz and Rosa 1994; also see Cohen 1995). In our theorization, we draw on the IPAT model (and its “STIRPAT” variant used with stochastic regression models) (see Dietz and Rosa 1994; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003). Recent research in this framework nds that just two variables – (P)opulation of working-age adults, and (A)fuence as


measured in terms of GDP per capita – explain approximately 95% of the variance in a nation’s macro-level consumption as measured by the “ecological footprint”2 (York, Rosa, and Dietz 20033). Those variables are robust across models, controlling for alternative explanations from a wide array of theories, including political-economic, modernization, and human ecological perspectives (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003; also see Jorgenson 2003; for a detailed explanation of the rationale and measurement of the footprint itself, see Wackernagel et al. 2000, Wackernagel and Silverstein 2000; Wackernagel and Rees 1996). Yet population per se does not explain a great deal about environmental degradation. Prescinding momentarily from the question of population’s interaction with other IPAT variables (most notably, measures of afuence), we are still left with the question of what aspect(s) of population are most closely associated with environmental depletion. As prior work testing those ideas specically has begun to show, distributions of the population (particularly in terms of age and geography) make profound differences in amounts and specic manifestations of environmental degradation (Burns et al. 1998). When we do put this together with other factors, the level and allocation of resource

2 More specically, the ecological footprint accounts for the consumption process itself, including forest resources (for discussions, see York, Rosa and Dietz 2003; Jorgenson 2003; Jorgenson and Burns 2003; Wackernagel et al. 2000; Wackernagel and Silverstein 2000; also see Bernstam 1990). While it is difcult to know this denitively, it would appear that the micro- and meso-level causes of deforestation are likely to vary by world-system position also. For example, the periphery may have more slashand-burn activity while in the semiperiphery (and perhaps the semicore), there may be more logging for commercial export (Kick et al. 1996). Gutelman (1989) estimates that slash-and-burn horticulture accounts for 70% of Africa’s, 50 % of Asia’s, and 35% of Latin America’s deforestation. Differences among zones in the world-system appear to be seen as well in terms of how environmental movement organizations and “greening” policies play themselves out as well. For discussions of international differences in approaches to environmental attitudes and discourse, see Dietz and Kalof (1992); also see Burns and LeMoyne (2001); and Perz (2002). The broader point is that the causes, types and degrees of environmental problems differ dramatically in terms of where a country stands in the internationally hierarchy, as do ways in which people there think and communicate about them. 3 York, Rosa and Dietz (2003) do control for a non-linear (in this case, quadratic) effect of GDP per capita. Each of the respective control variables is modeled only linearly. As in the case of Ehrhardt-Martinez (1998, 1999; Ehrhardt-Martinez et al. 2002) modeling social and demographic causes of deforestation, York et al. only model world-system position as a main effect. Yet as prior research on deforestation and other types of environmental degradation has shown both theoretically and substantively, world-system dynamics tend to have indirect and interactive effects (Burns et al. 1994, 1998, 2003; Kick et al. 1996).


usage is largely a function of living standard, which, in turn, is associated with other factors such as levels, distributions, and uses of technology in the society. Consider, for example, a number of studies indicating that the usage of resources in cities is quite different from resource usage in rural areas (Smith 1994, 1996; also see Kasarda and Crenshaw 1991; Crenshaw and Jenkins 1996). As nation-states are incorporated into the world economy, they tend to have concomitant rises in urban populations (Smith 1996, 2003; Kentor 1981; Timberlake and Kentor 1983). Largely because international trade tends to take place through urban areas, this further draws urbanizing nation-states into the world system (Taylor 2003), so this cycle is self-reinforcing. Dramatic increases in urban populations put strains on resources as well, in that this gives rise to a “metabolic rift” in consumption patterns between urban and rural areas (Jorgenson 2003; Jorgenson and Burns 2004; Foster 1997, 1999, 2002; for case studies in Latin America see Stonich 1992; also see Bunker 1984 & 1985). As this occurs, large urban agglomerations put demand on resources for their own use and for export, while extraction of those resources tends to be from rural areas where there are still natural resources available (Meardon 2001; also see Smith 1994, 1996). Signicant amounts of deforestation are attributable to international trade in wood and wood products, although the specic ways in which a country experiences these dynamics are different depending upon its position in the world system (Kick et al. 1996). This is part of a more general process in which the ability to garner resources in an unequal exchange varies with a society’s position in the world economy (Amin 1974, 1976; Hornborg 1998, 2000; also see Alderson and Nielsen 1999; Landsberg 1979; London and Smith 1988; Modelski and Thompson 1996; O’Connor 1989; Podobnik 2002). This, in turn, likely has a profound effect upon its ability to consume resources from less afuent parts of the world while strengthening the chances of conserving its own resources. Questions about age cohorts are crucial as well. Ecologists (e.g. Catton 1980, 1994; Fearnside 1984, 2000; Postel 1994) often refer to the carrying capacity of the natural environment. In referring to plant or animal populations, carrying capacity is the number of a given species able to live indenitely within its natural environment, given constraints on resources such as food and shelter. While a given population may live beyond its carrying capacity (sometimes referred to as “overshoot”) for a relatively short period of time,


it cannot do so indenitely. That period tends to correspond closely with the reproductive time lag of the species in question because the greatest strain on resources occurs when coming into adulthood (c.f. Pimentel et al. 1994). The consequences for the human species of these two aspects of behavioral ecological theory together – the potential for overshoot in conjunction with the reproductive time lag effect – are considerable: (1) the effects of overpopulation may not be fully experienced until some signicant time after onset; and (2) the potential for ecological degradation is not evenly spread. Ceteris paribus, adults tend to put more strain on resources while children put relatively less strain on them – until they themselves come into reproductive age. In this paper, we specically examine the relationship between the belowworking age cohort and national change in forest cover. It bears remembering that in the short run corresponding to the period we test here, this is expected to be the least impactful of the cohorts.

Theoretical Summary We explore a number of alternative conceptions of the constructs in the model. The permutations we develop are driven by different demographic and social dynamics, examined both linearly and interactively with world-system processes. We pay close attention to the question of what about population is impactful. To inform our analysis, we borrow several ideas from behavioral ecology, demography, and organizational and macro-sociology, which should be further developed.4 In summary, then, we expect the particular social factors most closely associated with deforestation will tend to vary by world-system position. We also theorize about population dynamics, particularly in terms of the relative distributions between urban and non-urban areas, and between working-age and below-working age people. We expect that with increasing urbanization, resource depletion per unit of population increases as well. Consistent with our

4 While world-system analysis is central to the framework of our study, we recognize the importance of related works on the environment in other scientic elds (e.g. Pimentel et al. 1994; Ricklefs 1973; Colinvaux 1980; Nilsson and Shivdenko 1997; Hinde 1974; Miller 1969; Gause 1934; Grossman and Krueger 1995; Beckerman 1992; Noble and Dirzo 1997; Fleming 1996; Allen and Barnes 1985; Behrens et al. 1994). Researchers seeking to understand the complexities of these processes would do well to incorporate at least some of these literatures into their theorization.


earlier theorization, we also expect the effects of urbanization will vary across world-system position. Likewise, we expect that effects of population age cohorts will also vary by zone in the world system.

Methodology Country Sample Following conventional practices in this research area, our sample includes all countries of the world for which data were available on all independent and dependent variables modeled. Preliminary regression analyses showed Oman was a statistical outlier, based on its standardized residual (> 8.0), the Mahalanobis distance score (largest relative value), and its Cook’s D value (> 4.0). With the omission of Oman, the sample is comprised of 73 nations (for in-depth discussion of effects of inuential outliers, see Bollen and Jackman 1985). The nal sample includes 10 core, 11 semicore, 36 semiperipheral, and 16 peripheral countries. We identify the structural position of countries in the world system using Kick’s classication (1987; also see Snyder and Kick 1979). Detailed discussions of alternative operationalizations of the world system appear elsewhere, and we do not attempt to recreate those discussions here (see Burns et al. [1997] or Kentor [2000] for summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of alternative schemas). Appendix A reproduces this classication for countries used in our analyses. Outcome Variable Our forestation measure is the average annual percentage change in forest cover over the 1990–2000 period, based on FAO measures (World Bank 2002 – see Appendix A). Data coverage is more expansive for this period compared to earlier years, and we presume companion improvements in data quality. Percentage change scores in forest cover tend to be less skewed and, therefore, offer some methodological advantages relative to the use of raw change measures (Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998), but ultimately our choice of this measure rests on its validity relative to our theorization. For ease in interpretation of our results, we emphasize that our variable is annual percentage change in forest cover. Thus, deforestation would be a change in a negative direction, while a positive number represents forestation.


Predictor Variables As control variables, we include forested land as a percentage of total area of a country circa 1990 and a dummy variable for countries with less than 4% of land that is forested (World Bank 2002 – see Appendix A). When taken together, these measures adjust for “starting points,” including the relatively more unique processes of forestation in largely desert environments. We also include a modied world-system classication measure, an elevencategory ordinal variable, as a control variable in our regression estimations (Kick 1987). This variable distinguishes the more and less central (i.e., powerful) nations in the world system. In using a generic measure such as this one, we address a range of world-system processes, which are treated individually in other studies (e.g., debt dependency – see Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998). To test the postulated effects of the “IPAT” processes theorized above, we include three substantive regressors, each measured as an average annual percentage change score. These include average annual change in urban population 1970–90 (P), average annual change in gross domestic product per capita based on purchasing power parity gures for 1975–90 (A), and average annual change in radios per capita, 1970–90 (T). Also, we include another theorized population dynamic, the average annual change in the proportion of the population under age 14 (World Bank 2002). We calculate descriptive statistics. The means and standard deviations for our variables, along with the zero-order correlations among them, are reported in Appendix B. Most cross-national research endeavors model main effects only, but we proceed to examine the possible lack of homogeneity of slopes among four tiers of the world system (i.e., core, semicore, semiperiphery, periphery; see Appendix A for a listing of countries in each tier) for three of our IPAT substantive regressors. In order to test this assumption, we create (k – 1 = 3) slope-dummy variables following Hamilton (1992:88–92). A slope-dummy variable is a form of interaction term created by multiplying a continuous measurement variable (i.e., x1 = Urban Population) by a dichotomous dummy variable (i.e., x2 = Core), which creates a new variable (i.e., Urban Population x Core = x1x2). This newly constructed variable x1x2 has the values of x1 for all cases for which the dummy variable was “1” and zeros for all the remaining cases. The test for homogeneity of slopes consists of entering into a regression model the original main effect (e.g., percent change in urban population) and the k – 1 or three slope-dummy variables created from this main effect via


the process documented above. A signicant coefcient for any of the three slope-dummy variables indicates that the slope for this group/category differs signicantly from the excluded group/category. In order to measure the couplings of national position in the global system to the substantive regressors in a fully specied model that includes important controls, we extend our construction of slope-dummy variables to include all four world-system tiers. We use these four “contextual” or “coupling” variables to demonstrate the different effects of each of the three substantive IPAT measures in the context of a fully specied and controlled model. Thus, four independent variables are created, as the original measurement variable is split into four separate regressors. A nding of “statistical signicance” for a specic slope-dummy simply indicates how (un)likely it would be to obtain a coefcient of that magnitude by chance. It does not indicate that the slopes for, say, the semiperiphery and periphery, for the given measurement variable (e.g., urban change) are statistically different as is the case in the technique outlined above (Hamilton 1992). Additionally, the standardized regression coefcients associated with these slope-dummy variables indicate the relative contribution of the independent variable within that tier (e.g., semiperiphery or periphery) to explaining variation in the dependent variable, while simultaneously controlling for the other independent variables included in the model. We believe this produces a far more appropriate wedding of theory and measurement for world-system theory, since our framework emphasizes the coupling of analytical domains (rather than merely their generic effects). We also are interested in the relative effects of the couplings for core, semicore, semiperipheral, and peripheral countries compared to one another. Further, we cannot in any case theoretically justify the assumption of “multiplicative effects” that dene measurement for traditional multiplicative interaction terms. Model Estimation Procedures Almost all published quantitative cross-national research such as ours has relied upon ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques, and we use OLS herein. We veried that the coefcient and standard error estimates from our OLS results were robust by comparing them with ndings generated through bootstrap analyses (available from the authors upon request). We also investigated the potential severity of multicollinearity, following the reasoning of Belsley, Kuh, and Welsh (1980). An examination of bivariate


correlations among all independent variables, and a comparison of standardized regression coefcients (in terms of magnitude and direction) with the bivarite correlation between each regressor and the dependent variable, showed no evidence of estimation difculties due to multicollinearity. As well, our examination of the matrix of correlations among the regression coefcients themselves reinforced the conclusion that there were no discernable estimation problems caused by multicollinearity. We note, however, that multicollinearity difculties did surface when we utilized an interaction model technique (Hamilton 1992) to test for homogeneity of the slopes between tiers of the world system, which is typical of many interaction model estimations. We present these ndings subsequently.

Results and Discussion As noted, we test our hypotheses using a series of multiple regression models. In the rst model, we test only for main effects of the population, afuence and technology variables on deforestation, with controls included for forest cover in 1990, world-system position and small forest area. The results are summarized in Table 1. We nd a strong main effect for world-system position – with increasing dependency in the world-system there are signicantly higher levels of deforestation. The highest rates of deforestation are in the periphery. This does not imply that evironmental degradation necessarily has alleviated much in the semiperiphery; rather, it is attributable to deforestation in the periphery having gotten more intense in recent years.5

5 In comparing our ndings with those studies from earlier periods, we are struck by how much of the negative change over the last decade is located in the periphery. For example, Burns et al. (1994) found that for a period beginning in 1965 and ending circa 1990, the average annual percent change in forested land was: core = 0.11, semiperiphery = –0.99, and periphery = –0.18. (We note here that since Burns et al. 1994. had a more traditional core/semiperiphery/periphery trichotomy, in contrast to our four-category scheme, their results are not directly comparable. However, even after taking into account the different operationalization schemes, the period differences are remarkable.) In the current study with average annual percent change in forested land as the dependent variable, the mean values from our sample are: core = 0.24, semicore = 1.11, semiperiphery = –0.54, and periphery = –1.55. Thus, while in the previous study, the deforestation rate was about ve times greater in the semiperiphery than in the periphery, that ratio has changed dramatically. The data used in this study indicate that in the period 1990–2000, the periphery is deforesting at a rate almost 3 times that of the semiperiphery.

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century • 51 Table 1. Main Effects b

Std.

Beta

t

Sig.

Corr.

Error (Constant)

0.560

0.577

0.972

0.335

% Forest cover in 1990

0.003

0.007

0.035

0.348

0.729

–0.161

World-system position

–0.168

0.061

–0.332

–2.737

0.008

–0.485

1.698

0.519

0.336

3.272

0.002

0.420

–0.261

0.106

–0.295

–2.450

0.017

–0.458

Proportion under age 14

0.690

0.332

0.283

2.076

0.042

–0.317

Gross Domestic Product “PPP”

0.090

0.032

0.319

2.825

0.006

0.362

–0.019

0.012

–0.161

–1.557

0.124

–0.387

Dummy (1 = less than 4% forest cover) % Urban Population

Radios per 1,000 R-square = .520

In addition to the relatively large effect for world-system position, the greater the level of increasing afuence (as reected in GDP per capita), the less the negative environmental outcome in terms of deforestation. In order to control for the relatively low inertia in those countries with small amounts of forest, we added a variable for countries with low levels of initial forest cover, and, not surprisingly, this measure turns out to be signicantly, positively related to forestation. This simply underscores the fact that all else held equal, countries with small amounts of initial natural forest resources nd it relatively easy to obtain high forestation rates with only small absolute changes. More broadly, the progressively greater deforestation among nations lower in the world-system hierarchy appears in signicant part to be attributable to the unequal exchange and consumption patterns that play themselves out in international exchanges. Consider, for example, that the more resources per capita a country consumes (as operationalized by its ecological footprint), the lower the level of deforestation it tends to have (Jorgenson 2003; Jorgenson and Burns 2004). With only one exception, each of the regression coefcients has a sign that matches its zero-order correlation with the dependent variable. The one exception is population under age 14, which goes from a signicantly (p < .05) negative zero-order relationship (r = –.317) to a signicantly positive standardized regression coefcient (beta weight = .283) when the model has the full complement of control variables. This is an interesting but not totally unexpected nding.


In making sense of this, we should remember that while population in general puts a strain on resources, the strain is not uniform across age cohorts. Prior research has found working-age population to be highly predictive of deforestation (Burns et al. 1997) and the ecological footprint (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003), and that relationship remains robust even in models controlling for a number of other factors (including other demographic and human ecological variables). These prior ndings are consistent with behavioral ecological theory and research, which suggest that adults in a wide array of species tend to put a greater strain on resources than do younger cohorts. In our fully controlled main effects model, the other variables (particularly, and not surprisingly, the urbanization variable) capture much of the negative covariance between a young population structure and forest cover. While fertility rates for women of childbearing age are higher in rural areas, the preponderance of young working-age adults in urban areas leads to the greatest growth there. It is also worth considering that as this younger cohort ages, it will likely put increasingly greater strain on a number of resources (including, but not limited to, forests and their products) as the next generation competes to nd niches for itself. Coupling this with the well-known structure of population pyramids in less-developed countries, we are led to consider the real possibility that in a species with as long a reproductive time lag as humans, the strain on resources, including forests, will very likely increase over the next two decades – and this will be the case even in the highly unlikely scenario of overall population remaining stable over that period. We next turn attention to the contextual (i.e., zone-specic) effects of our regressors. For subsequent regression runs, as described above, we collapse the 11-position world-system variable into the four zones (core, semicore, semiperiphery, and periphery – see Kick 1987). We use slope-dummy variables created for these zones to assess homogeneity of slopes among zones in a restricted interaction model (reported in Tables 2a and 3a, respectively) and slope dummy contextual effects in a fully controlled model (reported in Tables 2b and 3b, respectively). In this manner, we serially model worldsystem specic effects, as they vary in context between core, semicore, semiperiphery, and periphery nations. To test for homogeneity of slopes across world-system positions for percent urban population, we run a classical main effects model (Hamilton 1992), along with its interaction with three of the world-system zones. The slopes for three zones are tested against the excluded category, in this case the

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century • 53 Table 2. World-System Position by Urban Population Interactions a. Test of Different Slopes for Percent Urban Population with Semi-Core the Excluded Category b

Std.

Beta

t

Sig.

–0.129

0.898

Corr.

Error (Constant) % Urban Population Main Effect % Urban Population Core

–0.032

0.248

0.793

0.500

0.900

1.585

0.118

–0.458

–0.004

1.425

0.000 –0.003

0.998

0.143

% Urban Population SemiPeriphery

–1.000

0.480

–0.802 –2.084

0.041 –0.075

% Urban Population Periphery

–1.213

0.485

–1.381 –2.499

0.015 –0.464

R-square = .289

b. Contextual 4-Dummy Model for Percent Urban Population b

Std.

Beta

t

Sig.

0.690

Corr.

Error (Constant)

0.283

0.705

0.401


0.000

0.008

–0.004 –0.039


–0.241 –1.453

0.969 –0.161

–0.122

0.084

Dummy (1 = less than 4% forest cover)

1.613

0.533

0.319

3.028


0.655

0.343

0.268

1.911

0.061 –0.317


0.089

0.032

0.315

2.746

0.008

Radios per 1,000

–0.017

0.012

–0.145 –1.391

0.169 –0.387

% Urban Population “Core”

–0.078

1.580

–0.006 –0.049

0.961

0.143

0.409

0.268

% Urban Population “SemiCore”

0.088

0.832

0.151 –0.485 0.004

0.420 0.362

0.407

0.489

% Urban Population “SemiPeriphery”

–0.231

0.130

–0.185 –1.771

0.081 –0.075

% Urban Population “Periphery”

–0.310

0.125

–0.353 –2.480

0.016 –0.464

R-square = .538

semicore. This model is shown in Table 2a. The signicant coefcients for the semiperiphery and periphery demonstrate that the underlying assumption of homogeneity of slopes is violated for this variable – the slopes for the semiperiphery and periphery differ signicantly (i.e., are not parallel) from the semicore, although core and semicore slopes run parallel to one another. We remind the reader that interaction models by design tend to exhibit a high degree of multicollinearity. For example, the standardized regression coefcient for the periphery slope dummy has an absolute value of greater


than unity – prima facie evidence of multicollinearity. So, while we have demonstrated that the slopes for the different zones are not the same through use of this technique, we cannot use it to estimate a more fully controlled and specied model. Instead, we offer a more theoretically useful technique that we label a “contextual-dummy” model (reported in Table 2b). We report “contextual” effects for the percent urban variable for all four world-system positions, while holding constant or controlling for all other variables in the model. Turning our attention to Table 2b, we nd that the coefcients for the “contextual dummy” variables indicate the zone-specic effects of percent urban population are negative as we move from the semicore to the periphery. There is a signicant negative effect for the periphery (p < .05) and semiperiphery (at the p < .10) similar to what was demonstrated in the interaction model shown in Table 2a. The results shown in Table 2b support the interpretation that the deleterious effects of urbanization differ across world-system positions, with negative effects occurring in the semiperiphery and periphery zones, even while controlling for all other variables in the model. In this result, we nd little evidence of a “Kuznets” effect; rather, as noted, the effects become increasingly negative moving down the hierarchy of the world system. It bears noting that while the core and the semicore tend to be more urbanized, the semiperiphery and periphery tend to be more rapidly urbanizing. In this model, with some qualication, all other variables behave as they did in the main effects model (of Table 1). The main effect for worldsystem position is non-signicant in Table 2b because some of its variance is captured by or overlaps with the “contextual dummies.” It is of note that for this model, the contextual effects for the semicore and the core are essentially the same (i.e. null). But, as will be seen in subsequent runs, particularly when we test the interaction of GDP/c with world-system position, the coefcient for the semicore appears to more closely resemble that for the semiperiphery. The overall lesson here is that each of the four world-system positions appears in its own way to be uniquely related to forestation. More broadly, as one might expect for a transitional zone, the semicore appears to resemble the core in some ways and the semiperiphery in others. It would thus be a mistake, methodologically as well as theoretically, to collapse the semicore into either of these other categories. In Table 3a, we test for interaction of world-system position with changes in proportion of population under 14, with the semicore being the excluded

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century • 55 Table 3. World-System Position by Population Under Age 14 Interactions a. Test of Different Slopes for Proportion Under Age 14 with Semi-Core the Excluded Category b

Std.

Beta

t

Sig.

0.269

–2.642

0.010

–0.538 –2.733

Corr.

Error (Constant)

–0.711

Proportion under age 14 Main Effect

–1.313

0.480

0.568

0.543

Proportion under age 14 Core Proportion under age 14 SemiPeriphery Proportion under age 14 Periphery

1.100

0.494

–1.584

1.897

0.167

1.046

0.375

2.228

–0.105 –0.835

0.008 –0.317 0.299 –0.173 0.029

0.032

0.407 –0.261

R-square = .181

b. Contextual 4-Dummy Model for Proportion Under Age 14 b

Std.

Beta

t

Sig.

Corr.

0.075

0.940

0.467

0.642 –0.161

Error (Constant)

0.068

0.904


0.003

0.007


–0.109

0.099

1.795

0.534

Dummy (1 = less than 4% forest cover) % Urban Population Gross Domestic Product “PPP” Radios per 1,000

–0.273

0.106

0.099

0.033

0.047

–0.215 –1.094 0.355

3.362

–0.310 –2.569 0.353

2.979

–0.130 –1.246

0.278 –0.485 0.001

0.420

0.013 –0.458 0.004

0.362

–0.015

0.012

Proportion under age 14 “Core”

0.676

0.586

0.199

1.154

0.253 –0.173

0.217 –0.387

Proportion under age 14 “SemiCore”

0.088

0.548

0.022

0.160

0.873 –0.294

Proportion under age 14 “SemiPeriphery” 0.901

0.367

0.307

2.455

0.017

Proportion under age 14 “Periphery”

1.493

–1.041

–0.069 –0.698

0.032

0.488 –0.261

R-square = .553

category. Table 3a shows that the slope for the semiperiphery differs signicantly from that of the semicore, the excluded category. So, as was discovered above, the assumption of homogeneity of slopes is violated. As we move from Table 3a to Table 3b we nd the same large, signicant positive effect for the semiperiphery is replicated in the “contextual dummy” model. The nding that the age cohort coefcient is signicantly positive in the semiperiphery, and is negligible in the other sectors serves, as a complement


to previous research (Burns et al. 1998) in which increases in adult population in the semiperiphery were found to be associated with deforestation. This result dovetails with earlier ndings by indicating a positive effect of proportion of pre-adults on forest levels – but this effect only becomes apparent when controlling for the other variables, suggesting the importance of the interrelations of these social and demographic factors. It does lend qualied support to the environmental Kuznets thesis, in that the strongest effect is somewhere in the middle (in this case, in the semiperiphery) rather than at one of the ends of the world-system hierarchy. Of course, as students of population “pyramids” (particularly as they apply in the cases of developing countries) will no doubt point out, this large younger cohort will age. As it does so, it is likely to place an increasing strain on resources. Considering this in light of previous ndings that serious deforestation practices are occurring in the semiperiphery (Burns et al. 1994), there would appear to be a signicant possibility of more serious environmental degradation in the near future in the semiperiphery. It also is worth considering that it is possible for a society to have already taxed the carrying capacity beyond what the overall population gures would tend to show, and even though it still will not experience the full consequences until several decades later when the next generation comes into the age of greatest resource strain. In short, it may get worse before it gets better, particularly in the semiperiphery, but perhaps in the other world-system zones as well.

Conclusions Overall, our ndings support our general theoretical framework, which implies that both world-system dynamics and processes identied in human ecology are important predictors of environmental outcomes. The contextual effects demonstrated in both our interaction models and our contextual models, as specied on the basis of those two sets of theories, give us a number of things to take away from this research. As human ecology posits, population dynamics have environmental outcomes, including those related to deforestation. But as we have seen, those effects need to be qualied and contextualized, as their effects are shown to differ signicantly across zones of the world system. More generally, we might ask what the analogies of behavioral ecology for the human condition are. Certainly there are numerous lessons for humans


here, particularly in terms of population dynamics. Yet one of the worst mistakes we could make would be to apply any nding from behavioral ecology without some thought about what is analogous and when. We have seen an example of the cohort effect to which all species are subject; but we also saw how that effect is tempered by world-system position. The ability to overshoot the earth’s carrying capacity needs to be seriously considered. Overshoot can take place in terms of population, afuence or technology, or some combination thereof, yet overshoot in each area is somewhat idiosyncratic. Overshoot in population terms is seen in the relative life chances of generations (e.g. Easterlin 1980). Here, it is possible to overshoot and not see the effects until literally a generation or so later. Some insight into the problem, however, comes from looking closely at cohort effects based on behavioral ecology theory. As has been noted in a number of studies (e.g. Bergesen 2001; Bergesen and Bartley 2000; Bergesen and Parisi 1997; Burns et al. 1994, 1997, 1998; Ehrhardt-Martinez 2002; Roberts and Grimes 1997, 1999, 2002), the greatest strain on the environment, at least until recently, has been seen in rapidly developing countries of the world. While these clearly involve the semicore and semiperiphery, for reasons detailed above, the periphery increasingly is drawn into the (bottom of) the world-system and, in some ways faces some of the same situations as the semiperiphery – except with disadvantages not only relative to the core, but to virtually the rest of the world, including the semiperiphery. A fruitful strategy for future researchers, along with identifying social processes that lead to environmental impact, is to try to isolate where and when those processes either are or are not operational, and what the conditions are that make them so. A unifying theory may emerge in the future, but before such a theory can meaningfully simplify the eld, we need to embrace more complexity in our theorization. In this paper, we have focused primarily on world-system processes, not only alone but when controlling for, and in some cases interacting with, population variables and a measure of national afuence. Research could just as easily be focused around some other aspect of the overall model. We suggest that, rather than testing one small aspect of a given theory against some aspect of another and then concluding based on that particular test that one theory is supported and the other refuted, we must take seriously the question of theoretical scope conditions. At least for the time being, to be effec-


tive, any policy interventions must take scope into account. As a case in point, consider the well-meaning but largely misguided “Green Revolution,” which assumed the farming principles developed in temperate regions were universal and therefore could be applied in a largely unmodied fashion to the Third World,without properly accounting for context. In addition to the obvious differences in social organization, the soils in the largely tropical Third World are very different from those in the largely temperate developed world. Thus, embracing the universal principal of being “ecologically sound” in both places would lead to very different practices in those places because the same practices would have very different outcomes, depending upon where they were implemented (c.f. Colinvaux 1980). Likewise, in attempting to understand macro-level causes of deforestation, the view that “one model ts all” is inadequate. Rather, as our work demonstrates, it is important to consider contextual effects, particularly in terms of world-system dynamics. Such considerations might include adopting methodological procedures similar to those here, where the homogeneity of worldsystem slope dummies is empirically ascertained and, as appropriate, models are subsequently estimated based on slope-dummies and other pertinent regressors. If the eld is to progress, it is crucial for us to embrace some of these complexities in our theorization and empirical work, including the modeling of non-linearities and interactions of the sort we have examined here.

Appendix A. Countries in Analyses (N = 73) Core

FRSTP900

FRST 90

Israel

5.54

3.98

27.05

Ireland

3.16

7.10

29.23

Portugal

1.67

33.84

0.28

33.01

Greece

0.83

25.59

0.25

10.77

New Zealand

0.47

28.20

FRSTP900

FRST 90

United Kingdom

0.76

9.87

Spain

0.58

Switzerland

0.34

Italy Netherlands

Semi-Core

Denmark

0.20

10.49

Hungary

0.37

19.15

United States

0.16

24.25

Norway

0.33

27.89

Japan

0.01

65.97

Austria

0.18

46.04

Sweden

0.00

65.91

Finland

0.03

71.75

22.58

Australia

0.00

20.58

–0.36

65.60

Belgium N of cases 10

–0.16

Brazil N of cases 11

A Quantitative, Cross-National Study of Deforestation in the Late 20th Century • 59 Appendix A (cont.) Semi-Periphery

Jamaica

–1.30

35.00

FRSTP900

FRST 90

Egypt, Arab Rep.

3.57

0.05

Sri Lanka

–1.38

35.39

Algeria

1.29

0.79

Panama

–1.39

45.61

Tunisia

0.20

3.21

Guatemala

–1.44

31.24

Turkey

0.20

13.00

Ghana

–1.45

33.12

India

0.05

21.44

Nigeria

–2.07

19.22

Dominican Republic

0.00

28.44

Nicaragua

–2.39

36.66

Saudi Arabia

0.00

0.70

El Salvador

–3.39

9.31

Singapore

0.00

3.28

N of cases 36 FRSTP900

FRST 90

Syrian Arab Republic

0.00

2.55

Morocco

–0.04

6.80

Korea, Rep.

–0.07

63.84

Bangladesh

1.28

8.98

South Africa

–0.08

7.37

Congo, Rep.

–0.07

65.11

Periphery

Chile

–0.12

21.02

Central African Republic

–0.12

37.25

Guyana

–0.25

88.21

Senegal

–0.61

34.57

Colombia

–0.34

49.59

Mali

–0.64

11.62

Congo, Dem. Rep.

–0.34

61.99

Cameroon

–0.77

56.03

Peru

–0.36

53.05

Madagascar

–0.83

22.18

Venezuela

–0.38

58.59

Sudan

–1.22

29.97

Paraguay

–0.45

61.92

Benin

–1.90

30.27

Kenya

–0.47

31.67

Malawi

–1.94

35.16

Thailand

–0.64

31.09

Zambia

–1.95

53.48

Costa Rica

–0.68

41.64

Sierra Leone

–2.32

19.77

Trinidad and Tobago

–0.71

54.78

Cote d’Ivoire

–2.47

30.71

Honduras

–0.90

53.37

Togo

–2.64

13.22

Mexico

–0.93

32.23

Rwanda

–2.98

18.52

Indonesia

–1.01

65.20

Burundi

–5.55

9.38

Ecuador

–1.05

43.09

N of cases 16

Philippines

–1.21

22.39


Appendix B. Descriptive Statistics and Correlations (N = 73) Means and Standard Deviations Mean

Std. Deviation

Ave. Annual Change in % Forest cover 1990–2000

–0.41

1.50


31.40

20.76


6.25

2.96

Dummy (1 = less than 4% forest cover)

0.10

0.30

% Urban Population

1.65

1.70


–0.62

0.61


10.17

5.34

Radios per 1,000

11.33

12.90

Correlations 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1. Change in % Forest cover 1990–2000

1.000 –.161 –.485

2. % Forest cover in 1990

–.161 1.000

3. World-system position

–.485

.420 –.458 –.317

.362 –.387

.047 –.463 –.054 –.072 –.038

.047 1.000

.004

.517

.631 –.382

.050 .374

4. Dummy (1 = less than 4% forest cover)

.420 –.463

.004 1.000 –.123 –.010

5. % Urban Population

–.458 –.054

.517 –.123 1.000

6. Proportion under age 14

–.317 –.072

.631 –.010

7. Gross Domestic Product “PPP” .362 –.038 –.382 8. Radios per 1,000

–.387

.050

.140 –.144

.505 –.032

.503

.505 1.000 –.531

.409

.140 –.032 –.531 1.000 –.070

.374 –.144

.503

.409 –.070 1.000

Jeffrey Kentor and Peter Grimes Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment: A Global Perspective

Introduction: Foreign Investment and the Environment A large body of research has emerged on the effects of foreign investment over the past 40 years, focusing primarily on its impact on economic development. Relatively little is known, though, of the impact of foreign investment on the environment. We hope to remedy this gap in this chapter. Specically, we attempt to synthesize the recent work of Grimes and Kentor (2003) on the impact of foreign capital penetration on carbon dioxide emissions with two new conceptualizations of foreign investment dependence, that of foreign investment concentration (Kentor and Boswell 2003) and the expansion of foreign subsidiaries (Kentor 2002). We begin this chapter with a brief overview of the basic issues and science surrounding the main concern with increased CO2 emissions – that of global warming. We then review the relevant scientic literature on the impact of foreign investment, before concluding with our own analyses. It may be helpful for the reader to know at the outset that, according to our research, foreign investment concentration and the growth of foreign manufacturing subsidiaries appear to signicantly accelerate the growth of carbon dioxide emissions over the 16 year period examined. A third aspect of foreign

62 • Jeffrey Kentor and Peter Grimes

investment dependence, foreign capital penetration, does not appear to have a distinct systemic effect.

Global Warming – An Overview Most of the work on global warming to date has been done by physical scientists. In general their focus has been on detailing the chemistry and physics involved, and demonstrating that human emission of compounds essential to the process have been growing (e.g. – CO2, Methane, CFC’s, CHFC’s). At the same time, their work has proven that average global temperatures have indeed been rising at rates predicted by their theoretical expectations (see the publications of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, esp. Houghton et al. 2001). The precision of this scientic effort has been extremely helpful in both legitimizing and popularizing the vital importance of the issue, and succeeded in raising it to the highest levels of global political concern. However, the dominant contribution of the physical scientists has distracted public attention from the potential contribution of the social scientists. Physical science can explain the thermodynamic issues of atmospheric heat entrapment, identify the chemical compounds responsible, and even isolate the kinds of human activities responsible for creating those compounds. However, experts in these questions cannot address the political, economic, and social forces that explain the choice of systems, machinery, and locations employing those compounds. The logic explaining these most fundamental choices can only be understood by using the analytical tools of the social sciences – tools untaught to practitioners of the physical sciences. At a time when wars over the control of oil are more frequent, it is particularly important that we understand the social forces behind both the thirst for oil and the atmospheric warming following its use. Fortunately, a growing number of social scientists have begun to address this disciplinary gap (Bergesen and Parisi 1997; Burns, Davis, and Kick 1997; Grimes and Kentor 2003; Grimes, Roberts, and Manale 1993, current issue; Grimes and Roberts 1995; Roberts and Grimes 1997). After a brief review of the contributions from the physical scientists we will evaluate these recent contributions and show how our work here both supports and extends their ndings.

Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment • 63

Global Warming and its Cost Daily changes in weather have accustomed all of us to the instability of temperature over the short run. But these daily and seasonal uctuations tend to cancel out; leaving the impression that Earth’s “thermostat” is always the same. The reality is far more subtle, of course. Earth’s surface temperature is the outcome of energy ows that are dynamic, sensitively re-adjusting to a uid balance of forces. The incoming warmth from the sun and the internal heat from the molten core beneath the mantle are continuously being radiated out into space, and the difference between these rates of warming and cooling creates the surface temperatures we must cope with. The atmosphere ultimately governs this race between heating and cooling by acting as a “valve” regulating the rate of heat loss from infrared radiation into space, and the size of this valve – the “clarity” of the infrared “window” – is mainly due to CO2. Along with Methane, CFC’s, and CHFC’s, CO2 captures heat, acting like a gaseous blanket over the planet. Although heat (infrared lightradiation) still works its way out through this chemical blanket, the blanket slows its progress enough to retard cooling and raise the global surface temperature. If it were not for naturally occurring levels of atmospheric CO2 in the past, the surface temperature of our planet would be below freezing (–18c), liquid water would not exist, and life as we know it impossible (Cowen 1995). Corroborating evidence is provided by the dating of sequential strata of seabed sediment indicating that periods of glaciation are actually the norm, while inter-glacial times like the last 10,000 years are the exception (e.g. – Monastersky 1996a & b). It is a delicate balance. Evidence from the fossil record and Antarctic ice cores reveal that levels of atmospheric CO2 have risen inversely with periods of glaciation for at least the past 100,000 years. These same ice cores show that levels of atmospheric CO2 have risen 27% during the period 1800– 1990, from 280ppm to 355ppm (CDIAC 1991, 1993, 1999, 2001). The increase in levels of CO2 since 1800 is almost certainly due to human activity – massive deforestation during the 19th Century added to in the 20th by the burning of fossil fuels. Today all automobiles, planes, and ships burning fossil fuels emit CO2, along with all coal or oil red electric generators. Hence almost all of the machinery used in modern production contributes to CO2 emissions.


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reached consensus that global warming is already well along (Houghton 1990, 1992, 2001). Temperatures in the northern hemisphere have shot up dramatically since 1900, well above their average for the previous ve centuries. Glacial ice-packs are retreating at unprecedented rates (Jacobs et al. 2002; Meier and Dyurgerov 2002), while plants and butteries have been documented moving higher up mountains and further north (Peters and Lovejoy 1992). Warming implies a general movement toward the poles of the climates appropriate for the major food crops (wheat, rice, and maize). For the majority of plants not under human cultivation, the polar shift in climate may outrun their ability to migrate, leading to their extinction along with the life forms dependent on them (Etterson and Shaw 2001; Peters and Lovejoy 1992). Melting ice suggests rising sea levels, which satellite data now conrm (Jacobs et al. 2002). The remaining glacial ice, if fully melted, would add another 250 feet (Robinson 1993). While we are yet far from that point, a rise of only one or two feet would permanently ood the currently arable land around the Nile, and has been estimated to be able to cut agricultural production globally by as much as 20 percent. Further, rising sea levels pose the potential for ooding important ports and coastal cities, as well as entire pacic island nations. Finally, climate models predict more frequent storms having higher wind-speeds with increased warming, implying corresponding increases in deaths and infrastructural damage. Because the global population is growing, and most of that population lives near rivers and seacoasts, the mortality gures could become truly staggering, as well as the costs of repair.

The Social Structure of Warming Fossil fuels are consumed throughout the activities of daily life, being used to power homes, businesses, and transportation. But the support for this consumption requires an expensive infrastructure of pipelines, wires and roads, as well as the money to pay for the fuels themselves. Consequently the use of these fuels reects the distribution of global income and political power, and is just as highly polarized. In 1995, 80 percent of the world’s emissions of CO21 emerged from the countries of the core, with the United States alone

1

Whereas ice core data can provide accurate estimates of prior levels of atmospheric CO2 (regardless of source) until recent times, the only reliable estimates of


accounting for 27 percent (World Resources Institute 1996). Further, until recent decades this polarized distribution of fuel consumption also tracked economic output (Burns et al. 1997). That is, both the overall volume of carbon and the emission of pounds of carbon per dollar of GDP were greatest among the developed (or “core”) countries and lowest among the poorest (“peripheral”) ones, appearing to show that energy efciency was also higher among the poor than the rich.2 However, recent research has demonstrated that this apparent link between production output and energy efciency was a transient phenomenon, found in the data for the 25 years following the second World War, but falling quickly apart during the decade of the 1970’s (Roberts and Grimes 1997; Roberts et al. current issue). Even though core countries continue to be the greatest contributors to the overall volume of atmospheric CO2 (Burns et al. 1997), by 1990 the ratio of CO2/GDP has grown to vary by nearly one hundredfold, while emissions of carbon dioxide per capita varies now by over two thousand fold (CDIAC 1991, 1993; World Resources Institute 1992). Even among nations with the same GDP per capita the ratio varies considerably. This growing divergence in CO2/GDP since the 1970’s appears as a dramatic increase in energy efciency within the core against an equal decrease in efciency within the semi-periphery and upper periphery (Roberts and Grimes 1997). At the same time, the variation among those countries with dropping efciency has itself grown rapidly. Previous research has also demonstrated that in 1990, holding world-system position constant, the least efcient producers were also the most politically repressive. They had the fewest political freedoms, the weakest unions, and the strongest internal military presence (Burns et al. 1997; Roberts et al. current issue). It was argued there that the recent ight of production capital away from the unions and regulations of the core and into the cheaper locations provided by the repressive regimes current emmissions come from fossil fuel consumption and cement manufacture (for details see the CDIAC publications in the bibliography). Hence these emission estimates ignore the contribution of deforestation, for which the methods of their relative contribution remain underdeveloped. However it is a reasonable assumption that much of the global contribution to CO2 production from deforestation probably emerges from the countriess in the periphery, for which rewood continues to be the dominant fuel source. This caveat should be born in mind for the discussion of industrial emissions in this article. 2 We use the terms core, semiperiphery and periphery as a short hand denoting a country’s level of development on a continuum from wealthy to poor. We do not ascribe qualitatively distinct properties to these categories, as argued by “orthodox” world-systems theorists.


of the Americas and East Asia was the key unlocking both the increasing carbon efciency in the core and its drop among some members of the semiperiphery. To summarize, research on CO2 production to date has found that the volume of energy consumption and thus CO2 production continues to track world-system position, being greatest in the core, intermediate in the semiperiphery, and lowest in the periphery (Burns et al. 1997). However, since 1975 the production efciency (as measured by the ratio of CO2/GDP) within the core appears to be growing while that within the semi-periphery is falling, presumably due to the relocation of manufacturing away from the high wages of the core toward the lower and more politically repressed wages found in the semi-periphery (Roberts and Grimes 1997; Roberts et al. 1993 and current issue). While this previous work has suggested that capital ight out of the core may have been the mechanism responsible for the rise in the ratio of CO2/GDP observed over time in the semi-periphery, no research has yet sought to validate this implication by actually tying various aspects of foreign investment to observed changes in the volume of output CO2 over time. After a brief theoretical review, this will be the empirical project to which we will ultimately turn.

The Globalization of Production The past twenty ve years have witnessed a massive shift in the geographical distribution of production from the core to less developed areas of the world economy (Sassen 1996), as transnational corporations searched for lower wages, closer proximity to markets and raw materials, and a way to diffuse the power of labor. Less developed countries became “parts suppliers” to the global economy, which has given rise to global commodity chains (Geref and Korzeniewicz 1993). Facilitated by increasingly efcient, low cost transportation costs, it became cheapest to distribute the production of individual components of a given product (i.e. autos) across several geographically distant locations, have the parts assembled in another country, and then re-shipped to markets throughout the world for sale. While this globalization of production may increase the prots of transnational corporations, it also increases the amount of international transportation, which accelerates the consumption of fossil fuels. This global relocation of production was fueled by a dramatic expansion of foreign investment. As Beer and Boswell explain (2002:31)

Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment • 67 . . . foreign direct investment has dramatically increased in importance over the last two decades, and is currently the primary source of resource ows to developing nations (Froot 1993; Tsai 1995). In 1998, FDI surpassed all other forms of lending as a source of foreign capital to developing nations (WDR 1991). In 1982, the total value of global inward FDI stock stood at almost 6 billion (US$), by 1990 that gure had reached 1.7 trillion (US$), and by 1999 it had reached 4.7 trillion (WIR 2000). The ratio of world FDI stock to world GDP increased from 5% in 1980 10 16% in 2000 (WIR 2000).

The countries competing for and receiving this capital ight out of the core were primarily located in East Asia and Latin America (geographically), and in the semi-periphery and upper periphery (structurally). But although this move cheapened the labor and political costs of production, it increased the actual consumption of energy (and carbon emission) used in that production.3 There are several reasons to expect that production outside of the core would be more energy consumptive than inside the core. Most important is the relatively poor infrastructure. States outside of the core lack the tax revenues to nance much new construction or keep up repairs on the old. So roads are less often paved or maintained, rail service spotty, and the electricity grid fragile and prone to frequent blackouts. The trucks and rolling stock using these facilities are themselves second or even third-hand, whether state or privately owned. Finally, power generation facilities use both older equipment and the cheapest fuels, which are often the most polluting. For all of these reasons it takes more fuel to move raw materials in and nished products out of factories outside of the core than those within, and

3

Of course the cheapest of all labor lies in the lower periphery. Yet they receive little foreign investment. This is because the costs of building new production facilities must be added to an even bigger cost of building all of the supporting infrastructure. In the comparatively more “developed” countries of the upper periphery and semiperiphery, pre-existing investments (foreign and domestic) have already laid down electric, water, and transport lines which can be used by new investors. Additionally, prior investments have the effect of culturally and politically proletarianizing the labor force, forcing their life-styles and expectations into the rigors of manufacturing discipline. Hence there is a feed-back loop between prior and current investments, which in “general” systems literature is referred to as “deviance amplication” and is particularly well-suited to the technique of panel regression. The overall effect is to channel countries with some prior investments into much faster growth trajectories than those lacking such investments. Even so, these patterns conform to the needs of capital from the core, ultimately sabotaging the creation of independent growth.


providing power to those factories is more polluting (including productive of CO2) than it is within the core. So while the motivation for capital to leave the core during the 1970’s and 1980’s may have been mainly about lower wage and raw material costs, a side-effect was to increase both the volume and per dollar amount of CO2 introduced into the atmosphere by the countries in the semi-periphery and periphery. Having summarized the basic science and relevant literature on this topic, we turn now to a discussion of the ways by which foreign investment dependence may affect the growth of carbon dioxide emissions. Three aspects of foreign investment will be considered: foreign capital penetration, foreign investment concentration, and the location of foreign subsidiaries.

Foreign Capital Penetration The most widely studied and intensely debated aspect of peripheral status in the world-economy has been foreign capital penetration. This aspect of “dependence” refers to the extent to which transnational corporations dominate the economy of a host country. Chase-Dunn (1975), who rst addressed this question empirically, found that his measure of foreign capital penetration had a negative effect on economic development. This nding was subsequently supported by Bornschier, Chase-Dunn, and Rubinson (1978), Bornschier (1980), Bornschier and Chase-Dunn (1985), Dixon and Boswell (1996), Kentor (1998, 2001), among others. Collectively, these researchers argued that the dominance of foreign capital in a peripheral economy produced negative consequences for many reasons. Specically, the leverage of foreign capital allowed the investing country (typically in the core) to obtain and maintain a signicant advantage over its weaker dependent partner both politically and economically (Galtung 1971). Economically, prots from foreign corporations tended to be repatriated rather than reinvested in the host economy, resulting in decapitalization (Bornschier 1980). Further, a lack of forward and backward economic linkages between the foreign industry and the local economy blocks many of the secondary benets of such investment that are conventionally asserted to accrue to the host economy. Politically, the sheer power of the foreign investors relative to the rest of the local economy makes their decisions vital to the fate of that country, thereby elevating their political inuence on the ruling class well


above any competing interests from other sectors. One of the many consequences of this disproportionate political inuence is an increase in inequality and a decrease in purchasing power among the working classes. Along with a host of other long-term ancillary “negative externalities,” these factors have been important causes of the reduced rate of growth derived from domestic investment (Dixon and Boswell 1996).

Foreign Capital Penetration and the Environment In the only directly applicable research to date on this topic (Grimes and Kentor 2003) we earlier examined the long-term impact of foreign capital penetration on carbon dioxide emissions. In a cross-national analysis of 66 less developed countries, we found that FDI stocks/GDP in 1980 had a signicant positive effect on the growth of CO2 emissions in those countries between 1980 and 1996. There we offered four explanations for this nding. First, foreign investment is more concentrated in those industries that require more energy. Second, transnational corporations may relocate highly polluting industries to countries with fewer environmental controls. Third, the movement of inputs and outputs resulting from the global dispersion of production over the past 30 years is likely to be more energy-expensive in countries with poorer infrastructure. Finally, power generation in the countries receiving foreign investment is considerably less efcient than within the countries of the core.

Foreign Investment Concentration Recently, Kentor and Boswell (2003) identied a new dimension of foreign capital dependence, which they refer to as foreign investment concentration. This is the percentage of total foreign direct investment stocks accounted for by the top investing country. Kentor and Boswell suggest that this measure reects the structure of foreign capital dependence, as distinct from just the overall level of foreign investment measured by foreign capital penetration. They argue that high levels of foreign investment concentration also inhibit economic growth in less developed countries. As with FDI above, it is the political question of state autonomy. High levels of foreign investment concentration – where the source investment may come from only one country – enable foreign corporations to work more easily together to gain


inuence over a variety of economic, political, and social dynamics in a host country. Once again this restricts the ability of the state and local elites to implement a national economic policy that conicts with the agenda of foreign capital, even when such a policy would be obviously in its own longterm interests. On the other hand, countries with a more diversied distribution of investing countries are better able to resist the inuence of any single investor, playing investors against each other and enabling the host country to pursue policies in its own interests.4 Kentor and Boswell’s ndings support this argument. The results of their cross-national panel regression analyses suggest that foreign investment concentration retards economic development, net of the effects of foreign capital penetration. It is interesting to note that, according to their ndings, foreign capital penetration has – at best – a relatively modest effect on economic development.

Kuznet’s Ghost We are almost ready to begin our data analysis. But before we can examine the data, one last argument needs to be disposed of; that of Kuznet’s ghost. In 1955, Simon Kuznets wrote a now classic piece on income inequality around the world. In it, he observed that the cross-national data on internal income inequality then available appeared to sequentially rise and then fall when graphed against rising national wealth. Although the cross-sectional nature of the data prevented him from drawing any rm conclusions about change over time, he speculated that the phenomenon might be a reection of just such a change. In particular, he suggested that the initial accumulation of capital required for long term development would generate the large inequalities observed in the middle-income countries. Meanwhile, the poorest countries were devoid of such accumulation altogether; and the richest had

4 The previous discussions of foreign investment are based on the dollar value of these investments. Kentor (2004) provides a new perspective on this issue, by using transnational corporations as the unit of analysis. Kentor suggests that the presence of foreign subsidiaries located in a less developed country may have a signicant impact on national economic development, independent of the dollar value of those investments. He argues that a signicant physical presence of foreign subsidiaries increases the number of external actors whose interests may not coincide with the interests of domestic political and economic elites. This reduces the ability of the state to act in its own best interests.


developed so many areas of accumulation and enough political complexity that sharp divisions in income had been smoothed out. Of course it is no coincidence that Kuznet’s inuential publication emerged during the intellectual boom period of modernization theory, which argued precisely that the world’s wealthiest countries portrayed a future achievable to the world’s poor. Now, 50 years on, students of development have more realistically appreciated both the legacy of colonialism and its reincarnation in current market mechanisms. As a consequence the accumulation of capital and its effects on the quality of life are more typically understood to be global processes transcending international borders (e.g. – Chase-Dunn and Grimes 1995; Grimes 1999; Kentor 1998). Viewed from this more sophisticated perspective, the degrees of internal inequality, political repression, physical infrastructure, and other qualities of the political-economy of production are each attributes of an international division of labor that works for the accumulation of capital on a global scale – a true “world-economy.” Hence the data pattern observed by Dr. Kuznets in 1955 would today be interpreted quite differently: not as revealing the stages of an accumulation process across separate units (nation-states) but instead as revealing the geography of political repression within one single unit (the world-economy). Despite this theoretical advance some – perhaps in ignorance of it – have sought to regress to Kuznets in order to explain a similar rise and fall in pollutants (expressed either as per capita or as per unit GDP) when nations are arrayed across measures of rising national wealth (Roberts and Grimes 1997). When Kuznets made his original assertions about the future of inequality within the sunny assumptions of modernization theory it implied to politicians that the “solution” was to do nothing, because the trajectory of national development (capital accumulation) would eventually lift all countries high enough up that income inequality would shrink automatically. Now, during a time of growing popular concern over the deteriorating state of the world’s environment it may not be coincidental that a few authors (some afliated with the World Bank) have found it soothing to suggest an analogous “environmental” Kuznets curve, with its comforting illusion that we need do nothing again but wait until “development” (again assumed to be an autonomous national process) restores balance with the biosphere anew. Because Kuznet’s speculation was informed by an erroneous theory, his predictions were equally wrong: today inequality among the middle-income


countries is greater than ever. Hence it is with no surprise that Roberts and Grimes (1997) showed that from 1960–1990, the ghost of Kuznets as applied to environmental pollution was just as wrong as it was when applied to inequality.

The Method and Data A cross-national panel regression analysis was used to estimate the effects of the aspects of foreign investment dependence discussed above (foreign capital penetration, foreign investment concentration, and foreign subsidiary penetration) on CO2 emissions between 1980 and 1996. In this type of analysis, the lagged dependent variable is included as an independent variable. Panel regression analysis is commonly used in the examination of change over time, as it controls for prior states of the countries included in the analyses as well as the possibility of reciprocal causality (Chase-Dunn 1979; Dixon and Boswell 1998; Firebaugh 1998; Grimes and Kentor 2003; Kentor 1998; Kentor and Boswell 2003; Soysa and Oneal 2001). There are, however, two drawbacks that should be noted. First, the lagged dependent variable typically accounts for much or most of the variance in the dependent variable, resulting in an articially high R2. Second, the standardized coefcients (betas) of the other independent variables are generally underestimated. For this reason, we usually examine the relative sizes of the betas, rather than the absolute levels.

Countries Included in the Analyses5 Many cross-national studies restrict their sample to less developed countries. The basic argument for this practice is that the impact of foreign investment is different for these countries. Recent evidence (Kentor 2004) suggests, however, that inclusion of wealthier nations may not signicantly affect the results. In our analyses here it is a moot point. Missing data, especially that for foreign investment concentration, limits our sample size to 30 cases. Nine of these cases lie in the core, and would typically be excluded from the sample

5

Countries included in the analyses: Canada, Thailand, Norway, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Guatemala, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, New Zealand, Ecuador, El Salvador, Australia, Peru, Korea, Rep., Colombia, Belgium, India, Japan, Chile, France, Austria, Barbados, Philippines, Argentina, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Panama, Italy.


for that rationale, leaving us with only 21 cases in the analyses – an uncomfortably small sample size. We have chosen, therefore, to include all possible countries in our analysis. It is also reasonable to argue that this “mixed” sample is only likely to underestimate the impact of foreign investment, so any signicant ndings will actually be more robust than the results suggest.

Variables Included in the Analyses6 Dependent Variable The dependent variable is the level of CO2 emissions in 1996, which has been logged (Ln) to correct the extreme skewness of this measure. The data are taken from the United Nations (World Resource Institute 2000). We use absolute levels rather than CO2/GDP, because we are interested in assessing the impact of foreign capital penetration on the environment. Independent Variables7 Foreign Direct Investment Stocks/GDP (natural log) is the measure of foreign capital penetration included in most current analyses (Dixon and Boswell 1996; Firebaugh 1996; Grimes and Kentor 1998; Kentor 1998, 2001, Soysa and Oneal 1999) and indicates the extent to which foreign capital dominates the investment structure of the host economy. This variable is logged due to its skewed distribution. These data are provided by UNCTAD (1998). Foreign Investment Concentration (FIC) is the percentage of foreign investment stocks obtained from the single largest investing country. In our sample, FIC ranged from a high of 88% to a low of 15%, with a mean of 45%. These data are taken from Kentor (2002). Foreign Subsidiary Growth 1980–1996 (FSG) is the absolute change in the number of foreign subsidiaries of the world’s 100 largest manufacturing corporations for a given country, calculated as the number of foreign subsidiaries located within a country in 1996 minus the number of foreign subsidiaries in 1980. These data are taken from Kentor (2002).

6 Descriptive statistics and correlations for all variables in the analyses are given in Appendix A. 7 Two additional variables were included in analyses not reported here; Kentor’s measure of foreign subsidiary concentration and exports/GDP. Neither variable was signicant, nor did their inclusion substantively affect the other coefcients.


Gross Domestic Investment/GDP is the rate of domestic investment in xed assets plus note changes in inventory levels, and is provided by the World Bank (1998). GNP per capita (natural log) is a measure of a country’s wealth and, therefore, an indicator of level of development (Arrighi and Drangel 1986). Data are provided by the World Bank (1996, 1999). Manufacturing, % of GDP controls for the structure of the host economy. Manufacturing typically generates more CO2 than the agricultural or service sectors of the economy. Inclusion of this variable allows us to estimate the impact of foreign investment, net of the overall level of manufacturing. Total CO2 Emissions 1980 (natural log) is the lagged dependent variable. It is included in the analyses to control for the prior state of the dependent variable and for the possibility of reciprocal causality. This variable, too, has been logged to correct the skewness of the distribution.

Results The primary nding of our analysis is that foreign investment concentration and foreign subsidiary growth in 1980 has signicant positive effects on growth in total CO2 emissions between 1980 and 1996 in less developed countries, net of the other independent variables. We nd no systematic effects of foreign capital penetration or domestic investment on total CO2 emissions over the same period. The results of the panel regression analysis are given in Table 1. The analysis was tested for outliers and inuential cases, and two countries, the United States and Sri Lanka, were excluded. Variance Ination Factors (VIF) were also examined for possible effects of multi-collinearity. VIF values for all variables were within acceptable limits. The lagged dependent variable was, as expected, the strongest predictor of carbon dioxide emission growth. (Its inclusion also inates the R2.) Only two substantive variables were statistically signicant; foreign investment concentration and foreign subsidiary growth, both of which had a positive effect on the growth of CO2 emissions between 1980 and 1996. The relative effect of foreign investment concentration (beta = .083) was somewhat greater than that of foreign subsidiary growth (beta = .061). Neither foreign capital penetration nor gross domestic investment had signicant, systematic effects.

Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment • 75 Table 1. Effects of Foreign Investment Dependence in 1980 on Growth of Carbon Dioxide Emissions 1990–1996 Dependent Variable: CO2 Emissions 1996 (Ln) Independent Variables 1980 GNP per capita (Ln)

b

Std. Err.

Beta

t-value

–.046

.061

–.027

–.741

Gross Domestic Investment/GDP

–.021

.017

–.039

–1.222

Manufacturing, value added/GDP

–.005

.014

–.012

–.360

Foreign Direct Investment Stocks/GDP

–.055

.065

–.026

–.844

Foreign Investment Concentration

.011

.004

.083

2.600

Foreign Subsidiary Growth 1980–1996

.002

.001

.061

1.767

*

CO2 Emissions (Ln)

.892

.029

.970

30.714

**

1.878

.592

3.172

**

Constant Adjusted R2 N

**

.979 30

* p < .05: 1 tailed test ** p < .01: 1-tailed test

Discussion and Conclusion The central ndings of these analyses are that two aspects of foreign investment dependence, foreign investment concentration and foreign subsidiary growth, accelerate the rate of growth of CO2 emissions. There are several dynamics at work here. First is the general process of globalization – the global diffusion of production that has occurred over the past twenty-ve years – which are reected in these two variables. Foreign investment is concentrated in energy consumptive, and (possibly) more polluting industries. Transnational corporations may be less likely to invest in pollution controls for production in less developed countries, which tend to have fewer environmental controls in order to attract foreign investment. Countries with high levels of foreign investment concentration are more likely to be inuenced by their foreign investors, and therefore will also be less likely to institute strict pollution controls. Moreover, the “new” logic of commodity chains, while cost efcient, increases the amount of transportation involved (and energy consumed) in the overall manufacture of goods. Further, the countries to which production has been transferred typically have poor domestic infrastructures, which result in less energy efcient production. The


contribution of domestic capital is negligible, because only foreign capital can purchase the equipment required for highly automated (and energyconsumptive) production. These results support the ndings of other research that note an increase in energy efciency measured as CO2/GDP in the core and a fall in that same efciency within the periphery during that same period (1975/80–2000) (Roberts et al. 2003). We should consider why foreign capital penetration did not have a signicant effect on the growth of carbon dioxide emissions, as was found in our earlier study (Grimes and Kentor 2003). Several possibilities come to mind. Substantively, this is consistent with similar results by Kentor and Boswell (2003), who found that the apparent effect of foreign capital penetration was reduced or entirely erased when foreign investment concentration was included in their analyses. They suggest that, while both level (penetration) and structure (concentration) matter, the latter has a more robust impact. Meanwhile, methodologically, this null nding may be a function of the sixteen year time span or the countries included in the analyses. In any event, this is certainly a worthwhile avenue for future research. Finally, it is important to consider the policy implications of this study. It is clear from these results that controlling CO2 emissions requires a global perspective. It is not sufcient to address the generation of greenhouse gasses within a given country. Rather, we must consider the continued growth of carbon dioxide emissions in terms of the global nexus of production and consumption and the corporations beneting from it that has driven the world economy for the past 25 years.

.987

CO2 emissions 1980 (Ln)

.224

FDI/GDP 1980 (Ln)

.220

.201

Manufacturing/GDP 1980

.333

.025

Gross Dom Inv 1980

Foreign Sub Growth 1980–96

.118

GNP pc 1980 (Ln)

Foreign Invest. Conc. 1980

1.000

CO2 emissions 1996 (Ln)

CO2 1996

.171

.486

–.354

.222

.377

.284

1.000

GNP 1980

.040

.340

.182

–.039

.335

1.000

GDI 1980

.222

.422

–.130

–.213

1.000

MAN 1980

.259

–.019

.016

1.000

FDI 1980

.149

–.172

1.000

FIC 1980

.327

1.000

SUB 1980

9.49

92.37

45.20

1.29

21.07

24.52

8.36

9.94

Mean

2.61

79.91

18.16

1.14

5.65

4.54

1.41

2.40

S.D.

Appendix A. Pearson Correlation Coefficients and Descriptive Statistics for Variables in the Analyses Foreign Investment Dependence and the Environment • 77

J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes and Jodie L. Manale Social Roots of Global Environmental Change: A World-Systems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Introduction Pollution has long been understood to threaten local populations and ecosystems, but there is now a broad awareness that human societies are altering the global climate through the emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gasses. As the National Research Council pointed out, “to adequately address the human dimensions of global change will require analyses at the global scale” (Stern, Young and Druckman 1992:178). We believe that world-systems theory provides such an analytical scale; integrating global scope, broad historical perspective, and welldeveloped empirical techniques. Our broader research project is to link sociological insights on global economic restructuring and the “New International Division of Labor” with levels and types of environmental destruction in different parts of the world stratication system. We here apply world-systems analysis in an attempt to locate the social factors underlying one of the most important environmental outcomes: the CO2 “intensity” of production within countries, as dened by the quantity of CO2 released per unit of economic output. There is a strong correlation between the total economic output of nations (as measured by their Gross Domestic Product) and their carbon dioxide

80 • J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes and Jodie L. Manale

emissions. Big economies pollute more, and the United States is by far the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, releasing 23 percent of the world’s emissions from fossil fuel combustion, nearly twice that of any other nation.1 For years, research on global warming was dominated by physical scientists who tended to assume that CO2 emissions were a linear by-product of economic development. Implicit within this assumption was the notion that there was a thermodynamically xed connection between the economic value of the items created within an economy and the amount of energy (hence CO2) needed to create those items. Such a simplifying assumption, however, has the effect of sweeping social-scientic inquiry out of analyses of global warming altogether, because physical scientists consistently reduced the complexities of global production to thermodynamic and physical constants. But this relation is not, in fact, linear at all. A quarter century ago Mazur and Rosa (1974) and Buttel (1978) showed that energy use is not rmly tied to indicators of social well-being (see also Rosa and Krebill-Prather 1993). That the relation between economic growth and energy use (and resulting pollution) is not cast in stone was shown by West Germany in the 1980s: while its economy grew at an average annual rate of 2.1 percent during that decade, West German emissions of carbon dioxide fell by an average annual rate of –1.2 percent (World Bank 1992b:204, 221). These deviations from general trends serve to show that at root the generation of greenhouse gasses is not solely determined by technology or thermodynamics but also from human choices about the organization of production and consumption. Some economies are far more “efcient” than others at producing “wealth” for the environmental cost. For example, in 1997 the United States produced 75% more CO2 per unit of GDP than did the UK or Japan, and 3.5 times as much as Switzerland.2 Among countries with lower incomes per capita, Trinidad and Turkmenistan produced over 12 times the carbon dioxide per unit of GDP as did Uruguay and Kenya, and over 20 times more than Sri Lanka, Uganda and Mozambique. We seek here to apply the insights of political-economy to understand why carbon emissions should vary so widely. By doing so we hope also to contribute to the decades-long debate about whether population, afuence or

1

World Bank 2001, data is for the latest year available there, 1997. On a per person basis, the U.S. emits ve times the global average, and nearly 20 times the average for the “low income” countries. 2 These gures are adjusted by Purchasing Power Parity, by the World Bank 2001.

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 81

inefciency are the most important factors at the root of the world’s great environmental problems.3 This attention to carbon intensity (inefciency) tells us some things the other approaches cannot: there is much variation to be explained, and the patterns may have important lessons on how to make our economies more efcient. By coincidence, our “intensity” approach also has a new policy relevance. It happens to be convenient for the current U.S. administration, because it appears to shift attention away from that nation – the biggest volume CO2 emitter – toward less signicant countries. After U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told EU members in spring 2001 that the Kyoto treaty to address climate change was “dead” without U.S. participation, the Bush administration had to provide an alternative plan to address the problem. In February, 2002, President G. W. Bush proposed his “New Approach on Global Climate Change” plan in response to the treaty, and provided a new benchmark by which America offered to measure its own progress on the issue. He “committed America to an aggressive new strategy to cut greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over the next 10 years.”4 The White House argued that: The President’s Yardstick – Greenhouse Gas Intensity – is a Better Way to Measure Progress Without Hurting Growth. A goal expressed in terms of declining greenhouse gas intensity, measuring greenhouse gas emissions relative to economic activity, quanties our effort to reduce emissions through conservation, adoption of cleaner, more efcient, and emission-reducing technologies, and sequestration. At the same time, an intensity goal accommodates economic growth . . .5

Further, they argued that “Greenhouse gas intensity is a more practical way to discuss goals with developing countries, since carbon free technologies are not yet in place.” 3 This is sometimes referred to as the Paul Ehrlich-Barry Commoner debate, and many authors refer to Commoner’s I = PAT (environmental Impact = Population × Afuence × Technology) formulation. For recent reviews, see Bell 1998; Dietz and Rosa n.d.; and much other work by Eugene Rosa and collaborators. Our term CO2/GDP is algebraically equivalent to the T (technology) term in the IPAT model. While almost all previous authors have left the T term as a black box, our objective here is to begin to open that box. 4 White House, 2002a. The President promised that “If, in 2012, we nd that we are not on track toward meeting our goal, and sound science justies further policy action, the United States will respond with additional measures that may include a broad, market-based program as well as additional incentives and voluntary measures.” 5 White House, 2002b.


This article examines the world as measured by The President’s Yardstick – examining patterns of greenhouse gas intensity around the world to attempt to explain variation in who emits how efciently. Despite coinciding with that measure now, the current analysis was conceived of ten years ago to better understand how social organization and the rapid movement of capital was affecting CO2 emissions. We acknowledge that other indicators more closely reect ethical arguments on what is a just level of emissions, such as per capita or historical accounting of contributions to the climate change, but none reects as well the efciency of nations in terms of economic production vs. environmental cost.6 While we believe carbon intensity has great potential to provide crucial insights for analysis and policy, such an index is no basis for an international agreement on climate change, since it addresses neither a nation’s total impact on the atmosphere nor the savage inequality in who has created the problem and who will suffer its impacts.7 It is our goal here to uncover some of the social forces inuencing national carbon intensity. To do so we need to characterize societies in terms of their CO2 intensity, discerning which countries’ economies are more and less efcient, and discover why. This exercise therefore has explicit policy implications in revealing the impact of social structures and national economic strategies on the output of the most important greenhouse gas. To understand the relationships linking social forces and CO2 emissions we must address several questions: First, are there links between a country’s CO2 emissions and its position in the global stratication system (it’s “world system position”)? Second, are there other structural forces in the worldsystem such as relations of debt, levels of export dependency and types of exports which inuence the emission of greenhouse gasses? Finally, when controlling for the effects of World-System Position and external linkages, how much do a country’s internal class, economic and political structures also affect its emissions? For example, are the countries which deny basic human and political rights also those which permit greater destruction of the natural environment?

6

There is now a huge literature on this topic, e.g. WRI 1990, pages 17–19; CDIAC 1991, 1993; and more recently Neumayer 1999; Athanasiou and Baer 2002; we also refer readers to the websites of Climate Equity Observer, US, the Global Commons Institute, UK, the Center for Science and Environment, India, Eco-Equity Institute, US, and our forthcoming work, Roberts and Parks forthcoming. 7 Roberts and Parks forthcoming.


Until recently, a relatively small group of sociologists had made important attempts to bridge political economy and environmental issues (e.g. Schnaiberg 1980; Grimes 1982, Foster 1994; O’Connor 1989; Buttel 1992; Bunker 1985; Gould et al. 1996; Rudel 1989). Schnaiberg and O’Connor have advanced the useful idea that capitalism and national governments are on a “treadmill of production,” which requires economic growth for their support and legitimation, and which is inevitably unsustainable (Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994; O’Connor 1973, 1989). However for decades writing in the world-system tradition ignored links between that system and the natural environment which supports it (see Smith 1993; Chew 1995; and review in Roberts and Grimes 2001; an exception was an earlier special issue of the Journal of World-Systems Research). Like much of sociology, the paradigm therefore implicitly took what Dunlap and Catton (1994) called the “human exemptionalist” approach – that humans are exempt from ecological laws affecting other species. Clearly we are not. A substantial theoretical exploration of how the internal and external conditions of countries might be related to their CO2 intensity is necessary before we can move on to empirical testing. Our theoretical exploration builds from central world-system works. We focus on the crucial role of political repression and environmentally harmful policies in poorer countries’ attempts to compensate for inadequate infrastructure and technology, and distance to major consumer markets. We then explore the validity of our hypotheses using OLS regressions in a cross-sectional analysis of 154 countries. Here we limit ourselves to attempting to explain carbon emissions from its main source: burning fossil fuels in production and commercial transportation, by governments and in private consumption.8

World-Systems Theory and the Global Environment World-systems analysis evolved out of efforts over the past fty years to explain how and why some countries in the world economy have been able to grow in power and wealth while others remain trapped in apparent

8 Industrial CO2 gures also include emissions from cement manufacture and gas aring, but these normally represent only small percentages of the total (Marland and Rotty 1984). See Appendix A for variable descriptions. Elsewhere we examine CO2 emissions from deforestation, and we also undertake some time-series analyses, including a current effort to push back the present ndings.


stagnation (e.g. Braudel 1981; Wallerstein 1974, 1979; review by Shannon 1996). It has four central postulates. First, the current world economy took on its dening features in Europe between 1500 and 1650 (but see Frank and Gills 1993). Second, among these features are a stable tri-part international stratication system of core, semi-periphery, and periphery through which individual countries may move (up or down), but which itself has not changed. Third, the ability of countries to achieve upward mobility is constrained by their trade relations with the world economy and their geo-political role and power, which together condition their structural location within the hierarchy (see e.g., Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol 1985; Geref and Wyman 1990). Finally, this structural location – their world-system “position” – plays an important role in shaping their class structure and internal political battles. These last two postulates dene World-System Theory’s relevance for understanding both national environmental policies and levels of damage by country (see Chase-Dunn and Grimes 1996; Roberts 1996a; Roberts and Grimes 2002). Specically, World-System Theory asserts that the historical legacy of a country’s “incorporation” into the global economy has a critical impact on the avenues of development available to it (e.g. Wallerstein 1979; Chase-Dunn 1989). This legacy helps to shape the types of products it makes (and which commodities are traded and with whom), the conditions for both capital and labor, as well as its global power vis-à-vis other nations. These elements in turn affect governmental policies towards the environment, decisions by rms within countries, and shape the life conditions of its peoples. We do not believe a country’s position in the hierarchy of nations (it’s “World-System Position” or WSP) alone can explain environmental outcomes since as we will see below, much variation exists between CO2 outputs of countries at the same WSP level. However when combined with other critical variables on both external and internal features of a country, including WSP in cross-national analysis allows us to examine important patterns in the global stratication system. As difcult to operationalize as class and stratum, we chose for the present analysis a compromise measure of WSP which was based on a combination of qualitative groupings in the classic works (into core, semiperiphery and periphery), GDP per capita, and predominance in global trade (combining Terlouw 1992’s indexes; see Appendix A). Predominance in global trade is roughly proportional to the total size of a country’s GDP, which Van Rossem (1996) recently found to be the best simple proxy for WSP. WSP as operationalized here is strongly (but not per-


fectly) correlated with a country’s wealth, as measured by GDP per capita (r = .774) and we often use WSP as a synonym for wealth. As cross-checks, we compare the value of these indices of global power. A central expectation of this research is that behind the dual restraint of workers and environmentalists within each country lie the interests of local ruling classes, transnational corporations, and governments in sustaining both the protable structures of internal production and the links between these structures and the world economy (Roberts and Thanos 2003). We expect that many countries in the semi-periphery and periphery with the highest levels of CO2 emission per unit of economic output (as measured by GDP in U.S. dollars) are those specializing in exporting undervalued natural resources or manufactures based on cheap labor, exploiting both in a climate where business is relatively free of government regulation (see Ciccantell 1994; Kennedy 1993). But as we will see below, the semiperiphery is an extremely diverse category. In their attempts to spur economic growth and improve their WorldSystem Position, some states have actively solicited highly-polluting industries eeing higher costs and environmental regulations instituted in the core rich countries since 1970 (Covello and Frey 1990; Buttel 1992; Roberts and Grimes 1995; but see also Leonard 1988; Low and Yeats 1992; Pearson 1987; and the ongoing debate in the Journal of Environment and Development). Others have taken much “cleaner paths of development” than others, specializing in tourism, services, or higher technology. As Vernon (1993) pointed out, to understand a country’s willingness or hesitance to participate in global environmental agreements one needs to pay attention to the structure of the state and its dependence on the “polluting elites” that are tied to these export sectors (see Roberts 1996a,b). To this we would add that one must examine a country’s level of dependence on foreign capital and how that capital was obtained (through private or public loans, grants or direct investment) in order to understand its impact on environmental protection policies (see Roberts 1996b). Some of these inuences are contradictory. Though tightly linked, in our analysis we wish to explore the ability of internal and external variables to predict national carbon intensity. Core Production and CO2 from Fossil Fuels Though there is important variation, core nations in the world-economy are able to use the most advanced and capital intensive technologies to produce for world and home markets. Their economies also have largely shifted from


manufacturing to services. In addition, though varying signicantly, core laborers are the least coerced and highest paid relative to those outside of the core (Chase-Dunn 1989). This wage inequity between core and periphery has been exacerbated since World War Two by a number of factors. These include but are not limited to the rise of monopoly capitalism, “Fordism,” and the politics of trade union activism. In the United States this conjuncture both allowed for and compelled rms to pay higher wages, which in turn created a strong consumer base or domestic market. In addition, political organizations pursuing environmental goals are generally more active and tolerated in the core (see e.g. Dunlap, Gallup and Gallup 1993), making it often politically costlier to locate highly polluting production technologies there (but see Roberts 1996a,b). Despite higher wages, postwar production methods in the core could still often undercut lower paid but more laborintensive production strategies found in poorer nations. Moreover, core rms’ margins of prots and relative monopoly positions also made investments in energy efciency and pollution control more viable. While within the core the level of both wages and automation have been higher (as a national average) than countries in the periphery or semi-periphery, considerable variation still exists in their patterns of consumption. For example, despite increasing wages over the past 40 years, workers in Japan were guided by government policy into far greater levels of saving relative to consumption, in contrast to the same period in the U.S. (see e.g. Fajnzylber 1990a). Just as there are important differences within the core at any one time, so are there shifting ows of investment and disinvestment over time throughout the system. Global restructuring of capitalism since the 1970’s has seen a capital ight from the core to the semi-periphery and periphery, creating a “New International Division of Labor” with increasingly complex production taking place in poorer, lower-wage nations (e.g. Frobel, Heinrichs and Kreye 1981; Dicken 1998). This restructuring has had the effect of shifting some of the most polluting industries out of the core altogether, while raising unemployment and depressing wages within the core (see special issue of Environmental Economics in 1998, and other issues of that journal). Energy use is high in the core because of the substitution of fossil fuels and other inorganic energy sources for human and animal power. Energy consumption is closely correlated with the size of a country’s economy, and kilowatt hours of electricity consumed has often been used as a proxy for


Gross National Product (e.g. – Cook 1971; Humphrey and Buttel 1982:154–8; Bollen and Appold 1993). At the same time, however, their advanced infrastructure – transportation, communications and production systems – makes it possible for both the social and physical machineries of production to be more thermodynamically efcient. This phenomenon is now discussed in terms of ecological modernization (Simonis 1989; Spaargaren and Mol 1992; Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000; Mol 2001). We expect that such efciency has developed largely as the result of rm-level decisions to increase per-worker productivity, combined with government-level decisions to facilitate that production with improved infrastructure. Because efciency gains are inevitably limited and the production of new efcient machines itself requires energy and materials, we do not believe that capital can entirely replace energy in this relationship.9 Although the restructuring of the global economy has had an uneven effect on the disciplining of workers and political activists in the core (e.g. de-industrialization and high unemployment have lessened the strength of unions), the organizational strength and demands of environmental groups have remained high or increased several times (Jones and Dunlap 1992).10 Hence, core countries are both economically enabled and politically compelled to minimize pollution (see also Bunker 1985). Non-Core Production and CO2 from Fossil Fuels Among the majority of nations outside of the core, older and/or more polluting forms of production are the norm (Diwan and Shak 1992, but see Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000). Having a legacy of cheap labor and without the means to build high technology factories, infrastructure, or expensive pollution control devices, many nations have been constrained to use natural resources and labor-intensive production to try to increase their share of global income. These are the countries that we anticipate are producing the greatest amount of CO2 per unit of GDP in the last decades.

9

Most rms and nations are nowhere near those limits, as the work of Hunter and Amory Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute suggests. 10 This appears to be because these groups cut across class lines, and include large numbers of the growing class of “information workers” (Morrison and Dunlap 1986; Buttel 1992). To some extent, environmental concerns and support for environmental groups has spread through social strata and around the world (e.g. Dunlap et al. 1992).


This economic pattern is partly a legacy of the more distant past. Historically, the incorporation of peripheral areas into the emerging world-system typically involved military conquest, the purpose of which was not only for access to natural resources (real or imagined), but also in order to create a stable supply of coerced labor. Later, when these areas won their formal independence from direct European rule, those individuals and rms relying on the production of cheap exports (using coerced labor) for European consumption were usually more deeply established and politically powerful than those who had invested in local manufacturing. Many have described these economies as “disarticulated”, as a way to refer to the lack of a connection between local wages and sales of the goods locally produced.11 By denition, relatively coerced labor, being poorly paid, cannot constitute an important consumer market. It is seen, then, by local capitalists only as means to produce products cheaply, which in their turn are destined for markets in the core. Over the past 30 years, there has been a substantial growth of industrial capacity in the countries of the semi-periphery and the upper portions of the periphery (Dicken 1998), but these countries continue to be major providers of extractive primary products: fuel, minerals and metals export has remained a substantial part of their exports (World Bank 1992b, 2001). Regardless of the precise mix of manufactured and primary exports, strategies for upward mobility among the vast majority of countries in the “middle” of the world-system have tended to rely upon a vigorous suppression of production costs and a minimum of government regulation. The poorer infrastructure in most areas outside of the core means that even automated production facilities must often compete against a backdrop of inadequate roads and sometimes intermittent electronic communications. For example, the cost per mile of shipping a ton of steel overland in the United States or Japan is likely to be much lower on average than in Brazil, Laos, Guatemala or Cambodia. Isolated countries, most dramatically the small island states, face tremendous transportation costs. Given these infrastructural limitations, the only way that such locations can compete globally in the short term is to make the production process itself as cheap as possible. This almost always includes repressing labor. Hence the disadvantage

11

Amin 1976; De Janvry 1981. As suggested above, there are parallels here to the newer literature on social regulation or “post-Fordism.”


conferred by poor infrastructure and distance from substantial consumer markets is often compensated for by the cheapness of coerced labor and “resale” prices for natural resources. In the intensely competitive arena of attracting foreign investors, environmental regulations have often seemed an unnecessary cost driving potential investors away (Roberts 1996a,b; Roberts and Thanos 2003). Further, repressive political climates often vitiate popular initiatives to protect the environment. This has applied regardless of ideological lines – the strategy of production for the world market having been taken up by state socialist nations as well as capitalist economies. The environmental devastation under state socialist regimes in Eastern Europe illustrates what is possible with wider-scale industrialization in semi-peripheral authoritarian states (Kennedy 1993; Manser 1993). The historical monopoly by the core of the highest technology goods and services has often required that countries outside of the core pay high prices for core products, particularly those designed to improve infrastructure and production facilities (Amin 1976; Frobel, et al. 1980; Vernon 1966).12 During the 1960s and 1970s, these purchases were frequently nanced by debt. With skyrocketing interest rates in the 1970s and global recession in the early 1980s, this left many countries caught in a “debt trap,” wherein they had to commit a substantial portion of their foreign earnings from exports to servicing debts incurred in their attempts to “modernize.” Heavy debt burdens create pressures for “austerity,” while increasing the need to generate revenues through yet more export earnings – regardless of long-term environmental consequences and often at the expense of more sustainable approaches.13 However, despite these many structural similarities, there is also important and substantial variation within the semi-periphery and periphery. As in the core, such differences are often due to the actions of individual states and the geopolitical circumstances within which they operate, circumstances enabling national ascent within the world-system. For example, some East Asian states were able to avoid the debt traps and resource depletion faced by the countries of Latin America and Africa by receiving exceptionally favorable grants and longer-term loans offered by international agencies, the U.S.

12 Some critics see this process continuing today in the export from the core of “green technology” and other high-efciency equipment (Roberts 1996b; OECD 1994). 13 E.g. Reed 1992, 1996; but there substantial disagreement on this point.


government and Japanese lenders (Stallings 1990). These favorable terms were applied to programs of aggressive state leadership and cooperation with export-oriented private rms. Such programs and easy credit combined in the long run to both strengthen these states and reduce the reliance on foreign investment, which elsewhere has frequently led to a drain of wealth through prot repatriation. A few have managed to build world-class industrial infrastructure. East Asia, Latin America and Africa have also varied markedly in their agrarian structures, which has led to more equal distributions of income in Asia and broader internal markets (Kuo, Ranis and Fei 1981; Geref and Wyman 1990). The relative lack of natural resources compelled some East Asian states to make the difcult decisions such as land reform and cutting state spending, both made possible by World War Two’s outcome (Ranis 1990). This special combination of factors has produced a more efcient export industry generating a higher level of processed goods, and lowered reliance on raw materials exports in countries such as Singapore and South Korea. These two countries’ emissions of CO2/GDP have been among the lowest in the world (WRI 1992, 2002). Nearby Malasia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, however, all of which are reliant on timber exports and are deforesting rapidly, had levels eight to ten times those of Singapore and South Korea in the early 1990s. While industrial processes around the world released about 22 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1989, deforestation in the tropics added another 4 billion tons, accounting for about 16 percent of the total.14 While releasing carbon, deforestation itself limits the ability of the biosphere to absorb carbon dioxide (Woodwell 1984).15 Often the same low wages that are characteristic of those countries pursuing the path of producing low cost exports correspond to an inability for the population to afford fossil fuels for cooking, or the equipment and infrastructure that fossil fuel-based cooking requires (see Rudel 1989; Rudel and Roper n.d.). Hence they are compelled to rely upon wood as a primary or even only fuel (WRI 1992). 14

WRI 1996: 316, 317; There is substantial debate on the role of land-use change in contributing to carbon emissions. 15 We explore social roots of carbon emissions from deforestation elsewhere (Grimes, Roberts and Manale n.d.). It is critical to acknowledge also the importance of the millions of tons of carbon which were released into the atmosphere over the past three centuries in the United States and other temperate regions when vast portions of the planet’s plant cover were removed for agriculture and lumber (Tucker and Richards 1983; Bueno and Marcondes Helene 1991; Neumayer 1999).


Below these countries, at the very bottom of the global hierarchy, is the “lower” periphery or “Fourth World,” a region documented in recent empirical work (Smith and White 1992; Terlouw 1992; Van Rossem 1996). There, minimal technology and abundant labor shapes production into being almost exclusively labor- and animal-traction intensive, so there is little release of CO2 from burning fossil fuels. While inefcient in terms of human labor, these methods are considerably more efcient in terms of overall calories consumed. They may, however, still be the sites of heavy use of forest resources for fuel, building materials, or exports. The overall pattern we expect for fossil fuel emissions of CO2, therefore, is an inverted U-shaped curve of CO2 per dollar of gross domestic product (our measure of “CO2 intensity”) when plotted against GDP per capita or other World-System Position measures. The highest polluters per unit of GDP are expected to be in neither the richest nor the poorest countries, but instead those in the middle, roughly corresponding in world-system terms to the semi-periphery and upper periphery. These are the countries having enough fossil-fuel dependent technology to compete in the world market, but not enough sophisticated infrastructure to do so efciently.16

Issues of Data and Model Specification The estimates of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning activities by country are based largely on energy consumption gures (see Marland and Rotty 1984, and Marland et al. 1989). Specically, what the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC) calls “Industrial CO2” gures are calculated as the sum of emissions from burning solid, liquid, and gas fuels, from gas aring, and from cement manufacturing (CDIAC 1991). The latter two categories account for only about 3 percent of CO2 emissions coming from all of these “industrial” sources, so for shorthand we refer to them all as fossil fuel emissions (WRI 1992:352; see also Stern et al. 1992). It should

16

Such a pattern is being predicted and found for a series of environmental variables, including the levels of urban air pollution in the world’s megacities (UNEP/WHO 1992; see also Rosa and Krebill-Prather 1993; Grossman and Krugman 1995; Crenshaw and Jenkins 1994; Reed 1992; Roberts and Grimes 1995; Jorgenson 2003). The drop in measured levels of many urban air pollutants in some cities has been attributed to dire calls for pollution controls (UNEP/WHO 1994). Since calls for control of CO2 have been much more recent and more diffuse, the reversal we nd can only be attributed to increased efciency in production and transportation.


be pointed out that these fossil fuel gures include both commercial and residential uses. Finally, it should be noted that these data exclude the large contribution of CO2 from the massive deforestation current throughout the world. Our cross-sectional research seeks to explore the relations between WorldSystem Position, political repression, and environmental destruction. Included are all nations for which relevant data existed in 1989 and 1998. The data constrain our analysis to pursue only the most basic questions. We obviously cannot capture all of the aspects of the production and consumption conditions that we believe affect CO2 emissions. Rather, we can only explore here the explanatory power of such variables as are available. There are no cross-national data available, for example, to directly measure the degree to which labor is coerced, class structures polarized, or consumption patterns channeled towards or away from energy-intensive activities. Even data on wages and income inequality are both scarce and suspect. We are forced to settle for such data as exist, often using proxies for much broader social and political factors. We operationalized some of these internal social factors through estimates of inequality, population growth rates, and the size of the government bureaucracy compared to the economy. Political repression was indicated by political and civil freedom (Gastil 1990), percent of the labor force which is organized, and by per capita spending on the military (see Suter and Nollert 1995). External economic relations are measured by world system position, dependence on exports, dependence on narrow range of export products, dependence on a few export partners, by a country’s debt service payments divided by its income from export earnings, and the importance of foreign direct investment in the economy (see Walton and Ragin 1990). We summarize our broad theoretical hypotheses and how each was operationalized into specic variables and predictions in the table below. More details on the meaning and measurement (including descriptives and correlations) of the variables are in Appendix A.

Summary of Hypotheses

Major Conceptual Hypotheses: H1: National environmental outcomes (in this case carbon intensity) are a result of the nature of that nation’s wealth and links to the world economy.


H2: A Nation’s Internal Social Structure will lead to a high or low “emissions regime.” H3: When infrastructure is poor, political repression is a common means used by peripheral states to keep production costs competitive. Political repression is usually accompanied by less concern or less expression of concern over environmental protection. Specic Predictions on Direction of Relations with CO2/GDP [predicted direction of relation]: H1: National environmental outcomes (in this case carbon intensity) are a result of the nature of that nation’s links to the world economy. 1.1. CO2/GDP tends to increase with higher World System Position (WSP) or GDP/capita because the energy-intensity of economic processes increases (when controlling for the squared term to capture the downward slope – see H1.2). [+] 1.2. Because of improved efciency in the core, the relation between CO2/GDP and WSP is an inverted U-curve. Therefore the square of WSP will be negatively related to CO2/GDP, reecting the down-slope of the curve from the semi-periphery to the core, when controlling for the linear term WSP or GDP/capita. This is true as well for the natural log of GDP per capita and GDP per capita squared. [–] 1.3. Nations with less diverse (more concentrated) exports will have higher CO2 intensity because those exports tend to be raw and intermediate materials, most of which are energy-intensive to produce. Concentration of Exports [+]. 1.4. The concentration of countries to which a nation sends its major exports (Concentration of Export Receiving Countries) is also expected to be associated with higher carbon intensity, reecting simple and fragile economies dependent on one trading partner, which is more often the case in post-colonial, disarticulated nations. [+] 1.5. Total intensity of Exports as a Proportion of GDP will have mixed association with carbon intensity. This is because substantial exports are now services and light manufactures, rather than the slightly processed metals and agricultural products typical of post-colonial nations. [+/–] 1.6. Nations with heavy debt burdens will need to focus on exploitation of resources and eschew environmental protection to gain hard currencies. Debt service/exports [+]


1.7. We expect that levels of Foreign Direct Investment might lead to increased carbon intensity, at least if rms are moving out of the U.S., Europe and other more regulated environments to “pollution havens” where they can site the energy intensive portions of the production chain. [+] H2: A Nation’s Internal Social Structure will lead to a high or low “emissions regime.” 2.1. Countries with disarticulated economies will have high levels of inequality (as expressed by the Gini coefcient for income) and high population growth rates. Both of these should cause increased carbon intensity by creating desperation and unsustainable practices among marginalized segments [+] 2.2. The allocation of a greater proportion of the GDP in government spending may indicate inefcient and sometimes “predatory” rentseeking state postures towards their economies, and these states may subsidize environmentally damaging (carbon intense) activities, especially in the non-core. [+] Alternatively, in the core, government spending as a proportion of GDP may be associated with tighter environmental regulations and enforcement. H3: When infrastructure is poor, political repression is a common means used by peripheral states to keep production costs competitive. Political repression is usually accompanied by less concern or less expression of concern over environmental protection. 3.1. Political repression will disable or preempt pressure from local or international environmental organizations which might improve carbon intensities. Regime repressiveness is indicated by Gastil’s index of political and civil rights [+] 3.2. Greater proportions of laborers in unions may indicate greater civic participation and political space for environmentalists. Percent of Labor Organized [–] 3.3. In many non-core nations, military spending supports internal political repression. In both core and non-core nations military spending often involves direct polluting and often economically non-productive activities. Military Spending/GDP [+] We have similar predictions for military personnel per thousand population. [+]


To test for the inverted U-shaped curve we predicted, we included in our regression equations both the natural log of World-System Position (for the upward trend) and a quadratic term (for the downward slope) (following Berry and Feldman 1985: 57–60). The remaining predictors in the equation were designed to assess with the data available how well the other social factors discussed earlier can explain the deviations away from these major trend lines. To evaluate some of the direct effects of world market forces, we used the concentration of export commodities as a proxy for trade specialization, and the ratio of debt service payments over the earnings from all exports to reect the pressure of external debts. To test whether state strength played a role in production efciency, government consumption as a percent of GDP was included. We used three indicators for political repression: regime repressiveness, percent of labor organized, and military spending per unit of GDP. A series of other methodological problems remain, several of them unresolvable given the data available. First, many variables were highly skewed and so were logarithmically transformed by standardized criteria.17 Ratio variables were required in several cases to correct for the size of the population or GDP in a nation (see Firebaugh and Gibbs 1985). Multicollinearity is a concern, especially for variables tied to national wealth, and so we have attempted to examine their effects in separate and combined equations. Fourth and most troubling is that much important data are missing in a non-random fashion. Usually, data are least available for countries in the periphery, introducing a sampling bias favoring wealthier countries. While some small states are present in the sample, evaluation of outliers indicated they do not profoundly skew the distributions. Rather, the most complete data sets are from the core and semi-periphery; the World Bank or United Nations are often entirely missing data for both the smallest micro-states and many previously or currently communist states (Bollen, Entwisle and Alderson 1993; Grimes 1996). However one indicator central to our argument (debt service as a percent of export earnings) posed the opposite problem: data were missing for the core. Unfortunately, several other variables were dropped from the analysis because of difculties in validity and availability of data; level of technology and international competitiveness (see Fajnzylber 1990b);

17

We logged those variables whose skews were greater than 1.0, and kurtoses were greater than 1.4.


natural resources endowment (see Ranis 1990); business leadership, sectoral disarticulation, poverty, and so on.18 Because of larger amounts of missing data in the periphery, list-wise deletion of missing data would have further skewed these samples or made regressions impossible. Rather than impute values for countries without data based on similar ones, we reluctantly use pair-wise deletion of missing cases as the lesser of two evils. A result of this procedure is that even countries without data for one variable are used to model the relations between other variables for which we do have data. We attempt to check for “instability” in the regression coefcients as samples shift with different model specication. Because of these sample biases and methodological quandaries, the use of statistical tests in what follows must be treated with caution. It should be pointed out that our goal is only to discover the direction of overall relation, not their absolute magnitude. For this reason in Table 1 we report both unstandardized b’s and standardized beta values, since the metric b’s are not additive and not readily interpretable after some variables were ratioed and logged. We also have reported a rather large number of models, which examine the impact of variables on sample sizes and allow comparison of measures. If nothing else, the table shows how the insights which come from many social variables unfortunately come with signicant costs in terms of statistical robustness.

CO2 Intensity and Global Stratification Figure 1a shows the distribution of CO2/GDP across nations of increasing levels of national wealth (GDP per capita), and Figure 1b shows how carbon intensity varies across levels of GDP per capita and World System Position. Both are apparently curvilinear relationships with substantial scatter. Because of the scatter the shape resembles a turtle more than an inverted u-curve. Interestingly, WSP seems to better capture the upward slope on the left of the graph, while GDP per capita has a fairly clear downslope among the wealthiest countries (above 8.5 in lnGDP/capita). Countries on the left and right ends (the extreme periphery and core, respectively) cluster near or below 5 in lnCO2/GDP (about 1.65 tons per million dollars), while nations whose

18

OECD data on poverty from the Luxembourg Income Project (Buhmann, Rainwater, Schmaus and Smeeding 1987) are highly incomplete and not readily comparable.

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 97 8

7

6

LNCOGD98

5

4

3 4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

LNGDCP98 Figure 1a: Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the World System. Natural log of national carbon emissions intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP), versus GDP per capita, 1998.

8

7

6

LNCOGD98

5

4

3 –8

–6

–4

–2

0

2

4

6

LNWSPETE Figure 1b: Natural log of national carbon emissions intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP), 1988, vs. hybrid Terlouw index of position in the world system.


logged WSP index score lies between –4 and 3 produce more CO2 per unit of GDP.19 It is noteworthy that across the full range of WSP values there are nations producing little CO2 per GDP, but most of these lie in the extremes, particularly in the core and upper periphery. This upside down “U” curve (or more precisely, the turtle shape) is consistent with our theoretical expectations (see also Roberts and Grimes 1997). These gures show that no thermodynamically xed relation between world system position and actual CO2 emissions exists. Some thermodynamic minimum doubtless exists (Georgescu-Roegen 1971; Commoner 1977 – unless non-carbon sources become ubiquitous), but this minimum is surpassed by many nations in a way that appears to be socially determined and often independent of position in the world stratication system (see also Goldemberg, Johansson, Reddy, and Williams 1985). What is more, there is huge variation in the upper periphery and semi-periphery, and many of the theoretical arguments gleaned and developed from world-systems theory above suggest why that might be. Our nal task here then is to identify the social pressures that push these countries to consume fuels in quantities much greater than the levels of other similarly positioned countries. Below we test the tool of multiple regression in providing initial insights into identifying which forces might create that push. We compare 1989 results (Table 1) with models for 1998 (Table 2), the most recent available in early 2003. The two analyses are similar, but reect our evolving thinking about these issues over the past decade and work on two separate datasets for the two years. With the exception of GNP/Capita, the predictors for the 1998 CO2 data were all drawn from the same data as the 1989 data, so in that sense the 1998 analysis may be thought of as lagged.

Modeling Social Factors Most striking amongst results from Tables 1 and 2 is that in both 1989 and 1998 the internal/social indicators are more powerful in predicting CO2 inten-

19 The line between core and non-core is by necessity somewhat arbitrary. Using graphical presentation of World-System Position scores by country rank we looked for break points near the line where consensus broke down between the eight classical study authors tabulated in Terlouw (1992: Appendix 3A). For the purpose of this study, we decided that non-core countries were those with our index scores for WSP below 32 of the possible 100. In the graphs above, this value corresponds to a log value for WSP of 3.47.


sity than were variables indicating links to the world economy (exclusive of WSP). However a number of these signicant relations were in the opposite direction from the predictions we laid out in the text and summary table above, suggesting some revisions in our theoretical frame. We begin by interpreting these social factors. To begin interpreting these ndings, we can point out that GDP and WSP are important predictors of carbon intensity. World-System Position and GNP/capita were strongly predictive of carbon intensity in both years. All four were in the predicted directions: the logged terms were positively related to carbon intensity, representing the upward slope of the inverted U-curve discussed above, while the squared terms were negative, capturing the downward slope of CO2/GDP in the core, seen in gures 1a and 1b and as we predicted. WSP more effectively captured the upward linear side of the relationship in 1998, but GNP/capita best captured the downward side. So we used WSP and GDP/Cap2 in further models. In an analysis of subgroups for the 1989 sample we found that these variables were not signicantly related to carbon intensity when core nations were removed (results not shown). What this means is that overall, wealthier, more powerful countries are more intense in carbon emissions per unit of GDP, but that the countries at the very top of the wealth hierarchy have become more energy efcient, and therefore less carbon intense (see Roberts and Grimes 1995). However the most effective partial models from the 1989 analysis are those for H3, indicating the importance of repression in inuencing national CO2 intensity. This is also true in the full models: holding WSP, its square, and the other variables in the full models constant, the size of military spending relative to the size of the economy (GDP) was among the strongest predictors of CO2/GDP. Put another way, within any given value of WSP, states spending more on the military are also states producing signicantly more CO2 from fossil fuel sources per unit of GDP compared with states spending less. This remained true in three of four models in the 1998 analysis. This is consistent with our expectation that militarized states suppress labor costs to make up for inefcient infrastructure. Also, the military can itself be an important polluter, insofar as they use equipment and vehicles that are extremely inefcient from an energetic point of view (Kennedy 1987; Suter and Nollert 1993). Some core nations have used military spending as a Keynesian tool to avoid the “underconsumption crisis” of capital surpluses and threats of economic stagnation. Still, studies of the “multiplier effects” of military spending have found it to be extremely inefcient economically.

.144***

Ln(WSP) –.027

–.000*

+++ .084*

Gcon/GDP

Military Spd/GDP

Repressiveness

154

Min. pairwise N

65

–.359

.397

+++

–.407

–.221

.070

.038

–.083

–.387

.658

Beta

65

.407

–.024***

.062*

.289***

–1.92

–.311**

.058

.300

–.039

–.000***

.132*

b

–.634

.292

.582

–.169

–.439

.050

.268

–.199

–.438

.411

Beta

Model 3 1989

77

.373

–.021***

.065*

.249***

–.202*

–.000***

.114**

b

–.557

.306

.501

–.285

–.409

.355

Beta

Model 4 1989

+++ Military spending/GDP was too highly intercorrelated with GDP/capita to include both in the full model

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

.249

Adjusted R2

–.014*

–.462

Population Growth

%Labor Organized

.081 –.157

Ln(Debt)

.183

.390***

b

.042

-.092

.448

–.567

.298

Beta

Model 2 1989

Ln(Conc.Exports)

GDP growth

–.000

.000***

(WSP)2

.177**

(GDP/cap)2

b

Model 1 1989

Ln(GDP/cap)

Variable

Industrial Sources (mostly fossil fuel consumption) per unit of Gross Domestic Product, 1989.

.042*

–.000*

.415

Beta

154

.201

–.213

.162

.134***

b

Model 5 1989

Table 1: Unstandardized and (Standardized) Regression Coefcients for Natural Log of Total Carbon Dioxide Emissions from


132

Min. pairwise N

Note: + p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

.248

Adjusted R2 80

.063

–.051

.205

.206

Beta

59

.229

–.014* –.338

.014

Repressiveness

%Labor Organized

–.004

Gini Inequality

4.354 .200

–.062

.380

.238

.139

.149

b

Model 3 1998

Military Person /Pop

.179

–.036

Military Spd/GDP

4.210***

FDI/GDP

.367*

Ln(Conc.Exp Rec’g Countries)

Ln(Debt)

.163

Ln(Conc. Exports)

–.071

.438

–.503

.025

.198

–.000

.149***

–.000***

.015

Beta

b

b

Beta

Model 2 1998

Model 1 1998

Ln(Exports/GDP)

(WSP)

2

Ln(WSP)

(GDP/cap)

2

Ln(GDP/cap)

Variable

Sources (mostly fossil fuel consumption) per unit of Gross Domestic Product, 1998.

–.026

Beta

77

.537

–.387

.260

.282

–.049

.490

–.016**

5.479**

.373*

–.000

.182***

–.000*** –.446

–.016

b

Model 4 1998

65

Beta

–.293

.293

.229

.183

.245

.437

–.475

.536

–.012**

6.191**

2.540*

.281+

.324*

.148**

–.000***

b

Model 5 1998

Beta

.261

.281

.522

77

.488

–.016*** –.385

5.500**

.372**

.177***

–.000*** –.488

b

Model 6 1998

Table 2: Unstandardized and (Standardized) Regression Coefcients for Natural Log of Total Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Industrial



Finally, it may also be the case that countries committed to high military spending are also countries with many “inefcient” industries (Fajnzylber 1990b). While each of these hypotheses are consistent with the data, the rst interpretation is also supported by the strong negative effect of the percent of labor organized, and the positive inuence of Gastil’s index of regime repressiveness on CO2 inefciency (signicant only in the 1989 analysis). An analysis of 1989 data (results not shown) revealed that the predictive power of regime repressiveness becomes stronger, as does that of the percent of labor organized, when we look at only non-core countries. Another OLS analysis, this one of 1998 data which included only three terms (regime repressiveness, GDP/capita and its squared term) showed a strong positive relationship between repressiveness and carbon intensity (results not shown). These increases in magnitude indicate that our theory of repression as a compensation for inefcient infrastructure appears to have the greatest salience for countries outside of the core.20 Consistently negatively related to carbon intensity in both years was the percent of labor organized in unions. The variable has a series of problems, but its consistent relationship with carbon intensity suggests that it requires further examination in the future. Interestingly and contrary to prediction, in the nal models of the 1989 analysis the role of population growth is strongly negative, indicating at the same time that CO2 output is NOT merely a by-product of demographic pressure, and that countries experiencing high population growth rates are not necessarily the countries with the least efcient fossil fuel consumption. Though the source of substantial debate, population has been argued to be much less predictive of total environmental impact than is afuence or the technological level of a society (Commoner 1977; Dietz and Rosa n.d.). Also,

20 In analysis not shown, we nd that contrary to our expectation and much of the recent literature tying poverty to pollution, countries for whom we have data with higher proportions of their populations living below their poverty line tend to emit less fossil fuel CO2 per unit of GDP. The zero-order correlation of carbon intensity and poverty rates is strongly negative (r = –.425). As Barkin (1995) and others have pointed out, the rich and poor create radically different types of pollution. Consumptive behaviors requiring the burning of fossil fuels are often seen as a hallmark of afuence and status. It appears that this nding can also be partially attributed to the positive correlation between political repression and poverty. That is, once the (signicant rstorder) positive association between repression and poverty is accounted for, the residual effect of poverty is to reect societies where there is less money for burning fossil fuels. Second, denitions of poverty and therefore national poverty rate indices vary tremendously by country and WSP (see ILO 1993).


countries experiencing the highest rates of population growth are also largely agrarian, hence less involved in industrial production (Grimes 1982). The Gini index of income inequality, which we added for the 1998 analysis, was not signicantly related to carbon intensity. The relative size of the state, as measured by government consumption per unit of GDP, also had a negative inuence on CO2/GDP in 1989, but was never statistically signicant. Further analysis of partial correlation coefcients (holding WSP constant) reveals that, in the lower periphery, a highly consumptive state accompanies higher CO2 generation from fossil fuel sources, but in the upper periphery & semi-periphery the relationship reverses, with “strong” states being the most “efcient”, generating the least CO2 per unit GDP (results not shown). This may mean that among the poorest countries, the state is the major consumer of fossil fuels, but among the more powerful countries in the upper periphery, semi-periphery, and core, stronger states – net of political repression – may have instituted tighter environmental regulations and/or built higher quality infrastructure. Finally government spending, excepting militaries and relatively rare cases of state-owned steel mills and mines, is almost exclusively in the service sector, and therefore less energy-intense than industries. To summarize these two points, overall state spending (govt/GDP) appears to lessen CO2 per unit GDP, while military spending tends to increase it strongly. These two variables were in fact not measuring the same thing: their zero-order correlation was r = .0401.21 Globalization, or the strength of a nation’s links to the world economy and its major institutions, was measured in several ways which proved to be variously predictive of carbon intensity. Total exports as a percent of a nation’s GDP (which might be called “export dependence”) was positively related to carbon intensity in 1998 when we added it to the models. Export concentration (the limitation of a country to a few major export products) was mildly related to carbon intensity. In further analysis of the 1989 results, this was especially true in non-core states, and the relation was revealed only when internal social variables just discussed were held constant (results not shown). This nding indicates that dependence upon a narrow range of export commodities to earn foreign exchange is a pressure that may be compelling

21 Schnaiberg (1980), however, makes the important point that restructuring towards a service economy does not mean the end of material consumption on a devastating scale.


certain countries to produce without regard to environmental cost. The 1998 analysis shows that being dependent on few export partners was bad for carbon intensity, supporting the “colonial legacy” argument made above. Finally, and contrary to prediction, overall foreign direct investment was not related to carbon intensity. Though many authors have tied debt to ecological destruction (e.g. Reed 1992, 1996; Schwartzman 1986; Roberts and Brook 1998), we found somewhat nuanced results. A ve-year average of a nation’s foreign debt as a percent of its export earnings (1983–1987) was only weakly positively related to national carbon intensity from fossil fuels in 1989, but was more strongly related to carbon intensity in 1998. This suggests a signicant lagged effect of debt on carbon inefciency (the pressure to step up exports in order to meet debt service payments) which bears further investigation. Meanwhile our indicator of economic growth (GDP growth rate between 1980 and 1989) was seen to have a moderately negative association with carbon intensity (contrary to our prediction). This suggests that the fastest growing economies throughout the eighties were those investing in industries that generate relatively lower levels of CO2 per unit of economic activity generated. Examples of such investments might be tourism, banking and light assembly, with slower growth in countries dominated by older heavy industries (e.g. Eastern Europe, the core).22 Said the other way around then, these ndings suggest that countries which are reducing their CO2 intensity appear to be also those which experienced the strongest economic growth in the 1980s. We found in a similar analysis that there is a connection between national debt and carbon emissions intensity from deforestation (Grimes, et al., n.d.). The important question of patterns in rates of change in carbon intensity must await future research.23

22 On whether GDP growth and debt are intertwined, we would expect that countries growing faster should be more able to service their external debts, but GDP growth and Debt were only slightly negatively correlated here (see Appendix A). And statistically, of course, growth of GDP increases the denominator in our intensity measure. 23 Andersen 2002 makes interesting use of a new measure of rates of change of carbon emissions and economic growth, as a measure of “ecological modernization” in Eastern European nations.


Summary and Conclusion This study set out with three goals. First, we sought to open a new area of theory connecting economic, social and political factors with levels of national carbon dioxide emissions. Second, we wished to examine how the global hierarchy of nations affects the broad pattern of emissions of CO2 per unit of GDP. Third, we hoped to explore the ability of local social indicators to account for the variance among national levels of CO2/GDP between countries occupying similar World-System Positions. While the results are somewhat mixed, the cross-sectional portion of this analysis has conrmed the importance of a country’s role in the world economy and the internal strength and repressiveness of its state in explaining its levels of CO2 emissions per unit of GDP. While most previous studies on energy use, deforestation and greenhouse emissions have limited themselves to more proximate causes, our analysis has shown that when considered together, measures of the deeper social fabric can account for some of the variability in countries better than do more proximate ones. Our central theoretical expectation was that countries lacking a modern infrastructure and a strong internal market are forced to produce for the world market with low-cost raw materials and low-wage, coerced labor, using capital eeing the high wages of the core. We anticipated that many of these would also be states which have welcomed “dirty” industries eeing growing environmental regulation in the core. Since these conditions are often found in the countries of the upper periphery and semiperiphery, we looked for the least efcient producers there. Further, the de-industrialization of the core via capital ight would have the effect of apparently “improving” the CO2 efciency of capital accumulation in the core. In general terms, these expectations were borne out in the descriptive and regression analyses, but the OLS regressions revealed some surprising ndings. When countries were ranked by their world system position, an imperfect upside-down “U” curve of the tons of CO2 emitted per million dollars of GDP output became evident (Fig. 1). While these gures show the value of the WSP term in capturing the linear upward relationship with CO2/GDP, and GNP/capita in explaining the downward curve, equally evident is the tremendous variation around this upside-down U-curve (making it more closely resemble a “turtle”). This “Environmental Kuznets Curve” has been observed and predicted elsewhere (e.g. Reed 1992:146; UNEP/WHO


1992; Grossman and Kreuger 1995; Roberts and Grimes 1995; and a series of articles in Ecological Economics). However, to nd this inverted U-curve in a gas until recently not considered a “pollutant” (CO2) indicates that sometimes economic and infrastructural factors combine to reduce emissions without there being explicit pollution control measures (Mol 2001). We return to this important point shortly. Second, most discussions of the relationship between pollution or energy use and “level of development” have either discussed the linear pattern or the scatter around the line, without explaining what inuences might be operating to create the “scatter”. Herein lies a critical policy implication of this research: that countries in some economic situations are far more likely to be high CO2 emitters than are others. Our multivariate analyses show that by including measures of WSP and other variables reecting global social structure and national economic strategies, we can substantially improve our understanding of environmental problems such as global warming. Variations in levels of emissions from fossil fuel sources were best explained by a nation’s debt, total exports and military spending, population growth rate, the percent of labor organized, and the repressiveness of their political regime. We believe the bigger picture is that to be competitive in the increasingly global economy, production for both home and world markets must often compensate for poor infrastructure and energetically inefcient production techniques by suppressing labor costs and raw material prices (see McMichael 1996). This suppression of labor requires the existence of an oppressive state apparatus, reected by a strong military, weak, co-opted, or non-existent unions, and a repressive political environment, as indicated by civil and political rights. These social systems, of course, are often fragile politically. In the eld of development studies, a core debate is between authors claiming nations control their own destiny and those who point to how the global economy provides few avenues for upward mobility and traps nations in unfavorable relationships (Roberts and Hite 2000). It is not necessary here to repeat the arguments of the modernizationists on the one hand – those pointing to internal and cultural barriers to development – and the dependency/world-system theorists on the other. The appearance of an inverted U-curve indicates that a country’s structural location within the global economy imposes some constraints on its organization of production, constraints which in their turn tend to lead to CO2 production per unit of GDP output within a certain range. However these constraints are clearly not rigidly deter-


ministic because within every category of world system position there is considerable variance. In our multivariate models, however, we have evaluated the power of partial models divided by internal and external factors in predicting national carbon intensity (Tables 1 and 2). Our approach reects our belief that this dichotomy is largely false: a nation’s internal class and political structures are largely but not entirely the result of their links to the world economy – their amount and variety of exports and trade partners, levels and types of debt, and most generally their position in the world economy (see e.g. Karl 1997). Some causal inuence obviously runs in the opposite direction, as local actors respond to the constraints and opportunities of the evolving world system. The ndings presented here are most convincing that repression plays an important role in national “pollution regimes,” making up for poor infrastructure and distance to consumer markets. Therefore of our third major conceptual hypotheses, H3, which asserted that repression was accompanied by less expression of concern over environmental protection, was the most convincingly supported. Our rst hypothesis, H1, held that environmental outcomes of nations are directly a product of their position in the world economy is also supported. Fossil fuel carbon intensity was related to a nation’s WSP and its square, weakly positively linked to the narrowness of a nation’s export portfolio, debt levels only in the 1998 models. These ndings have critical implications for the likely future of global warming. Most of the production of CO2 comes from the United States and Europe, and besides booming emissions in China and India, this will probably be true for the foreseeable future. But progressive technological improvements, government regulations, and conservation-oriented programs have a chance to continue to reduce the production of CO2 per unit of GDP in the core. Switching fuels and putting carbon-scrubbers on power plants and factories can be extremely expensive (see e.g. Cheng, Steinberg and Beller 1986; Steinberg, Cheng and Horn 1984), and it may be that given the legitimation needs of the system for growth, even considering reducing CO2 by planned reductions in the GDP would probably be political suicide (see Schnaiberg 1980; O’Connor 1973). Still, surveys in both core and peripheral nations have shown at least verbal support for stronger protection of the environment, even at the expense of economic growth (Dunlap et al. 1992; Inglehart 1995). Meanwhile, the relative carbon intensity of the semi-periphery is likely


to persist or even grow, and, to the extent that they succeed in capturing a larger portion of the global market, their collective contribution to global warming will almost certainly increase. This can only result in increasing global CO2 emissions, unless the increase in efciency in the core can offset the explosive growth in CO2 production likely in the semi-periphery & upper periphery, again, especially in China and India (WRI 1996). Reaching the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Treaty’s goal of stabilizing CO2 emissions at 1990 levels will probably require some combination of these. If the inverted U-curve is any indication, reducing CO2/GDP should be far easier for wealthier countries already on the downward side of the U. Because of structural constraints on nations and their internal problems, we do not believe most nations will ever reach a “turning point” where pollution begins to lessen due to improving efciency (see Grossman and Kreuger 1995; Roberts and Grimes 1995). The problem needs to be addressed explicitly, because economic development alone will not necessarily lead to greater efciency and reduced emissions. The most probable outcome will be continued warming, the results of which we leave to other researchers in the area. To avoid this outcome, our research suggests that it will be necessary to improve the quality and energetic efciency of the infrastructure of production, distribution, and consumption in the core, but also in the Semi-Periphery and Periphery. Such improvements should be complimented by serious efforts by all countries to shift away from fossil fuels, and they could only be made quickly if efcient technologies and infrastructures were distributed in a subsidized way to the non-core in a concerted, systematic fashion. Specically, this research suggests a globally-directed and largely core-funded effort at improving roads and equipment, increasing use of non-fossil fuel energy sources, conservation, and recycling. Such efforts should be targeted especially in the semi-periphery. Unfortunately, insofar as such investments are vitiated from the start by the structure of the world-economy, improvements along these lines would most likely emerge as a result of a sharp increase in the price of oil rather than international cooperation. Perhaps the most important nding of this research, however, is that national levels of carbon dioxide intensity are tied to many deep internal and external structural conditions in societies and that these factors vary by position in the world stratication system. The implications of this are clear: that attempts to reduce CO2/GDP in the future will require far more profound changes in societies than merely introducing new technologies.


APPENDIX A: Definitions, Sources of Data, Descriptive Statistics, and Correlations LN(Industrial CO2 emissions/GDP) [LNICO2GD]: Natural log of metric tons of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, cement manufacture, and gas aring, per unit of GDP, 1989 (CO2: CDIAC 1991; Marland and Rotty 1984; GDP: World Bank 1992c; WRI 1992). LN(Total CO2 emissions/GDP)[LNCO2GDP]: Natural log of sum of Industrial and Deforestation CO2 emssions/GDP. See above for sources. LN(GDP/Capita) [LNGDPCAP]: Natural Log of Gross Domestic Product 1989 (World Bank). LN(GNP/Capita) [LNGNPCAP]: Natural Log of Gross National Product 1998 (World Bank). LN(World-System Position); (World-System Position) Squared [LNWSP, WSP2]: Average of Terlouw’s “second-order regionalization” of the world system and a country’s trade as a percent of world trade. The former scores were derived by Terlouw from applying a form of factor analysis that manipulates nominal-level data to the World-System Position assignments of individual countries provided by 5 major theorists in 8 works or time periods (Terlouw 1992: Appendix 3A). We converted these factor scores into index scores varying between 0 and 100. We also converted the percentage of world trade accounted for by each country into index scores (also from Terlouw 1992). These two indices, each varying from 0 to 100, were averaged to generate our WSP score. When no data were available for one or the other, the available index was substituted. LN(Military Spending/GDP) [LNMILSPD]: Natural log of military spending as percent of nation’s gross domestic product (World Bank 1992c). Military Personnel/000 Population [MILLPOP]: Taylor and Jodice, 1983. Pop. Growth Rate [POPGRO89]: Average annual growth of population (percent) 1980–1989 (World Bank 1991; 1992a). % Labor Organized [ORGLAB75]: Organized Labor as a Percentage of Total Labor Force, c. 1975. (Taylor and Jodice 1983). These data refer to the percentage of employed and unemployed persons that belong to the organized trade unions, whether independent or not.


Regime Repressiveness [REPRESS]: Sum of annual ratings on two seven-point scales of civil and political rights, 1989 (Gastil 1990; Boswell and Dixon 1990). LN(Exports/GDP) [LNEXGDP]: Exports in 1989 (World Bank) divided by GDP 1989. LN(Conc. of Exports) [LNCONEXP]: Concentration of Export Commodities, 1975. (Taylor and Jodice 1983). Concentration is higher the fewer the export divisions (SITC codes) and the greater the value of the largest divisions. LN(Conc. of Export Receiving Countries) [LNCNEXR]: (Taylor and Jodice 1983). FDIGDP (Foreign Direct Investment/GDP): Average of net foreign direct investment as reported by the World Bank 1982–1987 divided bt GDP 1989. Gov’t Consumption [GCON8089]: Government spending as a percent of current GDP, 1980–1989 (World Bank 1992c). LN(debt service/exports) [LNDEBT]: Natural log of ve year average of total debt service/total export earnings, 1983–1987, in millions of U.S.$ (World Bank 1992c; WRI 1992).

Descriptive Statistics for 1998 Analysis N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

133

10.66

14.30

12.3252

.7722

LNCOGD98

151

3.71

7.91

5.4195

.9274

LNGDCP98

157

4.61

10.68

7.4994

GNP/CAP ’98

157

10000.00

LNWSPETE

162

–7

5

.15

2.74

WSPETESQ

162

.00

10000.00

439.2131

1347.9999

LNEXPGDP

132

1

5

2.92

.70

LNCONEXP

119

4

7

5.45

.79

LNCNXREC

120

4

7

5.07

.60

LNDEBT

104

–5

–1

–2.03

.76

LNFDIGD1

106

–7

2

–.94

1.59

99

–35.31

.00

–1.6421

4.4140

LN KILOS CO2/

Std. Deviation

BIL GDP US$

1898344900.00 116322390.6051

1.5449 299800679.9105

SQUARED

Military Spending/ GDP 87

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 111 Table (cont.) N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

MILMAN75

135

0

934

124.60

136.78

GINI

94

2

63

38.92

11.43

FREE1988

163

2

14

8.28

4.18

RORGLAB75

100

0

100

26.14

23.03

Valid N (listwise)

30 CORRELATIONS

VARIABLE NAME

LN KILOS CO2/

LNCOGD98

LNGDCP98

BIL GDP US$ LN KILOS CO2/ BIL GDP US$ LNCOGD98

LNGDCP98

GNP/CAP ’98 SQUARED LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

LNEXPGDP

R Sig.

GNP/CAP ’98 SQUARED

1.000

.818

.110

–.205

.

.000

.236

.026

N

133

117

118

118

R

.818

1.000

–.143

–.322

Sig.

.000

.

.082

.000

N

117

151

150

150

R

.110

–.143

1.000

.670

Sig.

.236

.082

.

.000

N

118

150

157

157

R

–.205

–.322

.670

1.000

Sig.

.026

.000

.000

.

N

118

150

157

157

R

.273

.175

.473

.481

Sig.

.002

.045

.000

.000

N

129

132

134

134

R

–.084

–.183

.527

.651

Sig.

.344

.036

.000

.000

N

129

132

134

134

R

.199

.150

.411

.190

Sig.

.029

.110

.000

.041

N

120

114

116

116

112 • J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes and Jodie L. Manale CORRELATIONS VARIABLE NAME LN KILOS CO2/ BIL GDP US$ LNCOGD98

LNGDCP98

LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

LNEXPGDP LNCONEXP

R

.273

–.084

.199

–.028

Sig.

.002

.344

.029

.773

N

129

129

120

105

R

.175

–.183

.150

.127

Sig.

.045

.036

.110

.212

N

132

132

114

99

R

.473

.527

.411

–.513

Sig.

.000

.000

.000

.000

N

134

134

116

100

GNP/CAP ’98

R

.481

.651

.190

–.385

SQUARED

Sig.

.000

.000

.041

.000

N

134

134

116

100

R

1.000

.463

.073

–.407

Sig.

.

.000

.408

.000

LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

LNEXPGDP

N

162

162

131

119

R

.463

1.000

–.026

–.370

Sig.

.000

.

.766

.000

N

162

162

131

119

R

.073

–.026

1.000

.126

Sig.

.408

.766

.

.204

N

131

131

132

103

CORRELATIONS VARIABLE NAME

LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


LN KILOS CO2/ BIL GDP US$ LNCOGD98

LNGDCP98

R

–.050

.152

.063

.172

Sig.

.615

.154

.537

.088

N

105

89

99

99

R

.148

.272

.027

–.004

Sig.

.142

.010

.796

.973

N

100

90

95

92

R

–.225

.016

.118

.207

Sig.

.024

.882

.253

.048

N

101

91

96

92

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 113 Table (cont.) VARIABLE NAME

LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


GNP/CAP ’98

R

–.219

.008

–.109

.171

SQUARED

Sig.

.028

.938

.292

.102

LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

LNEXPGDP

N

101

91

96

92

R

–.294

.475

–.370

.399

Sig.

.001

.000

.000

.000

N

120

104

106

99

R

–.239

.145

–.214

.137

Sig.

.009

.143

.028

.177

N

120

104

106

99

R

.126

–.083

.454

.027

Sig.

.202

.424

.000

.800

N

104

94

102

94

CORRELATIONS VARIABLE NAME LN KILOS CO2/ BIL GDP US$ LNCOGD98

MILMAN75

GINI

FREE1988 RORGLAB75

R

.302

–.076

.092

–.153

Sig.

.001

.518

.296

.155

N

112

75

130

88

R

.244

–.035

.206

–.306

Sig.

.010

.742

.018

.004

N

112

90

132

85

R

.267

–.378

–.704

.444

Sig.

.004

.000

.000

.000

N

114

91

134

87

GNP/CAP ’98

R

.022

–.353

–.482

.364

SQUARED

Sig.

.820

.001

.000

.001

LNGDCP98

LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

N

114

91

134

87

R

.283

–.436

–.194

.359

Sig.

.001

.000

.013

.000

N

135

80

162

100

R

.005

–.228

–.403

.167

Sig.

.954

.042

.000

.096

N

135

80

162

100

114 • J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes and Jodie L. Manale Table (cont.) VARIABLE NAME LNEXPGDP

MILMAN75

GINI

FREE1988 RORGLAB75

R

.090

–.187

–.250

.268

Sig.

.348

.116

.004

.011

N

112

72

132

90


LN KILOS CO2/ LNCOGD98

LNGDCP98

BIL GDP US$ LNCONEXP

LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1

Military Spending/ GDP 87 MILMAN75

GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

GNP/CAP ’98 SQUARED

R

–.028

.127

–.513

–.385

Sig.

.773

.212

.000

.000

N

105

99

100

100

R

–.050

.148

–.225

–.219

Sig.

.615

.142

.024

.028

N

105

100

101

101

R

.152

.272

.016

.008

Sig.

.154

.010

.882

.938

N

89

90

91

91

R

.063

.027

.118

–.109

Sig.

.537

.796

.253

.292

N

99

95

96

96

R

.172

–.004

.207

.171

Sig.

.088

.973

.048

.102

N

99

92

92

92

R

.302

.244

.267

.022

Sig.

.001

.010

.004

.820

N

112

112

114

114

R

–.076

-.035

–.378

–.353

Sig.

.518

.742

.000

.001

N

75

90

91

91

R

.092

.206

–.704

–.482

Sig.

.296

.018

.000

.000

N

130

132

134

134

R

–.153

–.306

.444

.364

Sig.

.155

.004

.000

.001

N

88

85

87

87

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 115 CORRELATIONS VARIABLE NAME LNCONEXP

LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

LNWSPETE

WSPETESQ

LNEXPGDP LNCONEXP

R

–.407

–.370

.126

1.000

Sig.

.000

.000

.204

.

N

119

119

103

119

R

–.294

–.239

.126

.212

Sig.

.001

.009

.202

.022

N

120

120

104

117

R

.475

.145

-.083

–.193

Sig.

.000

.143

.424

.086

N

104

104

94

80

R

–.370

–.214

.454

.175

Sig.

.000

.028

.000

.110

N

106

106

102

85

R

.399

.137

.027

–.209

Sig.

.000

.177

.800

.049

N

99

99

94

89

R

.283

.005

.090

–.089

Sig.

.001

.954

.348

.339

N

135

135

112

118

R

–.436

–.228

–.187

.266

Sig.

.000

.042

.116

.024

N

80

80

72

72

R

–.194

–.403

–.250

.413

Sig.

.013

.000

.004

.000

N

162

162

132

119

R

.359

.167

.268

–.115

Sig.

.000

.096

.011

.282

N

100

100

90

90


LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


LNCONEXP

R

.212

–.193

.175

–.209

Sig.

.022

.086

.110

.049

N

117

80

85

89

116 • J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes and Jodie L. Manale Table (cont.) VARIABLE NAME

LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


LNCNXREC

LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

R

1.000

–.308

.208

–.349

Sig.

.

.005

.058

.001

N

120

82

84

90

R

–.308

1.000

–.212

.259

Sig.

.005

.

.056

.029

N

82

104

82

71

R

.208

–.212

1.000

–.219

Sig.

.058

.056

.

.055

N

84

82

106

77

R

–.349

.259

–.219

1.000

Sig.

.001

.029

.055

.

N

90

71

77

99

R

–.206

.138

–.038

.149

Sig.

.024

.196

.726

.153

N

119

90

89

94

R

.309

-.097

.369

–.206

Sig.

.008

.471

.005

.092

N

73

57

57

68

R

–.002

.027

–.130

–.060

Sig.

.982

.786

.183

.552

N

120

104

106

99

R

–.173

–.088

–.019

.081

Sig.

.103

.488

.871

.495

N

90

65

73

74

CORRELATIONS VARIABLE NAME LNCONEXP

LNCNXREC

MILMAN75

GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

R

–.089

.266

.413

–.115

Sig.

.339

.024

.000

.282

N

118

72

119

90

R

–.206

.309

–.002

–.173

Sig.

.024

.008

.982

.103

N

119

73

120

90

Social Roots of Global Environmental Change • 117 Table (cont.) VARIABLE NAME LNDEBT

LNFDIGD1


GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

MILMAN75

GINI

FREE1988

RORGLAB75

R

.138

–.097

.027

–.088

Sig.

.196

.471

.786

.488

N

90

57

104

65

R

–.038

.369

–.130

–.019

Sig.

.726

.005

.183

.871

N

89

57

106

73

R

.149

–.206

–.060

.081

Sig.

.153

.092

.552

.495

N

94

68

99

74

R

1.000

–.283

.093

.162

Sig.

.

.013

.286

.113

N

135

77

135

97

R

–.283

1.000

.170

–.370

Sig.

.013

.

.132

.004

N

77

94

80

59

R

.093

.170

1.000

–.310

Sig.

.286

.132

.

.002

N

135

80

163

100

R

.162

–.370

–.310

1.000

Sig.

.113

.004

.002

.

N

97

59

100

100

Richard York and Eugene A. Rosa Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System

Introduction Air pollution stemming from the emission of anthropogenic pollutants is a prominent environmental problem at the local, regional, and, increasingly, global levels (Akimoto 2003). Sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are two of the most troubling air pollutants because they persist in the atmosphere for long periods, they spread over large areas, and they are the primary contributors to the acidication of the environment (Akimoto 2003; Lefohn, Husar, and Husar 1999). Here we perform quantitative crossnational analyses to assess the effects of various national characteristics on SO2 and NOx emissions. Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) is the generic term for a group of gases composed of nitrogen and oxygen in various quantities that react easily with many other substances such as water. NOx is generated by the combustion of fuels at high temperatures and their principal sources in developed nations are motor vehicle emissions (by far), followed by electrical utilities, and other industrial and commercial activities that burn fuels. NOx is one of the main ingredients in ground-level ozone (smog), easily reacts with other compounds (e.g. moisture) to produce nitric acid and related particles, and contributes to global warming (Akimoto 2003). Ozone and nitrogen based particles threaten human health (especially the respiratory

120 • Richard York and Eugene A. Rosa

system) and the environment, damaging vegetation and reducing crop yields.1 Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) is one compound in the family of sulfur oxide gases (SOx) that dissolves easily in water. These gases are formed when fuel containing sulfur, such as coal and oil, is burned, crude oil is converted to gasoline, or metals are extracted from ore. SO2 and the particulates formed from it also threaten the human respiratory system, and SO2 contributes to the formation of atmospheric particles that affect visibility. Together SO2 and NOx are the principal causes of acid deposition in industrial societies. These substances react with other substances in the atmosphere to form acids that fall to earth as rain, fog, snow, or dry particles and are, therefore, the principal sources of acid rain. Global emissions of both SO2 and NOx grew dramatically over the twentieth century (Akimoto 2003; Lefohn et al. 1999). In light of the serious environmental consequences of SO2 and NOx emissions, the issue of what anthropogenic factors explain variation in those emissions across nations stands out as a highly important empirical question. To address this question we frame our analyses within the world-system perspective. One of the key insights of that perspective is that the structure of national economies is inuenced by position in the world-system. In the modern world-system peripheral and semi-peripheral nations typically have economies dependent on extractive industries, such as agriculture, forestry, and mining. In contrast core nations generally focus their economies on service sector development, and, increasingly, shift heavy, polluting industry to semi-peripheral nations (Frey 2003). This leads to an outcome where environmental problems stemming from extractive industries, such as deforestation, are concentrated in the periphery and semi-periphery and where industrial pollution increases dramatically in the semi-periphery. At the same time some types of environmental degradation are attenuated in the core. Wealthy, core nations often work to improve local environments because of concern among citizens and because of the pressure of social movements. The decline in environmental threats in the core nations can speciously be interpreted as a case of “ecological modernization” (see Mol 1995; Mol and

1 NOx reacts readily in the atmosphere with many organic compounds, including ozone, to produce a wide variety of toxic products which may be implicated in biological mutations.

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System • 121

Spaargaren 2000; Spaargaren and Mol 1992; York and Rosa, 2003) because some types of environmental impacts, particularly local pollution, follow the well-known “environmental Kuznets curve” (EKC) where impacts are low in the core and lowest income nations but high in middle income nations.2 Some scholars suggest an EKC with regards to urbanization as well (EhrhardtMartinez 1998). Nonetheless, the distribution of production activities and concomitant environmental degradation is driven by accumulation in the core, and therefore the appearance of an EKC needs to be interpreted in light of the structure of the world-system (Roberts and Grimes 1997; Roberts, Grimes, and Manale 2003). When the sum total of the environmental impacts nations generate is taken into account, including environmental impacts that occur beyond national borders, it is apparent that wealthy, core nations are responsible for the substantial majority of environmental problems in the world and that modernization and economic growth, contrary to the EKC prediction, only exacerbate environmental problems (Burns, Davis, and Kick 1997; Grimes and Kentor 2003; Jorgenson 2003, 2004; Rosa, York, and Dietz 2004; York and Rosa 2003; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003a, 2003b, 2003c). Our task here is to advance our understanding of how pollution problems are distributed across nations in the modern world-system and our understanding of the drivers of these atmospheric impacts. We analyze the factors that explain cross-national variation in the emissions of SO2 and NOx. These two types of pollutant are important to study for at least two reasons. First, they contribute to serious environmental and health problems, as discussed above. Second, with regards to an examination of the EKC, SO2 and NOx emissions provide a direct test of its predictions since these are the types of impacts that most studies nd to have high income turning points (ITPs) (Kaufmann et al. 1998; List and Gallet 1999; Selden and Song 1994).3 Therefore, the impacts of these two gases appear to fall in the middle ground between large scale global impacts, such as CO2 emissions and the ecological footprint, which escalate monotonically with economic development – showing no indication of a turning point within the foreseeable future (Shi 2003;

2 The EKC is named for Simon Kuznets (1955) who found an inverted-U shaped relationship between national income and income inequality. A later generation of economists then transported the curve from the issue of inequality to the issue of environmental quality. For a review of the EKC theory and empirical studies see Cavlovic et al. (2000) and Stern (1998). 3 However, some studies nd no turning point within the range of existing levels of national afuence (Stern 2002; Stern and Common 2001).


York et al. 2003a, 2003b, 2003c), – and impacts with local consequences, such as water pollution, that have low ITPs (see Cavlovic et al. [2000] and Grossman and Krueger [1995] for estimated ITPs for a variety of environmental impacts). Relatively few nations have national incomes in the range of ITPs generally found for pollutants such as SO2 and NOx emissions. Therefore, it is both empirically challenging, and theoretically important, to assess the factors responsible for apparent impact attenuation in the most afuent nations. Since the most afuent nations are responsible for the lion’s share of global environmental impacts, analyzing the few types of impacts that may decline in these nations may give some insight into potential paths to sustainability.

Methods The two dependent variables we examine here are 1995 SO2 emissions per capita and NOx emissions per capita, both measured in kilograms. The data are from the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) of the Dutch National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) and Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientic Research (TNO) as reported in the World Resources Institute (2004). The independent variables are presented in Table 1. In particular, to provide comparison with previous research, we consider aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, measured in terms of purchasing power parity. In addition, to address differences in the structure of economies across different positions in the world system, we separate the total GDP into the share of GDP generated by the three sectors of the economy: agriculture, industry, and service. To assess the effect of a nation’s dependency status, we include the net per capita ofcial development assistance (ODA) that a nation receives (positive numbers indicate a nation is dependent on assistance while negative numbers indicate that a nation is a net donor). To assess the effect of connection to the global economy, we include per capita direct foreign investment (DFI) in the national economy, a standard variable in the world-system framework.4 We then include percentage of the population living in urban areas,

4

Another commonly used transformation of DFI is DFI as a proportion of GDP. Estimating the models presented below substituting DFI/GDP for DFI per capita yields highly similar results to those we present, as would be expected, since DFI/GDP is highly correlated with DFI per capita (r = .84).

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System • 123 Table 1. Description of the independent variables. Variable

Description

Data Source

GDP per capita

Measured in purchasing power parity (PPP),

WRI (1998)

2

1000’s US$ (1995). Quadratic = [x-mean] GDP from

GDP per capita (PPP) from agricultural sector, 2

WRI (1998),

agriculture

1000’s US$ (1995). Quadratic = [x-mean]

calculated

GDP from

GDP per capita (PPP) from industrial sector,

WRI (1998),

2

industry


calculated

GDP from

GDP per capita (PPP) from service sector,

WRI (1998),

2

service


calculated

Percentage

Percentage of population living in urban areas

WRI (1996)

urban

(1995). Quadratic = [x-mean]2

Tropical

Dummy coded variable where a value of 1

coded by

indicates the predominant latitude of the nation

authors

is < 30 degrees Nondependent

Percentage of population aged 15–65 (1995)

WRI (1996)

Average annual ofcial development

WRI (1998)

population ODA per capita

assistance per capita, 1000’s US$ (1993–1995) Density

Population/hectares

WRI (1998), calculated

DFI per capita

Direct foreign investment per capita, 1000’s

WRI (2000),

US$ (1995–1997)

calculated

since it is a key indicator of modernization. We include three control variables: the percentage of the population that is of nondependent age (i.e., ages 15–65), the population density per hectare, and a dummy variable indicating whether or not a nation is in or near the tropics. We also include the quadratic of each of the GDP variables and the urbanization variable (each is centered by subtracting the cross-national mean before squaring to reduce problems with collinearity) to test for the presence of a non-linear relationship, such as the EKC. Our rst analytic goal is to make direct comparisons with previous research. To do that we start by estimating models for each independent variable (SO2 and NOx) using aggregated GDP per capita: Models 1 and 2. We then estimate a linear model and a quadratic model, which includes a quadratic term


for each sectoral measure of GDP and for urbanization, for each dependent variable using the sectoral measures of GDP (agriculture, industry, and service): Models 3 and 4 for SO2 and Model 5 and 6 for NOx. All models are estimated with a robust regression procedure that uses iteratively reweighted least squares with Huber and biweight functions tuned for 95% Gaussian efciency. Dietz, Frey, and Kalof (1987) argue robust regression methods are typically more appropriate than ordinary-least-squares (OLS) when analyzing cross-national data because a number of OLS assumptions may be violated, particularly the assumption that there are no outliers of excessive inuence and residuals are normally distributed.5 Robust regression is a conservative approach that down-weights the inuence of outliers in residuals so that the results are not driven by one or a few cases. We include in our sample all nations for which appropriate data are available. The full list of nations is presented in Table 2.

Results The results from the analyses of SO2 emissions (model 1) and NOx emissions (model 2) using aggregated GDP per capita are presented in Table 3. A total of 138 nations were included in the sample, however, the iterative reweighting procedure dropped Singapore from both models, since it proved to be highly inuential. The R2 values from estimating the same models presented in Table 3 using OLS (with the full sample of 138 nations) indicates that the model ts both SO2 emissions and NOx emissions moderately well, with values of .38 and .28 respectively.6 ODA per capita, DFI per capita, and the percentage of the population that is of nondependent age do not have statistically signicant effects on either dependent variable. The latitude variable is only signicant for the SO2 emissions model, indicating that tropical nations have somewhat lower emissions than non-tropical nations, control-

5 Note that this is not a problem for some cross-national models, such as the elasticity models we estimate with the STIRPAT model (Dietz and Rosa 1997; Rosa et al. 2004; York et al. 2003a, 2003b, 2003c), since the log transformation of the variables typically makes the residuals more closely approximate a normal distribution. 6 Since the robust regression procedure down-weights the inuence of cases based on the size of their error terms, precisely the information used to calculate the R2 statistic, the R2 cannot be calculated for the robust models. Hence, we use the R2 from OLS estimation of the same models to provide a measure of t.

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System • 125 Table 2. Nations in sample. Algeria

Estonia

Lesotho

Senegal

Angola Argentina

Ethiopia

Lithuania

Sierra Leone

Fiji

Madagascar

Singapore

Armenia Australia

Finland

Malawi

Slovakia

France

Malaysia

Solomon Islands*

Austria

Gabon

Mali

Somalia*

Azerbaijan

Gambia

Mauritania

South Africa

Bangladesh

Georgia

Mauritius

Spain

Belarus

Germany

Mexico

Sri Lanka

Belize

Ghana

Moldova Republic

Sudan*

Benin

Greece

Mongolia

Suriname

Bhutan

Guatemala

Morocco

Swaziland*

Bolivia

Guinea

Mozambique

Sweden

Botswana

Guinea-Bissau

Myanmar

Switzerland*

Brazil

Guyana

Namibia

Syria

Bulgaria

Haiti

Nepal

Tajikistan

Burkina Faso

Honduras

Netherlands

Tanzania

Burundi

Hungary

New Zealand

Thailand

Cameroon

Iceland

Nicaragua

Togo

Canada

India

Niger

Trinidad and Tobago

Central African Rep.

Indonesia

Nigeria

Tunisia

Chad

Iran

Norway

Turkey

Chile

Ireland

Oman

Turkmenistan

China

Israel*

Pakistan

Uganda

Colombia

Italy

Panama

Ukraine

Congo, Dem. Rep.

Jamaica

Papua New Guinea

United Kingdom

Congo, Rep.

Japan

Paraguay

United States of

Costa Rica

Jordan

Peru

Uruguay

America Côte d’Ivoire

Kazakhstan

Philippines

Uzbekistan

Czech Republic

Kenya

Poland

Venezuela

Denmark

Korea, Rep.

Portugal

Yugoslavia*

Dominican Republic

Kuwait

Romania

Zambia

Ecuador

Kyrgyzstan

Russia

Zimbabwe

Egypt

Laos

Rwanda

El Salvador

Latvia

Saudi Arabia

* Indicates nation is only in the sample used for the aggregated GDP analyses (models 1 and 2).

126 • Richard York and Eugene A. Rosa Table 3. Robust regression analysis of SO2 and NOx emissions. Model 1–SO2

Model 2–NOx

Coefcient (S.E.)

Coefcient (S.E.)

GDP per capita

.82* (.32)

Quadratic of GDP per capita

-.05* (.02)

Percentage urban

.15** (.05)

.00** (.00)

.00 (.00)

4.10 (15.58)

10.68 (16.29)

.43 (6.58)

8.40 (6.89)

DFI per capita Nondependent population Density

.20 (.20)

.02 (.21)

-.44 (.64)

-1.69* (.67)

Tropical

-7.68*** (2.10)

Constant

-6.69 (11.54)

N

137

OLS R2 Highest VIF * p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

-.03 (.02)

.19*** (.05)

Quadratic of percentage urban ODA per capita

.94** (.33)

.86 (2.20) 4.00 (12.07) 137

.38

.28

9.21

9.21

(two-tailed tests)

ling for other factors. The population density variable is only signicant in the NOx emissions model, indicating that higher density is associated with lower emissions. Note that the effect of population size on emissions has already been factored out by focusing on per capita emissions, so this nding is not surprising. It indicates that independent of the effects of population size, more densely populated nations are more “NOx efcient”. The urbanization variable is signicant and positive for both dependent variables. The quadratic of urbanization is positive for both dependent variables as well, but only signicant in the SO2 emissions model. Therefore, there is a U shaped relationship between urbanization and SO2 emissions, the opposite of an EKC, where the minimum is reached at 27% of the population living in urban areas and increases rapidly thereafter. Only 23 nations (17% of the total) in this sample have a level of urbanization below this turning point, suggesting that in most nations the expansion of urbanization will likely be associated with a rise in SO2 emissions. GDP per capita has a signicant positive effect on both dependent variables, while its quadratic – consistent with the predictions of an EKC – has a negative coefcient for both. However, the quadratic term is only statisti-

Emissions of Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides in the Modern World-System • 127 Table 4. Income turning points (ITPs). SO2 emissions

GDP per capita ITP Total

NOx emissions

Nations Above ITP

Nations Above

$14,400 max 21 (15%)

$23,300* max 2 (1%)

$1,400 min

$1,500 min

4 (3%)

$5,200 max, 16 (12%)

$4,900 max,

17 (13%)

$9,700 min,

$5,600 min,

21 (16%)

(Range: $460–$26,980) From agriculture

5 (4%)

(Range: $0–$2,530) From industry (Range: $46–$8,333) From service (Range:

17 (13%)

$152–$19,426) * Based on non-signicant quadratic term. Note: If the ITP is a “max” then it is the GDP per capita at which the maximum value of emissions is reached on an inverted-U shaped curve (EKC). If the ITP is a “min” then it is the GDP per capita at which the minimum value of emissions is reached on a U shaped curve. Min and max values are rounded to the nearest $100. The number of nations above the ITP are based on the nations left in the sample after the iteratively reweighted least squares procedure (potentially) dropped overly inuential cases.

cally signicant for SO2 emissions. The combined effect of GDP per capita and its quadratic indicates that there is an EKC for SO2 emissions with an income turning point (ITP) of approximately $14,400 (see Table 4), a value in the same range as most other studies.7 Only 15% of nations in our sample have a GDP per capita in excess of this (see Table 4). The negative coefcient for the quadratic term in the NOx model indicates that an ITP for NOx emission occurs at $23,300 (see Table 4). However, the facts that the quadratic is non-signicant and that only 2 nations in the sample have a GDP per capita in excess of the estimated ITP suggest that one cannot assert with any condence that an EKC exists for NOx emissions. Disaggregating GDP per capita allows for a more ne-tuned assessment of the effect of the economy on the two types of emissions examined here. Note that data on the distribution of GDP by sector is missing for seven nations,

7 One reason for differing ITPs across studies may rest with the decision of whether to measure GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) or in terms of exchange rate. There are grounds for making a case for either type of measure depending upon substantive issues (See Roberts and Grimes 1997 for a discussion of this point). We found that estimating the same model using the exchange rate GDP per capita yields a noticeably higher ITP of $19,200, although the model t is not quite as good as using purchasing power parity.

128 • Richard York and Eugene A. Rosa Table 5. Robust regression results for the SO2 emissions analysis, using disaggregated GDP.

GDP from agriculture

Model 3

Model 4

Linear

Quadratic

Coefcient (S.E.)

Coefcient (S.E.) [VIF]

-4.01 (2.29)

Quadratic of GDP from agriculture GDP from industry

9.70** (3.33) [2.61] 5.74*** (.92)

Quadratic of GDP from industry GDP from service

-14.90*** (4.15) [3.02] 10.99*** (1.77) [16.38] -1.75*** (.34) [4.75]

-1.84*** (.55)

-3.39** (1.16) [27.85]

Quadratic of GDP from service

.28*** (.08) [9.01]

Percentage urban

.13* (.06)

Quadratic of percentage urban

.10 (.07) [2.78] -.00 (.00) [1.46]

ODA per capita

32.40 (21.16)

50.11* (23.79) [2.32]

DFI per capita

24.22*** (7.38)

13.28 (8.19) [5.77]

Nondependent population

.10 (.23)

Density

.90* (.43)

1.71*** (.50) [4.19]

Tropical

-8.17** (2.67)

-8.26** (3.02) [2.32]

Constant

2.19 (13.42)

N OLS R

131 2

Highest VIF * p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

.13 (.27) [3.19]

7.49 (16.34) 130

.50

.50

7.59

27.85

(two-tailed tests)

so the base sample for the disaggregated GDP models consists of 131 nations (see Table 2). The results from the analysis of SO2 emissions show that the models using disaggregated GDP per capita t the data substantially better than using the aggregated GDP, increasing the R2 from .38 to .50 (see Table 5). The model including quadratic terms allows for a more precise t of the relationships between the GDP variables and emissions and urbanization and emissions. Note that in the quadratic model (model 4) Kuwait was dropped from the analysis by the iterative reweighted least squares procedure, since it was overly inuential. The inclusion of the quadratics does lead to a potential problem with multicollinearity. The variance ination factors (VIF) for each variable for the quadratic model are presented in Table 5. Neither an established theoretical


basis nor a universally accepted convention exists for judging VIF thresholds. However, generally accepted “rules-of-thumb” range from 10 (Chatterjee, Hadi, and Price 2000:240) to 20 (Greene 2000:258). By these standards, the only variables for which there is a substantial problem are GDP from service and GDP from industry. However, it is important to note that this collinearity is primarily generated by the respective quadratics of each of these variables, not by their collinearity with other variables (as indicated by the low VIFs in the linear model). Multicollinearity does not bias coefcient or standard error estimates, but it does increase the variance (standard errors) of the coefcients. In this sense, multicollinearity is only a problem in the same way that other conditions that reduce statistical power, such as small sample size, are: it makes it harder to reject the null hypothesis. This can present a serious problem if one is making a case based on a failure to reject the null hypothesis. Here, the coefcients for the two potentially affected variables are statistically signicant, suggesting that no serious problem is realized. Furthermore, we are interpreting the substantive effects of the two variables with high VIFs in combination with their quadratics, which are the primary source of the multicollinearity. Still further, since model 4 does not suggest conclusions dramatically different from model 3, in which there is no serious potential problem with multicollinearity, it appears that these problems do not substantially inuence the results. Generally speaking, the combined results of both models 3 and 4 suggest that, for the substantial majority of nations, development of the industrial sector of the economy is associated with higher emissions, while service sector and agricultural sector development appear to suppress emissions. Table 4 presents a summary of the more precise non-linear results from model 4. The effects of all three GDP variables are nonmonotonic, although only a handful of nations have GDP values that exceed the estimated ITPs for each variable. The ndings regarding the other world-systems variables, ODA per capita and DFI per capita, are less clear. Both variables have positive effects in both models, consistent with predictions of world-system theory, but these effects are only signicant for DFI per capita in model 3 and for ODA per capita in model 4. Taken together, these results suggest that dependent nations and those inuenced by foreign capital are more prone to higher emissions than other nations. Both models 3 and 4 indicate that tropical nations have signicantly lower emissions than non-tropical nations, controlling for other


factors. Both models also indicate that population density has a signicant positive effect on emissions, while the percentage of the population that is of nondependent age has no signicant effect. The effect of urbanization is positive in both models, but signicant only in model 3 (the quadratic of urbanization is also non-signicant in model 4), leading to the cautious conclusion that urbanization may increase emissions and that the linear specication is appropriate. The results for the NOx emissions models, using the disaggregated GDP variables, are presented in Table 6. As with the SO2 emissions models, the model using the disaggregated GDP variables provide a better t than the one using aggregated GDP. Due to its outlier status and excessive inuence, the iteratively reweighted least squares procedure dropped Singapore from both models 5 and 6 and Kuwait from model 6. The model including quaTable 6. Robust regression results for the NOx emissions analysis, using disaggregated GDP.

GDP from agriculture

Model 5

Model 6

Linear

Quadratic

Coefcient (S.E.)

Coefcient (S.E.)

-2.74 (1.98)

Quadratic of GDP from agriculture GDP from industry

5.13* (2.51) 3.21*** (.81)

4.78*** (1.36)

-.19 (.50)

-.75 (.92)

Quadratic of GDP from industry GDP from service

-.84*** (.26)

Quadratic of GDP from service Percentage urban

-8.97** (3.13)

.19** (.06) .16** (.05)

Quadratic of percentage urban

.12* (.06) -.00 (.00)

ODA per capita

33.59 (19.93)

18.41 (19.65)

DFI per capita

14.08 (8.19)

4.44 (8.09)

-.01 (.21)

.03 (.21)

Density

-1.82* (.71)

-1.94** (.69)

Tropical

.69 (2.34)

Nondependent population

Constant

6.20 (11.80)

N

130

OLS R2 Highest VIF * p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

1.55 (2.30) 9.82 (12.42) 129

.34

.36

7.59

27.85

(two-tailed tests)


dratic versions of the GDP variables (model 6) provides a moderately superior t to the non-quadratic model (model 5), although it does present the same potential for multicollinearity problems as in the SO2 models (as indicated by the markedly higher VIF, which are the same as those from model 4, presented in Table 5). However, as noted above this does not appear to present a serious problem for the interpretation of results. As with the quadratic SO2 model, the quadratic NOx model indicates that the relationship between the GDP sector variables and emissions is nonmonotonic within the range of observation, but that few countries have GDP values in excess of the estimated ITPs (see Table 4). As with the SO2 model, these results suggest that in most nations industrialization increases emissions, while agricultural and service sector development suppress emissions. Urbanization has a signicant positive effect on NOx emissions, and the linear specication appears to be appropriate since the quadratic of urbanization is not signicant. Neither of the two world-system variables have a signicant effect in either model, although both coefcients in both models are positive, the direction expected from a world-system perspective. Interestingly, as was found in model 2, population density has a signicant negative effect on NOx emissions, while, as noted above, it has a signicant positive effect on SO2 emissions. The reasons for this are unclear. The age structure variable and the latitude variable do not have signicant effects.

Discussion and Conclusion The results clearly support a key argument of world-systems theory: the structure of national economies has a substantial inuence on the generation of certain national environmental impacts. The distribution of production processes throughout the world-system appears to be one of the key factors inuencing the scale of national emissions of SO2 and NOx , a nding consistent with previous research. While this reinforces the importance of assessing the connection between GDP and environmental impacts, it also points to potential renements in analyses, the disaggregation of GDP into economic sectors, that may lead to a more precise understanding of how economic production inuences different types of impacts on the environment. As for whether other world-system variables have a substantial inuence on pollution emissions, the evidence is weaker. Both ofcial development assistance (ODA) per capita, an indicator of dependence, and direct foreign


investment (DFI) per capita, an indicator of connection to the global economy, are associated with higher pollution emissions, but the association is not strong and the statistical signicance is inconsistent across models. Contrary to the predictions of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), urbanization does appear to increase emissions, an indication that more “modernized” nations, which are typically in the core, are disproportionately responsible for pollution. Geographic and demographic variables appear to have different effects on SO2 emissions than on NOx emissions. Population density is associated with lower NOx emissions but higher SO2 emissions. The reason for this is not apparent. Furthermore, it appears that controlling for other factors, nations in the tropics have consistently lower SO2 emissions that other nations, but that there is no relationship between latitude and NOx emissions. Further research would be necessary to establish the reasons for these various differences. The age structure of the population does not appear to affect either type of emissions. Nonetheless, taken together these results point to the importance of recognizing the inuence of geography and demography on national environmental impacts. The overall results are not encouraging to theories, such as Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT) and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), that predict declines in environmental impacts as nations become afuent. By tracing the geographical origins of the drivers of air pollution our results remove the veil of optimism that is speciously attributed to the affordability of pollution reduction by afuent nations. These results are consistent with previous ndings (Rosa et al. 2004; York et al. 2003b). But they are even more damning of theories predicting downturns in environmental impacts because the analyses focus on the class of impacts presumed to be most responsive to rising afuence. In sum, it appears that where a country sits at the worldsystem table determines where it stands in polluting the atmosphere.

R. Scott Frey The Flow of Hazardous Exports in the WorldSystem: The Case of the Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico

Introduction Some of the core’s hazardous products, production processes, and wastes are transferred to the peripheral zones of the world-system by transnational corporations (TNCs) (see, e.g., Adeola 2001; Castleman and Navarro 1987; Clapp 2001, 2002a, 2002b; Frey 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 2001, 2002). Since few peripheral countries have the ability to adequately assess and manage the risks associated with such hazards, TNC export practices are increasing the health, safety, and environmental risks facing many peripheral countries (Aguilar-Madrid et al. 2003; Brenner et al. 2000; Brown 2002; Kasperson and Kasperson 2001; Millen and Holtz 2000). Increasingly, many impoverished peripheral states (seeking to attract industry and foreign currency) have contributed to the risk transfer problem by establishing export processing zones (EPZs). These so-called “free zones” have few regulatory restrictions on production practices and offer many other concessions to TNCs. TNCs have responded by moving production facilities to hundreds of EPZs located in more than sixty countries (Chen 1995; Dicken 2003). In effect, TNCs are appropriating carrying capacity for the core by transferring (“distancing”) the core’s hazards to the periphery.

134 • R. Scott Frey

I map the general contours of the problem by examining a specic case: the transfer of hazardous industries to the maquiladora centers located on the Mexican side of the Mexico-U.S. border. The maquiladoras (mostly foreignowned factories using imported materials) provide an excellent case for examining the causes, consequences, and political responses associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous production processes to EPZs. Discussion of this case proceeds in ve steps. A brief description of the Mexico-U.S. border area is presented in the next section. The major political and economic forces driving the transfer of hazardous industries to cities located on the Mexican side of the border are then charted. The extent to which the location of hazardous industries has increased health, safety, and environmental risks and contributed to other problems in Northern Mexico is examined next. An effort is then made to critically evaluate the neoliberal contention (and its more sophisticated counterpart, ecological modernization theory [Mol 2001]) that the transfer of the core’s hazardous production processes to the periphery is benecial to both the core and the periphery. Emerging political responses to the problem are briey examined in the nal section.

The Mexico-U.S. Border Region The U.S. and Mexico share a border that stretches nearly 2,100 miles from the Pacic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico (ITESMA and InfoMexico 2002). The border cuts across four U.S. states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas) and six Mexican states (Baja California, Sonora, Chituahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas). The border region, dened as including 60 miles of territory on either side of the border, consists of approximately 250,000 square miles of land. More than 12 million people were estimated to reside in the border area in 2000: 7 million on the U.S. side and over 5 million on the Mexican side (ITESM and InfoMexus 2002; Peach and Williams 1999). Over 70 percent of the population resides in 14 twin cities; the largest being San Diego-Tijuana, with a population of over 4.5 million. The population of the region has more than doubled since 1980, creating severe pressure on the existing infrastructure and the environment. This has taken several forms, including inadequate drinking water, poor sewage services, insufcient housing, improper garbage disposal, and air and water pollution. Colonias (unincorporated poor settlements) with inadequate infrastructure and squalid conditions are growing

The Flow of Hazardous Exports in the World-System • 135

along the border at the rate of 10 percent per year and contain a population estimated to be over 1.5 million (Borderlines 1998a; ITESM and InfoMexus 2002). Economic and other disparities between the two sides of the border are great; the average per capita income on the U.S. side is more than ten times that of Mexico (ITESM and InfoMexico 2002). The border is one of the “hottest growth zones” in North American and one of the busiest in the world. Most of the border region consists of high altitude desert. The region includes three major desert systems (the Sonora, Mojave, and Chihuahua), separated by three mountain ranges (the Sierra de Juaven, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the Sierra Madre Oriental). Irrigation and rapid population growth in this semi-arid region have placed high demands on the limited water supplies. Surface water is the major source of water for most border cities.

The Political Economy of the Transfer of Hazardous Industries Political and economic forces operating at the intranational, international, and supranational levels promote the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to the periphery. In an effort to expand markets and curb production costs, many core-based TNCs have moved hazardous production facilities to sites located in Northern Mexico and elsewhere in the periphery. The Mexican state, like the states of many other peripheral countries, has pursued exportoriented industrial policies to attract industry. In turn, various international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have enacted policies promoting and supporting TNC practices and the export-oriented industrial policies of the Mexican and other peripheral states. In the Core Scientic and public concern with the health, safety, and environmental risks of industrial production emerged as an important issue during the 1970s and has continued in the core countries (Hays 2000; O’Neill 2000). This concern gave rise to a host of regulations. These regulations increased industrial production costs, pushing hazardous industries to the periphery as TNCs attempted to reduce production costs. The effect of such regulations on the dispersion of hazardous industries to the periphery has been the subject of considerable debate (Clapp 1998a, 2001:chapter 5; Jaffee 1995). Several researchers report


that the impact of core regulation on the dispersal of hazardous industries has either been exaggerated or is ambiguous. Leonard (1988), for instance, reports that there is little evidence to support the claim that increased regulation has led to the large-scale transfer of hazardous industries to so-called “pollution havens” in the periphery; rather, only certain aging and economically marginal production processes have been exported: benzidine-based dye production, arsenic production, asbestos processing, lead rening, battery manufacturing, and pesticide production. A subsequent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey of U.S. rms operating in Mexico indicated that rms were not relocating to Mexico to avoid pollution abatement costs (cited in Molina 1993:226). Eskeland and Harrison (1997) in an empirical study of Mexico report that pollution abatement costs had little effect on industrial country investment in Mexico and little evidence that foreign investment is in “dirty” industries. Grossman and Krueger (1993:38–42), in an important study based on data from the mid-1980s, report that increases in pollution abatement costs in the U.S. had little effect on maquiladora activity in Mexico. Molina (1993), in a follow up study to the Grossman and Krueger (1993) study, reports that during the 1980s as U.S. pollution abatement costs increased, U.S. maquiladora investment increased dramatically. A 1991 U.S. Government Accounting Ofce study found that several Los Angeles furniture manufacturers relocated to Mexico after the establishment of stringent air pollution restrictions in California (Sanchez 1990; U.S. General Accounting Ofce 1991). It is also interesting to note that many of the U.S. corporations lobbying for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were major polluting industries (Anderson et al. 1993). And, more recently, Clapp (2001:chapter 5, 2002a) and Rothman (1998) have argued that much of the work reporting little relationship between environmental regulation and industrial relocation is deeply awed because it is based on old data and fails to take into account all environmental costs. Factors other than health and environmental regulations have certainly contributed to the movement of industries to Northern Mexico and other peripheral countries. These include international economic conditions such as exchange rates and comparative resource endowments; tax avoidance; labor, energy, and transport costs; domestic markets; and overall business investment conditions. The spatial dispersion of hazardous industries also reects a much larger economic globalization process in which spatial and temporal constraints have been dramatically reduced through advances in


transport and communication technologies, as well as supranational organizational and institutional innovations that TNCs played a part in establishing (Ciccantell and Bunker 1998; Dicken 2003; Millen et al. 2000:233–241). Whatever the relative importance of these interrelated forces, the point is that core-based TNCs have found it economically advantageous and increasingly possible to transfer hazardous industrial activities to the border cities of Northern Mexico and EPZs located elsewhere in the world. Production costs are relatively low in Mexico because of low wages, cheap resources and energy; low taxes and other subsidies; and limited state control of the environment and the health, safety, and well-being of its citizens. Reduced costs in Mexico enhance the competitiveness of TNCs and promote capital accumulation. In other words, capital ows to peripheral countries like Mexico having what Daly (1996:153) calls an “absolute advantage” in industrial production. In the Periphery Faced with poverty, debt and structural adjustment pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, low agricultural and mineral commodity prices, and a world-system marginalizing them economically and politically, many peripheral states have pursued export-oriented policies in an effort to attract industry from the core (Dicken 2003). In fact, many peripheral countries are so anxious to industrialize that they are willing to accept almost any industry offered: hazardous or otherwise. Nowhere is this pattern more pervasive than in Mexico. The history of economic ties between the U.S. and Mexico is complicated and conicted. During World War II, for instance, a large number of Mexican workers replaced U.S. workers serving in the armed services. The Bracero Program of 1942 legalized this migration, allowing Mexican workers to migrate to the U.S. to perform temporary agricultural work and railroad construction. The U.S. government canceled the program in 1964. Several hundred thousand workers returned to Mexico, increasing unemployment and overcrowding in the border cities (Sklair 1993). The Mexican state established the Border Industrialization Program (BIP) in 1965 to cope with the economic problems along the border (Schwartz 1987). The purpose of the program was to promote industrialization, employment, and new technology imports and management practices. Maquiladoras were allowed to import equipment, components, and raw materials duty free for


assembly and export to the U.S. and other countries. Cheap labor, lax regulation, generous tax incentives, and close proximity to the U.S. consumer market drew many TNCs, initially from the U.S. and later from Canada, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and other countries. The program was expanded to the non-border areas (Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey) after 1972 (Gabriel 1990; Sklair 1993:chapter 3). The number of maquiladoras grew steadily during the 1960s and 1970s. Growth expanded dramatically in the mid-1980s when the state liberalized trade and enacted other measures in an effort to deal with serious economic problems. Mexico entered the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986, liberalizing trade restrictions and opening the country to the global economy. The state abandoned many policies that restricted TNC activities, reduced protectionist tariffs, curbed labor unions, limited minimum wage increases, and promoted the maquila industry in diverse ways (Wilson 1992:40ff). Labor costs were reduced signicantly when the peso was devalued repeatedly during the 1980s and the early to mid-1990s as the Mexican state attempted to meet its debt obligations under IMF-sponsored structural adjustment (George 1992:24–28; Wilson 1992). The number of maquiladoras grew dramatically in the 1990s, increasing from 1,818 in 1990 to 3,486 in early 2000. More than eighty percent of all maquiladoras are located in the northern border area of Mexico. Employment doubled during the 1990s; it stood at more than 1.2 million in 2000 but it has declined somewhat due to the downturn in the U.S. economy starting in early 2000 and the movement of some jobs to China and elsewhere (Greider 2001; Hanson 2002). Maquiladoras – a major source of foreign exchange and employing twenty-ve percent of the manufacturing labor force in the country – have not only changed in number and importance since the 1960s, but they have changed qualitatively by moving from simple assembly to manufacturing (Geref 1996; Hanson 2002). The present breakdown of employment by industry type is as follows: textiles (24%), electric and electronic materials and accessories (30%), wood and metallic furniture and parts (5.6%), services (22%), electric and electronic equipment and machinery (4.6%), chemical products (10.6%), food processing (2.3%), and other manufacturing (1.3%) (ITESM and InfoMexus 2002:85). Despite the increasing sophistication of production processes in many of the newer maquiladoras, labor-management practices of the core country factories have not been fully transferred (Hanson 2002; Kenney et al. 1998).


Plant owners represent a virtual “Who’s Who” of international capital: Alcoa, BMW, Chrysler, IBM, RCA, General Motors, ITT, DuPont, Hughes Aircraft, Eastman Kodak, Canon, Wal-Mart, JVC, Sara Lee, Zenith, Xerox, Sony, Motorola, General Electric, Toshiba, Ford, United Technologies, Mattel Toys, Matsushita, Hitachi, and other lesser known TNCs. Various consumer products are produced for export, including furniture for several U.S. companies, auto parts for Chrysler, high-tech electronic components and computer disks for Sony, Ford automobiles, Foster Grant sunglasses, hospital gowns for Kimberly Clark, and garage door openers for Sears. Maquila plants also produce hazardous wastes and other substances that are not managed effectively and contaminate the environment, as well as put workers and others at risk of death, disease, and injury (e.g., Clapp 2002a; Liverman et al. 1999), but more on this below. Some of the TNCs have introduced health, safety, and environmental standards that are equivalent to those of the developed countries, but many TNCs have not introduced such standards (Castleman 1995, 1999; see also Garcia-Jonson 2000:chapter 5). The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an executive agreement reached in August 1992 and enacted on January 1, 1994, has set the stage for the removal of most remaining tariff barriers in Mexico over the next decade (Cameron and Tomlin 2002). Maquila activity has increased under NAFTA and it is expected to continue, though there has been a slow down recently as noted above (Hanson 2002). More TNCs will likely locate production facilities in the interior of Mexico to take advantage of lower production costs, but plant growth will continue along the border region.

Adverse Consequences Hazardous industrial production can damage the environment and adversely affect human health through occupational exposure and environmental dispersion of hazardous wastes and substances in the environment or large-scale failures such as explosions and res. Numerous undesirable social and economic consequences are also associated with hazardous industries, including staggering economic costs and an inequitable distribution of costs and benets. Peripheral countries like Mexico are particularly vulnerable to the risks posed by hazardous industries because of a young, poorly-trained, uninformed, undernourished, and unhealthy workforce (Lanrigan and Garg 2002).


Other problems exist, including limited public awareness of the risks associated with hazards, weak and tightly controlled labor unions, politically unresponsive state agencies, and inadequate risk assessment and management capabilities (Pena 1997:28ff; Sanchez 2002). In addition, organized environmental activism is limited because potential participants have little time for such activity and there are few channels through the courts or legislature for effective public participation (Barkin 1991; Mumme 1998; Sanchez 2002). Structural adjustment reforms and trade liberalization as well as the general processes of globalization have compounded the problem by increasing some of the problems mentioned above and reducing the state’s right/ability to regulate the domestic market, the environment, and the health and safety of workers (Casanova 1996; Millen and Holtz 2000; Tilly 1995). The problem is compounded by the fact that hazardous industries are located in rapidly growing cities faced with many health, safety, and environmental risks and inadequate infrastructure and services in terms of health care, housing, water, electricity, sewage and drainage, and garbage collection and disposal (Brenner et al. 2000; Liverman et al. 1999). In other words, “throughput” (Daly 1996:28) is greater than the regeneration and absorptive capacities of the Mexican border cities. Environmental Risks Emissions of toxic substances, the improper disposal of hazardous wastes and materials, and the rapid population growth and increased human activity associated with the growth of maquiladoras contribute to the risk of environmental damage. Environmental damage takes numerous forms: soil contamination, soil erosion, groundwater pollution and depletion, biodiversity loss, contamination of rivers and coastal regions, air pollution, threats to plant and animal health and survival, and changes and variability in climate. Since reliable data do not exist on the full scope and nature of the problem, it is not possible to estimate the full extent of the environmental damage (ITESM and InfoMexus 2002; Liverman et al. 1999). Such damage is a potentially important problem because it can deplete important natural resources, disrupt the stability of larger ecosystems, and threaten human health (Brenner et al. 2000). Effects are not only local but global because maquila activities are embedded in global commodity chains stretching across time and space. Consider what is actually known about environmental risks. Water shortages have resulted from rapid population growth and increased industrial


activity in the maquila centers (Kelly and Solis 2001). The maquilas have also contributed to water pollution on both sides of the border (ITESM and InfoMexus 2002; Pena 1997:283–296). Air pollution is also a serious problem, for ozone, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide are high on both sides of the border (ITESM and InfoMexus 2002; Liverman et al. 1999). Maquiladoras generate a substantial amount of hazardous waste that goes untreated and is unaccounted for, despite fairly stringent laws in the U.S. and Mexico. Despite the existence of a binational agreement (the La Paz Agreement) requiring U.S. companies to return wastes associated with the use of toxic materials, only 25% of such wastes were returned and 65% of such wastes were unaccounted for in either the U.S. or Mexico in the 1990s (Perry et al. 1998). The situation is worse now because as of January 1, 2001 NAFTA no longer requires TNCs to return waste to the U.S. Hazardous wastes have also been transported to maquiladoras and recycling plants for storage and abandoned or dumped illegally in the desert and other locations (Clapp 2002a). The most recent estimates are that the waste ow from the U.S. to Mexico (230,417 tons in 1996 and 254,500 tons in 1999) was 20 to 30 times more than waste shipped to the U.S. from Mexico (Jacotti et al. 2001; Reed 1998). Human Health Risks Occupational and environmental exposure to the hazards posed by industry and the attendant health consequences are not fully known (Brenner et al. 2000; ITESM and InfoMexus 2002). Given the experiences of the core countries and reports from many peripheral countries, hazardous industries pose a serious threat. Those exposed are at a high risk of death, disease, and injury because of their increased susceptibility to various site-specic cancers, skin irritation, respiratory problems, neurobehavioral problems, reproductive risks, genetic changes and damage to the immune system, and acute and chronic damage to specic body organs. In addition, those living near hazardous facilities are at increased risk of death and injury from res and explosions. Since reliable data do not exist on the occupational and environmental exposure to the routine, fugitive, and accidental emissions of hazardous substances from maquiladoras, it is not possible to estimate the actual number of deaths or cases of disease and injury that can be attributed to them. It is quite clear, given what we know about the environmental risks discussed above, that health problems linked to the maquila plants are pervasive. Air pollution


and groundwater and surface water contamination have been documented at many points along the border. Hazardous waste management is also a severe problem, for many plants dump and store hazardous wastes in a haphazard fashion. Industrial accidents and the adverse health and safety conditions facing maquila workers and the inhabitants of colonias surrounding the plants are serious (Gallagher 2002a). Current research indicates that the rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses among maquiladora workers is substantially higher than that of U.S. workers (Brenner et al. 2000:274–275). Adverse health effects (low birth weight infants, stress, fatigue, headaches, cumulative trauma disorders, and the like among maquila workers) have been reported by several researchers (Guendelman et al. 1998). Noncommunicable diseases are also a problem, for mortality rates for general cancer and several site-specic cancers (including trachea, bronchitis, and lung) as well as congenital anomalies are higher along the Mexican border than for the country as a whole (Brenner et al. 2000:285). Numerous incidents have been reported, but none more dramatic than the cluster of 50 anencephalic babies born in the Brownsville, Texas-Matamoros, Mexico area (19 in Brownsville and 31 in Matamoros) in the early 1990s (Suro 1992). Infant mortality and age-adjusted general mortality rates on the Mexican side of the border are not only higher than rates on the U.S. side but higher than rates for Mexico as a whole (Brenner et al. 2000:280–287). Differences are even greater for rates of mortality and/or morbidity for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, and dengue. Such disparities can be attributed to the rapid population growth and limited infrastructure development and unmet service needs in the border cities along the Mexican side of the border (Brenner et al. 2000). The health problems posed by the maquila plants (and the rapid population growth and related factors associated with increased maquila activity) are so serious that the Council on Scientic Affairs (1990:3320) of the American Medical Association concluded that “environmental monitoring and disease incidence data . . . point out that the public and environmental health . . . is rapidly deteriorating and seriously affecting the health and future vitality on both sides of the border.” The National Toxics Campaign has described the border as “. . . a two-thousand mile long Love Canal” (cited in Cavanagh 1992:8). And the situation has not improved since the implementation of NAFTA (Gallagher 2002a; Sanchez 2002).


Economic Costs The costs associated with the cleanup of contaminated sites and improperly disposed wastes in Mexico are high. The treatment and compensation of the victims of hazardous exposures are potentially very costly. Destruction of marine life, biodiversity, soil, water and air quality, and other natural resources is also likely to be costly. This is a particularly important issue because water is such a scarce commodity in this semi-arid region. Reductions in human health are costly, and they can impede future economic growth (Price-Smith 2001). These and other tangible and intangible economic costs associated with the transfer of hazardous industries are substantial. Social Costs Contrary to Beck’s (1992, 1999) “risk-society” hypothesis, the bulk of the costs or risks associated with the transfer of hazardous production facilities to Mexico (and other peripheral countries for that matter) are distributed in an uneven fashion (see Brenner et al. 2000; Marshall 1999), representing a pattern of “risk discrimination” (Kasperson and Kasperson 2001). Most benets go to the core-based TNCs who control production and marketing of products and the prots of their sale, while Mexico bears most of the costs (Cooney 2001; Pena 1997; Sklair 1993). Losses within Mexico are distributed in an unequal fashion: some groups (especially the state and local capital) are able to capture the benets and other groups (especially those marginalized by gender, age, class, race/ethnicity, and geographic location, including maquiladora workers, colonia dwellers, and other poor residents) bear the costs (e.g., Brenner et al. 2000). Wages are low, averaging twelve dollars a day. Young women employed in the maquiladoras, who represent slightly more than 50 percent of the work force currently, have borne many of the health and safety risks associated with hazardous industrial production, but they have enjoyed few, if any, of the economic benets (Wright 1999). Women employed in the electronics industry, for instance, are routinely exposed to solvents that can cause menstrual and fertility problems, as well as cancer and liver and kidney problems. Women working in the maquiladoras also experience a variety of other adverse consequences, including discrimination in terms of hiring, wages, and promotion; routine pregnancy tests and systematic ring if found to be pregnant; sexual harassment and abuse on the job; and risk of rape and death in the early mornings when traveling to and from work (Cevallos 2003).


Hazardous residues may move across national borders through the air, water, and food. As noted above, wastes created in the maquiladoras are regularly dispersed into the air and water and often end up in the U.S. (Varady et al. 1995). Weak regulatory standards in Mexico also give TNCs leverage in their efforts to reduce labor and other costs in the core countries. And, most importantly, future generations will bear costs and enjoy few of the benets generated by hazardous industry.

Evaluating the Costs and Benefits Are the costs associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to the periphery offset by the economic and other benets as proponents of neoliberalism (Grossman and Kruger 1993) and ecological modernization theorists (Mol 2001) suggest? This is a vexing question because it is difcult to identify, estimate, and value the costs and benets associated with hazards in monetary terms (Dietz et al. 2001). Despite suggestions and efforts to the contrary (e.g., Logan 1991), there is no widely accepted factual or methodological basis for identifying, estimating, and valuing the costs and benets associated with the ow of core hazards to the periphery. Even if the consequences of hazardous exports could be meaningfully identied and estimated, there remains the question of valuing them in monetary terms. The usual strategy is to look to the marketplace for such a valuation, but adverse health, safety, environmental, and social consequences are not traded in the marketplace. Efforts have been made to deal with this problem by using either expert judgment or public preferences (Mitchell and Carson 1989), but these techniques are deeply awed (Dietz et al. 2001; Foster 2002a). Comments contained in an often quoted 1991 memo by former World Bank Chief Economist Lawrence Summers (The Economist 1992) are worth quoting at length because they illustrate some of the difculties and contradictory outcomes of applying traditional economic reasoning to the transfer of hazardous industries to the periphery: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs? I can think of three reasons: (1) The measurement of the costs of health-impairing pollution depends on the forgone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages.

The Flow of Hazardous Exports in the World-System • 145 (2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have been very low cost. I’ve always thought that under-polluted countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted; their air quality is probably . . . low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. . . . (3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income-elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one-in-a-million chance in the odds of prostate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostate cancer than in a country where under-5 mortality is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility of particulates. These discharges may have little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.

Such reasoning undervalues nature and it is based on the assumption that human life in the periphery is worth much less than in the core because of wage differentials (Foster 2002a). Although most costs are borne by the periphery and most benets are captured by the core-based TNCs and by elites located in the periphery, the costs to the periphery are deemed minimal and acceptable because life is dened as worth so little (see Foster 1995, 2002b; Harvey 1996:366–369). Or, as Herman Daly (1993:57) has noted: “By separating the costs and benets of environmental exploitation, international trade makes them harder to compare.” Even if the economic costs and benets associated with the transfer of hazardous industries could be estimated and valued in a meaningful fashion, it is doubtful that the benets accruing to Mexico would cover the costs. Consider, for instance, Sklair’s (1993:240–266) important assessment of the maquiladora program. Using six development criteria (backward and forward linkage creation, foreign currency earnings, personnel upgrading, technology transfer, work conditions, and environmental conditions), Sklair concludes that the mix of costs and benets of the maquiladora program is highly uncertain. He notes: The end of the maquila industry as we know it would be extremely painful for the frontera norte and for the border communities of the U.S., but in the long-term unless the Mexican government and the TNCs can work out ways of transforming it into a more potent instrument for the development of Mexico and the advancement of its people, Mexico is better off without it (Sklair 1993:238).


He argues that the situation is unlikely to improve under NAFTA (Sklair 1993:240–263). Other analysts (e.g., Cooney 2001) have drawn conclusions similar to those of Sklair (1993) or concluded that the Mexican situation is worse after NAFTA (Anderson and Cavanagh 1996; Brenner et al. 2000; Clapp 2002). Gallagher (2002:119), for instance, indicates that “industrial air pollution is outstripping trade-led economic growth in Mexico.” Stoddard (1991) has qualied such views by noting that maquiladoras vary considerably in their developmental consequences and many maquiladoras are far better than many domestic facilities in the formal and informal sectors. And ecological modernization theorist Arthur Mol (2001:127–130) suggests that the environmental provisions and side agreements of NAFTA provide the institutional basis for improvements in the future. But a crucial fact remains: the maquiladora industry has had little impact on Mexico’s economic development beyond the creation of jobs (many of which are unskilled, though this has begun to change) and increased revenues from exports. Complicating the situation is Cooney’s (2001:14) observation about the fragility of maquila jobs: . . . Mexico is not in control of the wealth generated within the country. The question remains, therefore, as to whether maquiladora development can be counted on to provide growth in the long run. Consider a scenario where maquiladora workers demand higher wages (perhaps something closer to 1/4th instead of 1/12th of their US counterparts) or insist that health and safety standards be the same as in the US, or request that working overtime be optional. It is probable that the capital accumulated by many of these TNCs may continue their circuit elsewhere. In other words, although the surplus is generated in Mexico, it can be relocated at the time of reinvestment, if the conditions do not remain sufciently propitious for capital.

Greider (2001) and Smith (2002) have commented on the emergence of such a pattern in late 2001, noting that a number of “footloose” TNCs have been moving their production facilities from Mexico to China, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Grossman and Krueger (1993) tell another story; they examined the developmental consequences of maquiladoras in environmental terms. They present ndings of cross-national research suggesting the existence of a curvilinear relationship between national economic development and several measures of urban environmental degradation. They report that as economic develop-


ment increases, environmental degradation per unit of economic development decreases; this is the so-called inverted U-curve or environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (EKC). They argue that Mexico is on the verge of such a threshold: future economic growth (especially under NAFTA) will improve environmental management and reduce environmental problems (Grossman and Krueger 1993). For proponents of neo-liberalism, and their ecological modernization counterparts, the benets will outweigh the costs in the future. The problem with Grossman and Krueger’s argument is that they assume that the cross-national relationship between aggregate economic output and environmental degradation is a result of intracountry changes in consumption, values, regulation, and technology resulting from afuence. But as Rosa and Dietz (1998:436) note: . . . the new international division of labor has shifted the most environmentally disruptive activities to the least afuent nations, leaving relatively clean service industries in the most afuent nations. Reduced environmental impact from industries in the afuent nations is thus an artifact occurring for other reasons; the impacts are still taking place, but have been shifted to politically less powerful locations.

Roberts and Grimes (1997, 1999:67) also dismiss the modernization implications of the environmental Kuznets curve; they assert that the curve is not a historical trend but a temporary pattern conned to the 1980s (Roberts and Grimes 1999:67). Arrow et al. (1995:520) make similar arguments and note that the existence of the inverted-U curve “. . . does not constitute evidence that it will happen in all cases or that it will happen in time to avert the important and irreversible global consequences of growth.” Stern (1998), in an extensive review of the exiting literature, raises a host of important questions about the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve. More recently, York et al. (2003) present compelling cross-national evidence that afuence (GDP/capita) has a positive and monotonic effect on a measure of environmental impact (the ecological footprint measure developed by Wackernagel and Rees [1996]) that takes into account a country’s domestic and international impact. Others (Jorgenson 2003; Nordstrom and Vaughan 1999; Rothman 1998) have drawn similar conclusions. In sum, the costs associated with the transfer of hazardous production processes to the periphery appear to outweigh the benets.


Resistance through Transnational Networks Efforts to curb the adverse consequences associated with the maquiladora industries in Northern Mexico and hazardous industries in EPZs located elsewhere have taken several distinct forms: various national regulatory efforts; bilateral and multilateral environmental agreements; trade treaties such as NAFTA and attendant side agreements, including the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC); various market-based initiatives centering on the modernization of industrial production; industry-led initiatives such as the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14000 environmental management standards and the International Chamber of Commerce’s Business Charter for Sustainable Development; and calls for various supranational bodies such as a “World Environment Organization” (Caldwell 2002; Gallagher 2002; Mol 2001:chapters 5, 7; Sanchez 2002). These efforts to globalize responsibility are problematic because of noncompliance and weak implementation and enforcement capacity at the national and supranational levels, resulting from fragmentation of efforts, limited resources, increased capital mobility, and the neoliberal project that frames regulation as a trade barrier (Sanchez 2002:1382, 1385–1389; Tilly 1995). Several analysts have called for more stringent measures, including what some call “the renationalization of capital” (Cobb 1995; Daly 1996:145–162) or the dismantling of what Gould et al. (1996) call the “transnational treadmill of production.” Implementation of these proposals appears unrealistic given the structural constraints posed by the current world-system. What is being done to challenge the world-system? Several organizational and political changes are currently underway. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have pressured the Mexican state to develop and enforce higher standards, train public health and maquila workers, and open the policy discourse to the public about the prevalence and use of toxic materials (Hogenboom 1996; Pena 1997:304ff; Williams 1999). NGOs such as the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, the Maquila Solidarity Network, the Maquiladora Health and Safety Network, and the Southwest Network for Economic and Environmental Justice have begun to monitor and study actual conditions in and around the maquiladoras, as well as pressure TNCs to change operating procedures. These and other NGOs have been successful in their efforts (Bacon 2001; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Roberts 1998). Williams (1999:150–152), for instance, presents compelling evidence that the Coalition


for Justice in the Maquiladoras cross-border collaboration campaigns were successful in achieving goals. A variety of tactics were used, including lobbying and testifying before various legislative and administrative bodies, letter writing, picketing and demonstrations, and organizing stakeholders of companies operating in Northern Mexico. More recently, a coalition of Canadian, U.S., and Mexican NGOs were successful in expanding right-toknow legislation in Mexico, including the establishment of a Pollutant Release and Transfer Register that is similar to those in Canada and the U.S. (Nauman 2003). Economic globalization and the attendant adverse consequences have clearly fostered counter-hegemonic forces or anti-systemic movements in the form of transnational networks of NGOs. The extent to which NGOs will actually curb the adverse consequences of economic globalization in Mexico and elsewhere is the subject of debate (see, e.g., Buttel and Gould 2004; Moghadam 1999; Mol 2001; Sanchez 2002, Wallerstein 2002; Wilkin 2000). Peter Evans’s (2000:240) comment of several years ago is particularly apt: Is it possible that a ragtag set of activists who have managed to turn fax machines, Internet hook-ups, and some unlikely long-distance personal ties into a machinery for harassing transnational corporations and repressive local politicians might foreshadow a political process that could recongure the rules of the global political economy so as to foster equity, well-being, and dignity? It may be utopian to contemplate such a possibility, but it is certainly foolish not to take the elements of counter-hegemonic globalization that are already in place and push them as far as they can go.

Counter-hegemonic globalization in the form of transnational networks of NGOs may seem utopian in the context of 2005–2006, but it remains one of the most viable means for curbing the adverse consequences associated with hazardous facilities in the EPZs of the periphery. Stopping the core’s appropriation of carrying capacity is another matter, for appropriation is embedded in the very structure of the current world-system.

Yvonne A. Braun Large Dams as Development: Re-structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho

Introduction As the small Southern African country of Lesotho grapples with implementing one of the ve largest dam-development projects in the world today, the local people impacted confront the challenges of resettlement, loss of means of production, and changed access to natural resources. This chapter reveals the ways in which the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) serves to re-organize and commodify rural resources for the benet of the nationstate. Based on interviews of rural households conducted during thirteen months of ethnographic eldwork in Lesotho, this chapter renders visible the ways in which common and accessible rural natural resources, such as wild vegetables/herbs, water, and pastoral lands, are re-organized during the development process of the LHWP away from rural populations and towards the benet of the nation-state. In so doing, this chapter illuminates the ways in which the LHWP affected people effectively subsidize this international project with their environmental resources, labor, money, and, in some cases, their nutritional status. In the rst section of this chapter, I provide some ethnographic context in which to understand the importance of these natural resources and the role of development in Lesotho. Then I offer a brief

152 • Yvonne A. Braun

synopsis of the LHWP and the history of development more generally in Lesotho. In particular, I discuss what we know about the use of large dams as development, and why the government of Lesotho chose this particular form of development. In the second section, I briey discuss my methods and research design informing this project. Lastly, I present a discussion of how three particular natural resources utilized by the rural poor are reorganized for the benet of the state in the process of the implementation of the LHWP.

Lesotho The majority (84%) of Lesotho’s approximate 2 million inhabitants live in rural areas (Hassan 2002), and as shown in the baseline socio-economic studies done by Tshabalala and Turner (1989), people rely on a variety of strategies for income and survival in the highlands of Lesotho. The components of the ‘household production system’ for these highland areas include wage labor, small-scale commercial activities such as selling produce or goods, cropping agriculture, and livestock management (Panel of Environmental Experts (POE) 1989), as well as brewing beer or making handicrafts. As many ethnographers have noted, in Lesotho these strategies are part of a gendered village economy (Ashton 1967; Eldredge 1993; Ferguson 1985, 1990; Gay 1980; Gordon 1981; Hassan 2002; Letuka 1997; Murray 1981). Women are often the farmers, involved in the informal economy and the reproduction of the household, carrying water and collecting fuelwood, and possibly raising poultry and small animals. Men, on the other hand, are likely to be involved in some aspects of farming, raising livestock, and/or wage labor. As many men are migrant workers in South Africa (roughly 13%, and providing 17% of GNP) or elsewhere in Lesotho (Tshabalala and Turner 1989), women are often the de facto heads of household. Women in this respect have relative amounts of autonomy within the household, especially if the male head is away. Male migration has been an historical strategy for households to get wage labor, however it needs to be understood in balance with a consistent reliance on agriculture and other strategies (Gordon 1996; Nkomo 1990). Many rural households in Lesotho collect wild vegetables and herbal medicines from the natural environment. These are collective resources used on a frequent basis to supplement household resources. In some of the most remote communities in my study, and typically the most poor, people reported spending 5–15 hours a week collecting wild vegetables for food prior to the

Re-structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho • 153

LHWP (Author’s interviews 2001). These respondents considered their access to these vegetables very good and relied on them as signicant food resources, not as luxuries. Other communities had seen changes in their access to wild vegetables and medicines in years prior to the LHWP. Some plants uctuated in abundance either due to environmental changes or over-collection. Landlocked within South Africa as a result of colonial wars and politics, Lesotho has historically been a labor reserve enclave economy for the gold and diamond mines of South Africa. The system of oscillating male migration1 is shaped by, and has shaped, the historical pattern of relations between the two countries (Epprecht 2000; Gordon 1981; Murray 1981; Nkomo 1990). Although Lesotho became an independent country in 1966, in many ways it is largely dependent upon its dominant neighbor (Bardill and Cobbe 1985; Eldredge 1993; Epprecht 2000; Hassan 2002; Sechaba Consultants 1995; United Nations 2003). Almost everything in Lesotho is an import from South Africa, including most electricity. However, Lesotho does have one thing that the Gauteng region of South Africa desperately needs: water.

Lesotho Highlands Water Project One of the ve largest dam projects currently under construction in the world today, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is a multi-dam2 development project between Lesotho and South Africa.3 Based on a treaty signed in 1986, each government formed their own development authority (LHDA, in Lesotho) and a joint commission (JPTC) to oversee the planning and implementation of the $8 billion project. The funding comes from various sources such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Community, and various European funding agencies.4

1 Oscillating male migration is Murray’s term (1981). It refers to the cyclical movement of Basotho male miners to the South African mines for eight to eleven months of the year, and then their return to Lesotho for the remaining months of the year. 2 In anticipation of South Africa’s increasing water needs, the water delivery scheme will be composed of ve dams and various tunnels constructed in four phases over a period of 30 years (1987–2017). The rst phase is covered in the 1986 treaty; however, the subsequent three phases require a new contract. The absence of a binding document, as well as potential evidence that the amount of water available was highly overestimated, allowed for much controversy and debate as to whether the latter two phases would be completed. 3 For a political economy interpretation of how the LHWP contradicts the Government of Lesotho’s documented national development plans, see Tsikoane 1991. 4 All LHWP background information comes from the compilation of reading project


There are two main objectives outlined by their agreement. The rst objective is to deliver water from Lesotho’s Senqu River and its tributaries to the Gauteng industrial region of South Africa. In return South Africa was estimated to pay approximately $55 million in royalties to Lesotho each year – however, recent reports show that Lesotho has received closer to $18 million in average annual revenues (Hassan 2002; United Nations 2003). The second objective of the project is to create a hydroelectric power station that will allow Lesotho to create electricity domestically.5 An important documented obligation of the project is for its implementation to not worsen the current standards of living6 of the project affected peoples (Lesotho Highlands Development Authority 1986). The nature of the topography in Lesotho (its plentiful rivers and highlands areas providing natural gravitational ow) inuenced the sites of the dams and tunneling infrastructure that created the largest material losses within the LHWP. The highlands areas chosen for construction (Katse, ‘Muela, Mohale) contain some of the poorest communities within Lesotho, with some of the highest rates of unemployment and destitution (Sechaba Consultants 1994a:59; Tshabalala and Turner 1989:6). Sixty percent of households in both areas of Katse and ‘Muela fall below the average income for each area and are considered ‘very poor’ (POE 1991:25; Tshabalala and Turner 1989:9). Construction of infrastructure and camp facilities for foreign engineers7 began in 1987 (Detter, Gunnewig, and Seiffert 1994; Sechaba Consultants

documents, personal communication with development ofcials, and through contact with the Highlands Church Action Group. 5 Prior to the LHWP, households that used electricity imported it from South Africa since it was less expensive. Preliminary gures suggest that since the operation of the ‘Muela hydropower station, the cost of setting up electricity has prohibited new consumers and the small proportion that had electricity prior to the LHWP continue to import it from a South African company since it remains more cost effective to do so. 6 “Current” meaning the time of the rst intervention at each site. See Panel of Environmental Experts (POE), 1991. 7 Camp facilities are employee housing areas. In Katse there was an elaborate set up for employees based on the type of worker. The “Katse Village” was quite like a gated suburban neighborhood with large multiple bedroom homes, TV satellites, garages and driveways, and walking distance to tennis courts, a gym, a swimming pool at the lodge, and Tae Kwon Do classes. The other camps were similar to trailers, and it seemed to vary by position whether one had their own, or shared it with other workers. People commonly referred to them as ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ camps, or ‘engineer’ and ‘electrician’ housing. Almost as often people referred to them as ‘foreign’ or ‘white’ and ‘black’ housing. For examples, see Sechaba, 1994b and Transformation Resource Centre, 1995. One of my interviewees in 1997 contrasted these living and working conditions as comparable to apartheid (Nkoena, #1).


1994b; Transformation Resource Centre 1995). Due to the remoteness and ruggedness of the terrain, a vast amount of infrastructure was needed to reach the basin sites in the mountains. In 1993, Katse was the rst site to begin dam construction because its reservoir is the largest holding tank for the water being delivered to South Africa (through ‘Muela). The 185 meter arch dam began impoundment in October 1996, and at the time of this eldwork in 2000–01, the Katse portion of the project was mostly nished – the dam was built, the basin inundated, and the infrastructure complete. This also meant that the local people impacted were engaged in interaction with, and possibly receiving compensation from, the LHDA for almost ten years. The latter portion of Phase 1A at ‘Muela was almost nished. The construction of the smaller 55-meter high dam was complete, and the catchment area (the reservoir) underwent impoundment in 1999. Tunnels from Katse and tunnels to South Africa connect at the tail pond site in ‘Muela, thus creating an extensive geographical area that is impacted. Construction of Mohale Dam and is subsidiary infrastructure were still underway in 2000–01, but the rst phase of resettlement was under way and many Mohale communities had been impacted by the project for years prior.

‘Development’ Lesotho, as a “least developed country” (Ferguson 1990; Hassan 2002; United Nations 2003), has a long history of externally funded development projects, but none quite as extensive as the LHWP.8 The history of development projects in Lesotho and more generally, is to “fail” in regards to their stated purposes. Ferguson’s (1990) critical analysis of development in Lesotho reveals the ways that the conceptual apparatus of the development industry constructs hierarchical bodies of knowledge and invokes categories that reproduce the need to justify successive development interventions. The resulting proliferation of a dominantly expatriate development industry in Lesotho is easily observed by anyone spending time in the capital, Maseru.

8

In fact, it is quite surprising for a small country with such minimal economic resources, questionable institutional capacity for project of this extent, to have been eligible for receiving World Bank funding. At the time of the LHWP agreements, South Africa was under apartheid rule with full sanctions against aid of this type. Lesotho was made the proxy receiver of the loans despite their ineligibility (for a more detailed discussion see Tsikoane, 1991).


With the LHWP, the investment in and presence of the development industry in Lesotho has signicantly increased and has even been institutionalized within the LHDA. That this occurs despite the critiques of “development failure,” supports Ferguson’s illustration of the ways in which the “need” for development projects becomes reproduced despite their ineffectiveness, and possibly because of the unauthored effects that these projects enable in the process. The prospect of large dams as a development strategy for Lesotho has periodically been voiced since the 1950’s (by colonial developers), but only in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s did it begin to be seen as viable by the military government of the Jonathan administration and interested parties in the apartheid South African government. For the South African Ministry of Water Affairs, the challenge was to identify an extensive water source for the prospering commercial and industrial sectors of the Gauteng region (including Johannesburg). In contrast, World Bank country reports and national development planners in Lesotho painted a picture of a country that had almost no other development options – the majority rural population was engaged in primarily subsistence-oriented agriculture; Lesotho was considered to not have a viable market as exported crops could not compete with those of South Africa and Lesotho continued to be a net importer of food; and male labor migration rates to the mines of South Africa peaked during this period (see Santho 1991; Tsikoane 1991). Within the context of the historical dominance of South Africa’s relationship with Lesotho, the convergence of the needs of de Klerk’s apartheid administration to secure its prospering industrial center, and the desire of Jonathan’s military administration to increase revenues and secure its status in relation to internal politics and to South Africa, seems to have set the stage for Lesotho’s participation in the LHWP (Bardill and Cobbe 1985; Nkomo 1990; Santho 1991; Tsikoane 1991). Interestingly, this particular form of “development” involves massive investments of external funds, demands a centralization of authority in both the state and an implementing development body (LHDA), the resettlement and dislocation of marginalized rural communities, and mechanisms in which the natural resources of rural areas are re-organized under the control of and towards the benet of the state, and in this case, the larger regional hegemony of South Africa (Bunker and Ciccantell 1999; McMichael 2000). Since the LHWP, Lesotho has become more indebted towards international development institutions and other states, and consistently strives to re-organize socially and economically to meet standards for credit (George and Sabelli


1994). In this process, the government of Lesotho re-structures access to rural resources to meet the macro-economic indicators of the Western market model as it simultaneously marginalizes and restricts current socio-cultural and economic values and uses of those same resources (McMichael 2000). Choosing large dams as development involves signicant social and environmental impacts (Braun 2000, 2003; Cernea 1988, 1990; Chambers 1969; Clark et al. 1995; Colson 1971; Fahim 1981; Fast and Berkes 1994; Goldsmith and Hildyard 1984; Goodland 1997; Hart 1980; Horowitz 1991; McCully 1996; Peterson 1954; Roder 1994; Scudder 1985, 1988, 1993, 1997; World Commission on Dams (WCD) 2000). As revealed by the report of the World Commission on Dams (2000), the consequences of dam-development projects have been increasingly criticized for the devastating costs – in contrast to the minimal benecial results – absorbed locally by those directly affected. In his overview of river basin development, Scudder (1988) explains that the history of largescale dam and infrastructure development projects has been to minimize the cost of programs and resettlement with a lack of emphasis on implementation. An assumption within development institutions for these types of projects is the project-affected peoples are not the intended beneciaries but rather a part of the cost-benet analysis to be negotiated and minimized (Goodland 1997). This is especially problematic in the case of the LHWP. To say ‘development’ is the subsidiary portion of this project is not an understatement. The LHWP is an engineering project – it is about water and dams, tunnels and technology, and money. The vagueness of the treaty on the development portion testies to that fact, as well as the signicant delays in or lack of implementation of most of the development programs (Hassan 2002; POE 1995). As the Panel of Environmental Experts (POE) for the LHWP reports, . . . South Africa wishes to keep project costs, including compensation costs, as small as possible, while the Government of Lesotho would like to pass on additional costs [to South Africa] wherever possible so as to free resources for other purposes (1989:11).

The commodication of the affected populations then occurs as they become a price to be negotiated, to be reduced and minimized, within an ideology of capitalist accumulation, and for the justication of increased state formation (Bunker 1985). Such projects continue to be criticized for neglecting cultural components and meanings (Goodland 1997; Scudder 1979, 1997). While increasingly


including anthropological and sociological perspectives, the institutional arrangement and ideology of development practice continues to rely on bureaucratized cost-benet analysis and efciency-productivity biases. A standardized approach allows rigid and concrete categorizations and equations to be manipulated that provide the illusion of control in a denite form of knowledge. This prioritizes a technocratic interpretation of value and process of meaning through subordination of other socio-cultural meanings and values. Kardam (1997) and other scholars writing on institutions such as the World Bank, reveal how, as institutions, they have the goal of seeing that their loans are used effectively and efciently. This creates an emphasis on the economic returns of their investments, and less so on the social ramications of those same investments. This “bureaucratic mire”9 (Staudt 1997) of development institutions that focuses and demands control of the development environment not only encourages but structures ignorance and exclusion of socio-cultural and socioenvironmental impacts. However, project-affected people incur costs that vary in type and degree. There are material losses of agricultural and grazing land, houses, fuelwood and medicinal plants. There are psychological costs of insecurity, increased pressure on resources, increased social conict (including increasing gender inequality), uncertainty, decreased resiliency and control, powerlessness, and fear. Development studies document that losses of land and other resources are associated with psycho-physiological stress and increased rates of morbidity among “development refugees” (Scudder 1979, 1997). Less acknowledged are the socio-cultural aspects of loss and change communities and individuals endure as a result of development interventions. These impacts can be categorized but are inherently intertwined. Someone who loses land potentially experiences decreased food supply, and will also likely encounter some psychological impacts of increased insecurity, decreased resiliency, or uncertainty about the future. In turn, this impacts their relation to the community and to their household and the strategies they employ to try to reduce risk. Development projects often neglect to recognize the extent of these socio-cultural effects, or do not recognize them as problematic, and

9 Bureaucratic mire, in Staudt’s use of the term (1997), refers to the ways in which the bureaucratization of the development industry produces hierarchies within and across institutions. These hierarchies of knowledges and relations effectively serve to emphasize and prioritize indicators perceived as economically measurable, and to marginalize and de-emphasize factors seen as immeasurable or “uncontrollable.”


tend to leave them without redress. However these resultant impacts may be the most signicant in terms of the effects on the local communities. Most development programs are typically justied as poverty-reducing measures and, in the case of dam-infrastructure projects, as mitigative measures for those impacted. While the World Bank has declared that any subsidized economic project must also be a development project (Cernea 1988), the programs that compose the ‘development’ portion of the LHWP generally are secondary measures that aim to serve the dual purpose of fullling the World Bank standards and the LHWP’s treaty obligations to ensure that the standards of living of the project affected peoples are not lowered.10 However, contextualizing the LHWP as part of this larger pattern of development processes, the rural poor are in fact burdened with a disproportionate amount of the losses to development projects, and arguably receive an inadequate amount of the benets. . . . as with most other large scale river basin development projects in Africa, water management is primarily for the benet of the urban commercial, and residential and industrial sector. As the situation stands, there is a real risk that this urban-focused development will be at the expense of Lesotho’s rural areas (POE 1989:2).

In particular, the current geo-political topography of wealth and power disadvantages the rural poor of the highlands in Lesotho. As their government increasingly prioritizes the commercial uses of resources and the reorganization of rural resources towards the benet of the state and urban focused development, the rural households undergo serious disruption to their livelihoods as they absorb the economic, ecological, and social costs of their resources being re-structured. In this process, the rural impacted people effectively subsidize this international development project as they attempt to replace their lost resources using strategies of increased labor allocation, increased purchasing or a greater reliance on cash, or are left to go without these resources.

10 See the LHDA Order of 1986, Article XII for the original conditions. Currently, there is a lawsuit initiated by the Highlands Church Action Group (HCAG) against the development authorities, and one in the beginning process. They allege that the authorities have violated the Constitution of Lesotho in their acquisition of and compensation for land. The outcome of these lawsuits have important implications for local politics, as many question to what extent the development authorities are their own governing body and outside state regulation.


Methods In designing this research project, I found it most important to understand these processes from the perspective of the rural people affected most directly by the LHWP. I committed to using a feminist political ecology framework in which both men’s and women’s experiences are explored, in which the inclusion of people often excluded or rendered invisible are a priority, and the gendered complexities of women’s and men’s experiences are understood through their relations to power, resources, and other actors (see Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Wangari 1996). I conducted thirteen months of multi-site ethnographic eldwork in the highlands of Lesotho from 2000–01, in addition to my three months of eldwork in 1997. During my latest eldwork, I worked as a Research Associate at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). Throughout this period, I lived and worked in all three areas of the LHWP with households directly affected by the dam project. I hired six teams of research assistants – including directly affected people – to conduct two waves of surveys and semi-structured interviews at all three dam sites of the LHWP (once in winter, and once in summer). The villages in my sample were chosen and stratied according to impact and socio-economic variables obtained from development authorities and consultants, and households were chosen randomly. We surveyed approximately 40 new households at each site in both waves for a total of 263 households. However, in the second wave, we also re-visited about 25% of the households of the rst wave. Surveys and interviews were completed for each household, and interviews were recorded when possible. All surveys and interviews in the villages were conducted in Sesotho, and later transcribed and translated into English. Additionally, I conducted approximately 13 semi-structured interviews with development ofcials in English. This chapter is based solely on the qualitative data collected during my eldwork, and the analysis draws from approximately half of the data currently available.

Natural Resources Re-Organized In order to demonstrate the ways in which resources become re-organized in the context of dam-development projects, I explore three examples from the case of the LHWP. In the following sections, I discuss how affected people experienced changes in their access to natural sources of water and wild


vegetables/herbs during the LHWP, and how the implementation of the LHWP shifted access to, and relationships with, pastoral land. These changes had serious repercussions for households’ allocation of labor and monies, community management of resources, and the strength of local authority structures to maintain their roles in environmental management. Through these examples I reveal the ways in which natural resources become reorganized for the benet of the state in the context of large-scale damdevelopment projects. Wild Vegetables Women in rural Lesotho are responsible for the feeding of their families, and one of the ways in which they do so is by collecting wild vegetables. For many this creates a low-cost (time and energy only), very nutritious food source for their families. And these vegetables, mostly varieties of swiss chardlike greens, are the main part of a typical Basotho meal along with corn porridge. They grow in particular environments, often adjacent to water, in valleys, and near forests. Knowledge of these varieties has passed down through generations, even though they have not been cultivated per se. However, as a collective resource, they have been carefully managed so that they have been able to reproduce and remain available over generations. The range and density, if not complete availability, of the various wild vegetables used by rural households were often negatively affected by the construction of the LHWP. This was particularly true for resettled households moving into new areas without access to wild vegetables. One man from the Mohale dam area was resettled in Ha Makotoko, a fairly remote village in the larger Nazareth area of Lesotho. During our interview he described how life in his new place was very hard, and how in his old place they had ways to survive, but without those means in his new place he is now more reliant on money. He said, The problems we meet [are] to lack something to make re with, we do not have food, and – and you know in the mountains there were lots of food lying around, we would go to the veld and collect vegetables, we cultivated, we survived by food we – that we grow. Now here when you have got no money, everything is money (Author’s interviews, MO19MM009, 2001).

Many of his new neighbors, and other resettled households, voiced similar concerns. This loss of access to wild vegetables coupled with the loss of


their agricultural lands (without replacement) created a serious challenge for them to meet their nutritional needs. It had the effect of increasing their dependence on cash for food (without much opportunity for employment), lessened their ability to be self-reliant, and increased their likelihood of being food insecure. A greater number of households were impacted by the construction of the LHWP, but not necessarily resettled. Those impacted also suffered similar changes in access to wild vegetables. The areas where wild vegetables and herbs tend to grow – near water – were likely to be inundated as they were transformed into reservoirs or the ow of water was altered in some other ways (described in more detail below). The decreased availability of water often negatively affected the growth of these vegetables and communities either lost full or partial access to different varieties of vegetables and herbs. As mentioned above, this creates direct economic consequences for households as they either need to purchase replacement foods or allocate more time and labor towards locating the same or similar wild vegetables. Additionally, this change in access serves to intersect with existing inequalities in communities. Lost access to wild vegetables is more likely to create both economic and nutritional consequences for poor households that are unable to allocate other resources towards replacing these nutritious foods and therefore must go without. This is particularly true for women who are charged with collecting the vegetables, and are most likely to be nutritionally at risk (Hassan 2002; Letuka 1997; Sechaba Consultants 1994a; UNICEF 1994). Ironically, the construction of the LHWP has the potential to create environmental consequences that exacerbate the existing poverty of particular households rather than serving to mitigate their poverty as the ofcial project goals state. In sum, as the multi-dam LHWP is constructed in the highland areas to generate revenues for the state through the sale of water, it covers the wild resources used by rural populations that currently bring little or no benet to the state. These same rural households, then, absorb the losses of such resources and subsidize the LHWP as they struggle to replace the lost pieces of their livelihoods. In particular, impoverished households are more likely to rely on these common resources and are more likely to be unable to replace them in other ways when lost to the LHWP, exacerbating existing economic and nutritional disadvantages among households.


Water Many rural households in Lesotho affected by the LHWP also experienced changed access to water. Water is one natural resource that Lesotho has in abundance, and this, coupled with South Africa’s great need for water, drove the decision to use dams as a particular form of development in Lesotho. In my interviews, many villagers at all three dam sites mentioned the changed access to water as one of the greatest hardships they endured during the LHWP. Prior to the LHWP, most rural communities in the dam areas used the rivers, streams, or springs for various uses as bathing, washing clothes, household water, cooking, drinking, livestock, gardening, and irrigation. Access was limited by seasonal variations, others people’s use, labor requirements for collection, and natural changes in the environment. The construction of the three dams and the subsequent creation of their reservoirs radically change the ecological system of the riverine valleys. As an example of how dramatic this is, prior to the damming of the Senqu River at the Katse site, the river was at most places and at most times easily crossable by foot. In other places, and at particular times (after the rains, for example) it was a rushing river that took more skill to cross. After being dammed, it is a reservoir that is 160 meters deep at times and 2 miles across (crossable only by boat). The water collected in the dam-induced reservoirs is being sold and transported via tunnels from Lesotho to Johannesburg, South Africa. Lesotho’s annual revenues for the sale of this water was estimated to be $55 million (USD) a year, but is reported to be closer to $18 million (Hassan 2002; United Nations 2003). This water, then, is no longer a community resource for the local villagers, but rather an international commodity with monetary value attached by the liter and sold to the municipality of Johannesburg. While this may seem like an effective use of a seemingly abundant natural resource, it hides some of the ways this transformation serves to shift the value of this rural resource away from the subsistence needs of the rural population and towards the larger goals of the government of Lesotho as a nation state (and the needs of the urban areas of both Lesotho and South Africa). Local communities lost access to many drinking water sources such as springs that dried up as a result of the damming of the river (typically these are downstream tributaries). Some local villagers in the Katse area reported the loss of a spring that had been there for generations – the next


closest clean, plentiful water source was, in some cases, 2–4 times as far away (and up to 2.5 miles roundtrip). One interview from the Katse area continues to strike me when I think of these issues. This interview was with an older couple resettled in new Mapeleng (also in the Katse basin), who had been moved from their home after a reservoir-induced earthquake struck their village. This interview, in particular, strikes me not only because of the specic issues that the couple raised, but also because of how clearly this couple’s experiences highlight and represent the intersection of so many aspects of ‘development’ as experienced by LHWP affected people in Lesotho. The interviewer below is one of my research assistants, Ntsoaki Mokose, and Malefetsane and Malijeng Nthako are the elderly wife and husband resettled in the mid-1990’s (Author’s interviews, 2K8NM004, 2001). Ntsoaki: How did you use the river before the arrival of LHWP? Malefetsane: . . . (pause: 4 seconds) We fetched wood, we fetched wood . . . Malijeng: . . . we used to fetch wood . . . Malefetsane: . . . we had planted trees there at the river. Ntsoaki: Ooh. Malijeng: . . . We crossed when going across there . . . Malefetsane: . . . And crossing when going across there . . . Malijeng: Now we no longer go across there. Ntsoaki: Why? Malefetsane: There is nothing we cross by . . . Malijeng: Because this water now has closed on us. Malefetsane: Even our children are over there. We are unable, even when they are sick, it’s a disaster, to go around there on foot, we are no longer able. We will just be here when it is being said a child has been buried. Your child has been buried, we no longer have anything to do. Ntsoaki: Mmh. Malefetsane: Because we don’t know what we will travel by. Ntsoaki: So there is no way they have made for you of being able to arrive on those places over that side? Malijeng: No it’s not there. Ntsoaki: Oh. Malijeng: They haven’t brought boats here, they have said they would bring boats here, so that we can be able to go across . . . Ntsoaki: What do they say the problem is?

Re-structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho • 165 Malefetsane: . . . They say we have to pay, [but] we don’t have money. Malijeng: So these [. . .] say we have to pay . . . Malefetsane: . . . we don’t have money . . . Malijeng: . . . we said no, we won’t pay indeed. Ntsoaki: Because when you crossed the river you didn’t pay. Malefetsane: Yes. Malijeng: Because when we were crossing the river we didn’t pay. Ntsoaki: It is painful indeed. Malijeng: Yes. Ntsoaki: So which means your way of using the river, and the opportunity is not the same as before? Malefetsane: Yes, because we would get Loli [kind of grass used for basketry], making baskets and sifters. . . . Now it has closed our things, which we knew that when we have made them, we would go to the lowlands [and] they would buy them and we would make a living. Ntsoaki: You made a living. Malefetsane: So now [we] don’t know what we [will] do . . . [to] make a living. Ntsoaki: Mmh . . . So the dam itself has brought, that is, there is a change to your lives. Malefetsane: Yes, it has brought it because now our springs have vanished which we used to draw water from, which were near, have vanished. So it’s a change because our springs have vanished, we are leading a hard life . . . Coldness is very much . . . Since the existence of the dam there is no summer, there is no winter . . . It is very cold . . . It’s cold, we never put [heavy clothes] down. It’s very cold.

In the above interview, the Nthako couple encapsulates many of the issues of importance to so many other villagers with whom we spoke. In this particular interview, Malefetsane and Malijeng easily shift from discussing the physical transformation of the river to a reservoir, to the loss of the riverine ecosystem and its resources, to the springs that supplied their water, and nally, to how these changes affect the larger ecosystem through a discussion of climate change. While it is difcult to know to what extent this family actually was able to earn a living from these resources prior to the LHWP, their perceptions of loss resonated widely among my interviewees, and they provide powerful lenses into the ways in which people experienced these losses. Throughout, they remind us how each of these aspects of change and


their consequences are perceived to be of direct importance to this family’s way of life and their well-being: whether it be their ability to visit their children and participate in social life, their access to water or grasses for basketry, the threat to their means of livelihood and increased uncertainty, or changes in climate that require more dependence on cash, possibly limit activities, shorten growing seasons, and simply present new challenges. Access to household water, irrigation, and water for washing clothes and animal uses was also affected. Water for these purposes is more typically taken directly from the river or streams and these sources were obviously affected when the river was dammed. Some people now lived next to a very large reservoir/lake, and others (often downstream) lived next to a diminished river. Both lost access to water for different reasons – those near the reservoir were at danger to try to use it, with steep slopes going into a very large pool making it inaccessible (not to mention not being able to cross it anymore to visit other villages), while the other had so little water to make it unusable. So, as some of the urban residents and industries of Johannesburg receive water from the dammed rivers through hundreds of miles of tunnels, some local Basotho lose access to water at the source. As the government of Lesotho re-organizes and commodies its natural resources through the LHWP in an effort to generate revenues at the country level, the rural communities lose access to those natural resources and subsidize this project of the state in absorbing these losses. Pastoral Lands In this next section, I show how the implementation of the LHWP shifted people’s access to, and relationships with, pastoral land. Both of these changes had serious repercussions for households’ allocation of labor and monies, community management of resources, and the ability of local authority structures to maintain their roles in environmental management. In Lesotho, pastoral lands are “managed commons” controlled by hierarchical levels of chiefs, and used most often for cattle, sheep, and goats, respectively. Pastoral land serves as an important direct economic resource for those with livestock (for feed), and may serve as a means for economic opportunity for some others (caretakers). Investing in livestock as an economic strategy, then, serves not only the immediate household but may also have indirect benets for others (if employing outside of the household). Pastoral land, then, needs to be understood not only as a direct environmental resource but


as direct and indirect economic resources as well. The loss of either direct or indirect access then serves to potentially create signicant impacts on particular users. At the time of the LHWP, access to elds and pasture is more limited for most Basotho families than historically (Eldredge 1993; Germond 1967; McCann 1999; Showers 1989, 1995). The Constitution of Lesotho vested all land in the nation, with rights of usage granted by local chiefs. The Land Act of 1979 replaced the land allocation rights of chiefs with a “leasehold title system for land in designated urban, agricultural, and ‘development’ areas and thus available for commercial use” (United Nations 2003:37). In rural areas, however, the land tenure system remains a predominantly usufruct system with usage allocated by chiefs. With a population of almost two million people, shortages of desirable agricultural lands and increased pressure on pastoral lands have limited the land that new families are offered by chiefs. The political economic changes of the last century that have so dramatically impacted the agricultural conditions in Lesotho have also, in part, led to a polarization of wealth, landholdings, and access to resources. Even as pastoral lands remain commonly held and regulated by chiefs, stark differentiations in socio-economic status in rural areas exacerbate existing inequalities regarding access to natural resources. The poorest households absorb greater costs from decreased access to pastures in multiple ways. If they have their own animals, they have less exibility in dealing with reduced access to pasture. If they don’t own animals, their sons will likely become the herdboys for the families that do, sending them and their labor farther away from home looking for better pastures for other people’s animals. Losses of pastoral land affected a greater number of people than perhaps any other category of loss in the case of the LHWP. The sheer amount of land absorbed by the project, and the location of the LHWP in the highlands areas contributed to this consequence. But it is not by coincidence that rural lands are the targets of appropriation in this large development scheme. The ideology of development practice has been to prioritize market values of land and export-oriented production over subsistence level agriculture and livestock production and other socio-cultural values of land.11 11

Soil erosion programs in Lesotho are a good illustration of this: the long, deep dongas that have gained so much attention as examples of the extensiveness of the soil erosion in Lesotho, and by extension the reason for decreased agricultural production, have been most aggressively reclaimed in the urban and peri-urban areas


The vast areas of land in the rural areas more directly sustains the local people, but as they do not directly live on it, nor pay market prices for it, these lands are not seen as providing real value. However, as many of my interviewees expressed, communal pastoral lands have great value to the actual livelihoods of local Basotho, and also contain deeply felt cultural meanings of Basotho history. When residents lost land to the project they initially looked to their chiefs – but the chiefs often did not have the information from the LHDA ofcials. In some areas, villagers were soon bypassing their own chiefs for LHDA ofcials that were seen to have more authority to make decisions about land. In the LHWP, LHDA ofcials came to villages, measured people’s lands and eventually determined a compensation package for that land. This show of authority directly contradicts the traditional role of chiefs at the village and ward levels. To be sure, some people expressed their chiefs were always useless or were absentee; some faulted the chief with laziness or being corrupt; others saw going past the chiefs to the LHDA as a practical necessity to try to see their interests were met. This perceived loosening of the chiefs’ authority may be a welcomed change to some who felt oppressed within the traditional hierarchy, and some may feel more or less oppressed trying to deal with a different hierarchical bureaucracy, the LHDA.12 Most importantly, people articulated that this loosening of authority was a change they noticed over the course of the LHWP. In Zambia, a similar process occurred where traditional authority structures were challenged and loosened over time in the Gwembe project (Colson 1971; Colson and Scudder 1988). Although it will take more time to see if this pattern continues in Lesotho, preliminary evidence suggests some change has occurred. One chief, resettled with part of his village to Ha Makotoko (Mohale area), felt a change in his relationships with his people over the course of the LHWP. He talked sensitively about the change, saying the relationships have

(McCann 1999; Showers 1989, 1995). As McCann argues (1999), the land in the urban areas houses higher concentrations of people thus raising the market value of land in those areas providing the incentive to reclaim the eroded dongas. 12 Many people in the impacted areas are working with local non-governmental organizations or organizing their own representatives to advocate on behalf of their interests, particularly with compensation grievances. The level of organizing has increased with the second phase of the LHWP and their efforts have been successful in not only challenging the authority of the LHDA but also participated in changing the compensation packages for impacted households in the Mohale dam area.

Re-structuring Natural Resources in Lesotho • 169 . . . changed because they struggle to survive, because life here involves that money that they [didn’t need] when they used to cultivate. Now here it’s changed, its not the same as where [we] lived before. . . . The hard situations they are in have truly changed them, our association is not as good as it was, they now have a tendency to go anywhere they want to go, to a chief who can help them get land (Author’s interviews, MO19MM009, 2001).

Projects such as the LHWP are seen as converting previously underutilized resources – in terms of value – into resources that bring value to the state. We asked the Chief above, whose traditional inherited authority was currently being challenged under the implementation of this internationally nanced development project, whether he thought the LHWP would benet Lesotho and his fellow people. His response highlights much of the politics that have led to the situation he now faces as a resettled person, a chief losing part of his village, and the challenge to his job as leader, advocate, and resource manager for his community. I don’t think it can be benecial [to us], even if the [LHWP] has beneted Lesotho. But now the advantage [of the LWHP] is hurting us, the Basotho here, since we don’t get our rightful compensations as its supposed to come to us. So we are supposed to survive, so [the LHWP] benets – those it benets, as for us who are affected we don’t benet, we are wrongly treated (Author’s interviews, MO19MM009, 2001).

As the government of Lesotho commits to expensive joint projects with external and increasingly private lenders, the state has increasing pressure to prioritize market utilitarian values of natural resources over any competing values. Through the appropriation of rural pastoral lands, and the transformation of those lands into LHWP territory, the government of Lesotho re-organizes and commodies previously communal lands into potential revenues for the state. As it does so, it attaches market values to previously unquantied land areas, it challenges previously constructed social relations of land tenure, and serves to loosen the traditional authority structures that historically served to regulate the management of these resources.

Conclusion As the small Southern African country of Lesotho struggles to implement one of the ve largest dam-development projects in the world today, the local


people impacted confront the challenges of resettlement, loss of means of production, and changed access to natural resources. As argued earlier, in the process of investing in and implementing large dams as a means of ‘development,’ the government of Lesotho appropriates the common rural natural resources, such as wild vegetables/herbs, water, and pastoral lands, and restructures access away from rural populations and towards the benet of the nation-state. The affected people directly absorb the loss of access to these resources and the direct and indirect economic consequences that result. These consequences are differentially distributed among the rural poor and often serve to exacerbate existing inequalities. As illustrated earlier, some households need to purchase replacement foods for wild vegetables (if possible), and allocate more time, labor, and money towards locating the same or similar wild vegetables, water sources, and pastoral lands. In so doing, the LHWP affected people effectively subsidize this international project with their environmental resources, labor, money, and, in some cases, their nutritional status. Water is one natural resource that Lesotho has in abundance, and this, coupled with South Africa’s great need for water, drove the decision to use dams as a particular form of development in Lesotho. The prospect of large dams as a development strategy for Lesotho demanded the attraction of massive investments of external funds, and a centralization of authority in both the state and the implementing development body (LHDA). This choice also demanded the resettlement and dislocation of marginalized rural communities, and the creation of mechanisms in which the natural resources of rural areas are appropriated by and re-organized towards the benet of the state, and in this case, the larger regional hegemony of South Africa. Since investing in the LHWP, Lesotho has become more indebted towards international development institutions and other states, and consistently strives to re-organize socially and economically to meet standards for credit – this is consistent with other developing nations using such strategies as large dams for ‘development’ (George and Sabelli 1994). In this process, the government of Lesotho re-structures access to rural resources to meet the macroeconomic indicators of the Western market model as it simultaneously marginalizes and restricts current socio-cultural and economic values and uses of those same resources. In particular, the current geo-political topography of wealth and power in Lesotho, and in Southern Africa more generally, disadvantages the rural poor of the highlands in Lesotho. As their government increasingly prioritizes the


commercial uses of resources and the re-organization of rural resources towards the benet of the state and urban focused development, the rural households undergo serious disruption to their livelihoods, absorb the economic, ecological, and social costs of their natural resources being re-structured, and effectively subsidize this international development project.

Paul K. Gellert The Shifting Nature(s) of “Development”: Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests

Introduction The Asian crisis that began in Thailand in July 1997 has been the object of tremendous academic and policy inquiry and has changed the terrain of the development debate in recent years. Hegemonic models of development have shifted perceptibly towards neoliberalism, supported ideologically by the “Washington Consensus” and exemplied by World Bank and IMF structural adjustment strategy and action.1 Beneath the grounds of this shift lie deeper questions about the denition of development and social relations with(in) nature. In this chapter, I address contemporary shifts in denitions and criteria of “development” as evidenced in the Southeast Asian “moment” of late twentieth century crisis. I bring nature to the foreground, demonstrating that natural resource extraction gures differently as a limiting or enabling feature of capital accumulation at the national level and in the global political economy (see Boyd, Prudham, & Schurman 2001; Bunker 1994; Bunker & Ciccantell

1 Sarah Babb (2001) has traced these shifts among economists and policy makers in Mexico while Peet and Watts (1996) had earlier observed the “triumph” of liberal, market ideas. Despite Williamson’s efforts to distinguish the Washington Consensus from neoliberalism and especially from international impositions of policy regimes, he acknowledges the broader societal appropriation of the term in this manner (Kanbur 1999).

174 • Paul K. Gellert

1999). An examination and comparison of the political economy of Indonesia and its forest sector during the “miracle” years and since the onset of crisis in 1997 serves as the empirical basis for an analysis of the ecological contradictions of both pre-crisis authoritarian state developmentalism and postcrisis structural adjustment and neoliberal globalism. In thinking about the environmental implications of crisis and recovery, it is important to recognize the enduring importance of nature to development overall and for particular regions and social groups (McCarthy & Prudham 2004). Natural resource extraction and other “nature-based” industries such as agricultural and tree plantations play a signicant role in the world’s economies (see Boyd et al. 2001). They also are important to the formation of hierarchical relations among regions and nations (see Bunker & Ciccantell 1999; Bunker & O’Hearn 1993). Thus, although rarely emphasized in characterizations of the growth and expansion of manufactured exports, including global commodity chains approaches (Geref & Korzeniewicz 1994), natural resource exploitation was crucial to the so-called miracle (Bello & Rosenfeld 1990; Burkett & HartLandsberg 2000). Authoritarian and corrupt practices were considered exceptional to a more general industrializing and liberalizing trajectory of Indonesia’s political economy. During the pre-crisis period in East and Southeast Asia there was limited acceptance of a developmental state role in the transformation of national economies. As debates about the East Asian “miracle” attest, both normative opponents and proponents agreed that the state was signicant (World Bank 1993; Wade 1996). During this period of authoritarian state developmentalism, the project of development was dened nationally as part of postcolonial nation-building and the construction of a national market. Postcrisis, however, the legitimate role of the state in the developing world has (nally) been circumscribed even in Asia. This ideologically circumscribed role is characteristic of neoliberalism, stressing market-based methods of allocation. Although difcult to dene, neoliberalism “stands for a complex assemblage of ideological commitments, discursive representations, and institutional practices, all propagated by highly specic class alliances and organized at multiple geographical scales” (McCarthy and Prudham 2004:276). Neoliberalism also ts with a globalist project of economic governance that emphasizes efciency over equity and global markets over projects of nation-building. A number of scholars date the beginnings of this shift to the 1970s, the end of the gold standard and the beginnings of a decline in U.S. hegemony (Arrighi

Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests • 175

1994; McMichael 2000). With the debt crisis, it spread to Latin America and Africa over the past two decades, while national fractions of capital who did not benet from liberalization, as well as domestic and transnational oppositional groups from NGOs to indigenous rights groups to labor unions, have resisted certain aspects of the shift. This shift in the framing of the state’s proper role in “development” has been accompanied by an equally important shift in the spatial organization of the material base of development – i.e. the nature of development. Primary commodity exports, which for decades had been one of the dening characteristics of Third World development and, before that, of colonial development, appeared to be declining in the “miracle” economies of Asia. In part, I argue below, this decline was an illusion. While their contribution to the national economies of the region was overshadowed by the growth of manufacturing of textiles, shoes, automobiles and computer components, it was a relative decline. Nonetheless, it enabled advocates of the dominant models of development to ignore almost completely the crucial role of nature in development, as both source of raw materials and sink for pollution (Schnaiberg 1980; O’Connor 1994; Barham, Bunker, & O’Hearn 1994). There are important and striking differences between authoritarian state developmentalism and neoliberal globalism. In the former, the state takes an active and (domestically) legitimate role in industrialization strategies. Also, the project of development was dened nationally as part of postcolonial nation-building and national market construction. In the forestry sector of Indonesia, for example, successful industrialization and export of plywood and promotion of tree plantations were promoted as developmental even if the benets accrued to a narrow band of politically well-connected rms. Neoliberalism, by contrast, is identied by market-based methods of allocation and the removal of the state from decisions about industrial strategy (see Peet, with Hartwick 1999). As such, neoliberalism embodies a re-denition and appropriation of notions of “equity” from poverty and social justice concerns to equal standing in (globalized) markets. I focus on Southeast Asia, specically Indonesia, where the Asian crisis was a pivotal conjuncture in the history of liberalization. The history of Indonesia is long and more complex than I can pursue here. Many observers have noted perennial tension between so-called technocrats (sometimes dubbed the Berkeley Maa) and economic nationalists (such as German trained B. J. Habibie, who later became President) (e.g. Bresnan 1993). In the 1980s, the


drop in global oil prices, increasing debt payments, and pressures from international nancial institutions (IFIs) led to export-orientation via deregulation and nancial liberalization, including currency devaluations and banking sector liberalization (Winters 1996). Yet, “[S]ince the 1960s, Indonesia has never had the need to submit to IMF conditionality” (Azis 1994:392). The post-crisis trends under structural adjustment policies are towards continued and increased reliance on natural resources, especially in the countries of Southeast Asia (see Jomo K. S. 2000). Viewed through a macrosociological lens, as neoliberalism spreads there is a possibility of the beginnings of a return to a “colonial division of labor” wherein Third World locations specialize in resource-based export niches, with the nancial control and benets accruing to external rms (Akyüz 1998). By enabling the conditions for and accepted practices of capital accumulation to be resolved not only domestically but more importantly, globally, such a scenario helps to resolve global capital’s crisis (Glassman & Carmody 2001; Bernard 1999; Palat 1999). In 1997–98 Indonesia appeared to submit fully. However, in subsequent months and years it has become clear that the submission was neither permanent nor fully implemented. To be clear, my argument combines the temporal comparisons of periods before and after the crisis, and the substantive one between domestic and global denitions and practices of development. In Indonesia following the crisis, the move toward neoliberalism translates into freer trade and foreign investment regimes and the “creative destruction” of overprotected national industries. In this context, as has long been the case in peripheral locations, attracting foreign capital shapes developmental possibilities (Winters 1996). And despite foreign capital’s recent reluctance to return to Indonesia, one can deduce that in a period in which domestic capital experiences crisis, marked by bank restructuring and neoliberal reforms such as the creation of “free markets” (e.g. for logs) and opening of foreign investment (e.g. for palm oil), more opportunities will accrue to importers and foreign sources of capital than domestic Indonesian ones. Whereas the authoritarian state of Suharto’s New Order attempted to bolster its legitimacy through job creation, poverty alleviation and industrialization, neoliberal globalism implies fewer or no constraints on the plunder of resources, at least until market pressures signal the need for producing new supplies. In brief, neoliberalism implies no “growing up” from primary commodity exports, or more generally no national “development” – at least not with state assistance.


Despite these differences in ideology and practice, however, there are important continuities across the models and, thus, periods in Indonesia. In both periods, the dominant models of development marginalize nature discursively while, at the same time, depending crucially on the exploitation and degradation of forest-based resources and displacements of social groups living near these sources of growth and accumulation. Rather than altering these relations fundamentally, the ecological and social contradictions of such development under a neoliberal regime may be even more pronounced and uneven than during the era of state developmentalism. This continuity of exploitation and commodication of the environment is fundamental, and if these different models carry important continuities, we may need to push our analysis further in order to explain why this might be so. Ecological marxists, for example, have given us some suggestions. James O’Connor (1994) has argued that capitalism is simply unsustainable because it does not reproduce the “conditions” for further production and accumulation. Others, such as Stephen Bunker and his colleagues (Barham et al. 1994; Bunker 1992) have linked world-systems analysis to recognition of the importance of biophysical characteristics of raw materials commodities in shaping markets. In their analysis, one is able to see how the conjuncture of crisis-induced structural adjustment exacerbates longer-term tendencies of resource extraction in an unequal world-economy. The remainder of the chapter is organized as follows. First, the underexamined ecological contradictions of the Asian miracle are probed to illuminate the tenuous denition of development. I highlight the importance of the forest sectors to Indonesia’s developmental “success.” Next, I focus on how the shift to neoliberalism is instantiated in the actual practices of structural adjustment and the emphasis on recovery through exports, especially from forest-based sectors. Lastly, I examine the discursive shifts in Indonesia, including the construction of state developmentalism as anathema not only to neoliberal nancial institutions but Indonesian reformers. In its waning years, the dominant national-level model of Suharto’s New Order was increasingly challenged from “below” and from the (internal) periphery by a “vernacular” model of Indonesian development (Dove and Kammen 2001). The fall of Suharto and the ascendance of neoliberal reform have posed new challenges to oppositional groups to identify what they are ghting for and against. While always uncertain, I conclude that the future trends are worrisome for peripheral ecosystems and social groups in Indonesia.


The Asian “Miracle” in Indonesia: Tenuous Definitions and Ecological Contradictions Understanding the shift in development paradigms revealed during the conjuncture of the Asian crisis requires a reexamination of the explanations of the “miracle” and its overlooked environmental underside. Despite efforts to attribute Asian growth to getting the fundamentals “right” through scal and monetary discipline and openness to foreign investment and trade, revisionist historical and regional political economy explanations aptly challenged neoliberal accounts of growth attributed to getting the macroeconomic fundamentals “right” and maintaining trade openness (Amsden 1989; Wade 1990; Bernard 1999). Nonetheless, they too largely ignore the weak environmental underpinnings of the developmental model. To briey recapitulate, in the 1980s, during Latin America and Africa’s “lost decade” when the debt crisis led to widespread economic contraction and IMF-led structural adjustment programs (SAPs), Asia experienced unusually high rates of growth. Indonesia’s economy, for example, had average annual growth of 6.5 percent over three decades. Also, oil export income boomed without signicant “Dutch disease” distortions (Gelb & Associates 1988; Auty 1987). More remarkably, manufacturing exports rose from three percent of exports in 1980 to fty percent in 1992 (Hill, 2000:82). The authoritarian former general, President Suharto, promoting himself as the “father” of development, was praised for “continuing success in poverty alleviation, even during the period of painful macroeconomic stabilization occasioned by a halving of world oil prices” (Hill, 2000:4) while others questioned the data and the claims (Winters, 1995 [December]). There was little dissent about the existence of a “miracle” in such combinations of growth, industrial transformation and some measure of equity gains. The neoliberal interpretation of the Asian “miracle” as relying on stable, non-inationary, and open economic environments had been seriously challenged by the end of the 1980s, however. Close analysis of Japan, Korea and other states showed how deeply their state leaders and ministries (e.g. MITI) were involved in developing industrial capabilities and competitive advantages through selective investment and trade subsidies. These states were able to ‘pick winners’ and then, over time, ‘discipline capital’ to compete internationally (Amsden 1989; see also Chibber 1999). In addition, historical analyses recounted the role of Japanese colonialism and land reform in laying the social foundations and state capacity for indus-


trialization in Korea and Taiwan (e.g., Kohli 1994). Regional and global political economy pointed to the importance of Cold War aid ows and the conjuncture of the 1985 Plaza Accord’s Yen revaluation (endaka) in creating huge nancial ows to Asia and protable opportunities for Asian manufacturing exports (Bernard 1999; Glassman and Carmody 2001). To be sure, countries varied by technical capacity and the discipline governments were able to assert over rms, with more “clientilistic” patterns in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia (Palat 1999:13–15; Woo-Cumings 1999:16–19). Yet even in these cases, a considerable degree of state interventionism was important (Rock 1999). In the end, the World Bank (1993) was forced to acknowledge the role of the state – if only partially and grudgingly (see Wade 1996) – in constructing the growth and manufacturing success of the high-performing Asian economies (HPAEs) of East and Southeast Asia.2 Dominant practices and also debates on the manufacturing miracles of Asia largely ignored the environmental underside of that miracle.3 When such aspects were considered at all, they were understood as unavoidable “externalities” of growth or short-term costs of “development” that could only be addressed later – after growth (Woodhouse 2003). In this acceptance of environmental Kuznets curve assumptions, debate about the possible environmental trade-offs of growth, let alone alternative denitions of what (sustainable) development might mean, was precluded. The position taken here, by contrast, is that the uses and abuses of the environment were vital to the production of the “miracle” and that a full accounting might lead to a redenition of the miraculous years, as well as the current possibilities.4 In a more complete rendering of the developmental model of the “miracle” the role of nature would gure prominently, in terms of both the negative environmental consequences of the growth and the importance of primary commodity exports. The emphasis on industrial manufacturing exports meant

2

The HPAE’s are Japan, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. 3 A quick perusal of the indexes of books on Asia during the period nds almost no entries for “environment” or “natural resources”. The East Asian Miracle report notes productivity growth in agriculture but concludes that HPAEs have made the “typical” structural transition to a smaller agricultural sector “more rapidly than other developing economies” (World Bank, 1993:32). 4 Ecological modernization theorists argue to the contrary that environmental degradation need not accompany industrial development, but extending this theoretical perspective to peripheral or “developing” areas is difcult (see Sonnenfeld and Mol 2000).


there was a broad urban bias among the governments of Asia. On the one hand, this bias “sacric[ed] agriculture on the altar of export-oriented industrialization,” penalizing agriculturalists with declining prices (Bello & Rosenfeld 1990:95; Hart 1998). On the other hand, populations in the urban megalopolises of Seoul, Bangkok and Jakarta suffered from serious water and air pollution due to industrial waste and high concentrations of vehicles amid weak regulations on emissions (World Bank 1999; Dauvergne 2000). One of the most striking environmental undersides of the Asian miracle in Southeast Asia is deforestation. While smallholders also contribute, the largest portion of deforestation in Southeast Asia is attributable to logging and land clearing for large plantations (WRI 2000). In Indonesia, by the mid-1990s, estimates of deforestation were in the (wide) range of 0.6 to 1.2 million ha per year (Potter 1993; Sunderlin and Resosudarmo 1996 [December]). In a familiar pattern of cumulative environmental and social effects from the depletion of extractive commodities (Bunker, 1984), logged over and “degraded” forest lands have been reclassied for conversion into plantations for pulp and paper or palm oil in Indonesia. Deforestation also likely contributed to the damage from oods in Thailand in 1989, the Philippines in 1991, China in 1998, and Indonesia (North Sumatra) in 2003.5 Moreover, despite changes in the structures of the Southeast Asian economies, there continued to be signicant absolute reliance on natural resources and the agricultural sector. While the percent of domestic GDP in the agricultural sector had declined by 1991 to less than twenty percent in Indonesia and less than fteen percent in Malaysia and Thailand, the absolute contribution of the sector continued to rise to US$ 23 billion in Indonesia, US$12 billion in Thailand and US$7 billion in Malaysia. Crude oil, palm oil, tin and rubber provided over fty percent of Malaysia’s export earnings in the mid 1990s (FAO 1997). Importantly, within the manufacturing booms, simple downstream processing in resource-based industries contributed substantially to the manufacturing growth in Southeast Asia (Jomo K. S. & Rock 1998; Burkett and Hart-Landsberg 2000). In Indonesia, natural resource processing industries increased eight times from 1970 to 1990, constituting 11 percent of total GDP in 1990 (World Bank

5

There is some evidence that the impact of the December 26, 2004 tsunami off the coast of Aceh, Sumatra, was worsened by the clearing of coastal forests.


data cited in Charles Victor Barber 1997:32). In almost every year in the decade from the late 1980s to 1990s, plywood was the leading non-oil and gas export. It peaked in 1993 only to be overtaken by another resource export, pulp and paper, in 2000 (FAO 2004). The global praise for Indonesia as a high performing Asian economy or HPAE (World Bank 1993), therefore, must be tempered by acknowledgment of the continued importance of oil, gas and processed raw materials to Indonesia’s industrialization, to domestic accumulation, and to the distribution of wealth through patronage. Large-scale resource exports began with the New Order’s rst legal acts in 1967, which opened the country to foreign investment and the forests of Indonesia’s Outer Islands to logging for export. Indonesian log exports boomed in the 1970s with annual volumes exceeding 20 million m3 and export earnings of over US$1.5 billion (Gillis 1988: Table 2.3, p. 54; see also Dauvergne 1997; Ross 2001). Resource-based industrialization accelerated after the 1982 oil price decline when non-oil exports were promoted by the government (J. Winters 1996; Hill 2000). The New Order government, in alliance with largely ChineseIndonesian rms, moved to industrialize into downstream production of plywood (Dauvergne 1997; Ross 2001). A joint ministerial decree that banned log exports by 1985 and nancial subsidies led to plywood processing mills to increase ve fold to 101 by 1985 and to 132 by 1990, with a capacity of 12.6 million m3 (Barr 2001). Exports grew from less than 1 million m3 in 1980 to over 9 million m3 in the early 1990s, amounting to about 80 percent of world trade in tropical plywood (Dauvergne 1997:78 and Table 9). Forestbased exports (plywood, furniture and pulp) were valued at more than $9 billion per year in the mid-1990s (World Bank 2001:6). During the state developmentalist period, concentration of ownership and power in the plywood sector increased over time under the tight organizational control of Apkindo (the Indonesian Wood Panel Association) and its leader and Suharto condant Mohamad (Bob) Hasan. Foreign operators were pressured out, partly by state regulations requiring vertical integration from forest concession to plywood processing mills. Apkindo took control over export destinations, quantities, and prices, and sanctioned companies that attempted to evade its power (Dauvergne 1997; Barr 1998). Furthermore, Hasan leveraged domestic organizational control into signicant market share in Japan and other important markets (Gellert 2003), as well as disproportionate personal benets (Barr 1998).


In addition to plywood, Indonesia’s economy expanded into other forestbased sectors. In the late 1980s, facing increasing forest degradation, the government began the promotion of industrial tree plantations with fast-growing species suited to the pulp and paper industry (WALHI 1995; Barr 2001). In addition to interest-free loans from the government’s Reforestation Fund, over $15 billion of international investment poured into the sector (Matthew and van Gelder 2001). By 1997, installed capacity of pulp and paper had increased six-fold to 3.9 million tons (Barr 2001:28–32). Pulp and paper exports increased 1,117 percent in the last decade, surpassing Brazil in 1998, and further expansions were planned (ITTO 2001). Secondly, palm oil also had unprecedented expansion in the 1990s. Crude palm oil (CPO) production increased from 1.2 million tons in 1985 to over 5 million tons in 1997 (Casson 1999). While domestic consumption of palm oil for cooking is extremely important, CPO became a valuable foreign exchange earner. In 1997, CPO exports were valued at $1.4 billion, or 31 percent of agricultural exports (Casson 2002:223). The “success” of New Order developmentalism was beset by growing ecological and social contradictions and, increasingly, voices of criticism. Overcapacity in the plywood and pulp mills created a huge gap between sustainable and actual harvest of over 40 million cubic meters by the late 1990s (Barr 2001; World Bank 2001:22). In the short term, rms avoided depletion effects by expanding the number of commercial species and, by technical innovation at the plymills, taking smaller trees. Firms also took advantage of ineffective state monitoring capacity to overlog the forests (Kartodihardjo 2002; Gellert 1998) and beneted from changes in state regulations to allow clear cuts to augment supply (in areas slated for plantation development). Such large-scale land clearing had mostly negative impacts on the millions of Indonesians who live in and rely on the forests for their livelihoods (Fried 1995). The social inequities of New Order development were addressed through a combination of “a powerful coercive apparatus with potent state-centered narratives on national unity, anti-communism, Pancasila, and national development” (Berger 1997:335). Political and economic leaders of East and Southeast Asia, when they acknowledged the environmental degradation of statecapitalist industrialization, regarded it as the “price of growth,” as well as their sovereign “right”. Consider the Ministry of Forestry’s broad claim:

Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests • 183 The logging industry is a champion of sorts. It opens up inaccessible areas to development; it employs people; it evolves whole communities; it supports related industries. . . . It creates the necessary conditions for social and economic development. Without forest concessions most of the Outer Islands would still be underdeveloped. (quoted in Down to Earth 2002)

This statement includes the two discursive elements identied earlier: a sequential understanding wherein logging is an initial and necessary step on the road to ‘development’ and a downplaying of environmental and social costs which are assumed to pale in comparison to the gains. The gains, moreover, are constructed as general and the costs as restricted to “isolated” and “primitive” communities (see Dove and Kammen 2001; Li 1999; Ferguson 1994). The presumed denition of development as modernization by industrialization with its assumption that logging areas and the peoples who reside there are “marginal” and “backward” does not allow space for consideration of alternative denitions of development (Dove and Kammen 2001; Fried 1995; Tsing 1993). Although the New Order made any questioning of the model illegitimate, it is worth noting that these positions were not universal within Indonesia. They had been challenged, for example by environmental NGOs, at least since the late 1980s. Taking a more “apolitical” technocratic ground of attack, the Indonesian environmental forum, WALHI, criticized the low levels of economic rent appropriated in the timber sector (WALHI 1991) and misuse of the Reforestation Fund to fund “white elephant” projects (WALHI 1994). Other groups more directly attacked environmentally unsustainable and socially damaging logging practices (SKEPHI 1992). And WALHI later became more aggressive in criticism of industrial tree plantations (WALHI 1995). In the last years of Suharto’s tenure, pro-democracy critics increasingly focused on national corruption, collusion and nepotism (korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme or KKN), such as in the allocation of logging and plantation rights and benets. At the same time, thousands of local protests and conicts in the forests were simply suppressed by military forces (Fried 1995; Human Rights Watch 2003).6 The state’s daily practices blocked the ow of unsavory

6 See also various issues of Down to Earth newsletter, available on the internet at http://dte.gn.apc.org.


information, such as about conicts and forest degradation, from reaching the center and a wider international audience (Dove and Kammen 2001). Suppression occurred as well via the “unrelenting dissemination of an ideology which denies the legitimacy of opposition . . . as beyond the pale of the Indonesian national character” (Berger 1997:341). The Asian crisis provided critics with an opportunity to raise basic structural issues in the Indonesian political economy but the opportunity turned into the risk of a broader neoliberal shift.

The Asian Crisis, Structural Adjustment, and Neoliberal Reforms The so-called Asian crisis7 was an important conjuncture for the ascent of neoliberal globalism and continued disregard for the ecological ramications of export growth. Of the economies of East and Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s suffered the worst and longest reversal of fortunes; the rupiah lost 80 percent of its value and economic growth declined by 13.6 percent. After three decades of rule, Suharto’s indecisiveness between obeisance to the International Monetary Fund – symbolically represented by then IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus standing with arms folded behind Suharto as he signed the (second) Letter of Intent (LOI) in January 1998 – and loyalty to his family and friends led to his resignation in April 1998. Declining legitimacy and street protests against the corruption, collusion and neopotism (korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme or KKN) of his regime clearly played a part in his decision (Robison and Rosser 1998). The $43 billion bail-out and structural adjustment program came with unusual conditions on forestry sector reform. The January 1998 LOI and subsequent World Bank Policy Reform Support Loans specically required liberalization and rationalization of forest-based industries (World Bank 2001; Seymour and Dubash 2000). Conditions included elimination of export taxes on raw logs, eliminating the “monopoly” marketing role of Apkindo, and placing the Reforestation Fund on-budget under the Ministry of Finance. Seymour and Dubash (2000) have argued that better forestry reform might have been achieved if the Bank (and IMF) did not rely only on direct pres-

7 Although the label “Asian crisis” is convenient shorthand and the case I focus on here is Indonesia, there are multiple, related crises in various countries of Asia and other parts of the world from Russia to Argentina. Some have argued that the Asian crisis is the rst global crisis that emanated from Asia.


sure at a moment when Indonesia’s economy was ‘on its knees’ but instead nurtured domestic constituencies for forestry reform. Their bold advocacy of open political engagement by the Bank, rather than the usual apolitical technical assistance stance (Ferguson 1994), however, underestimates the interests of the Bank and other IFIs, as well as the power of the neoliberal agenda in general (Wade and Veneroso 1998) and assumes a unied change in Bank practices in favor of environmental regulation and sustainability. For example, a focused report paid attention to environmental risks of continued natural-resource dependence amid decentralization (World Bank 2001) but the Indonesia ofce’s report to the donor community (World Bank 2003), was more typical in its attention to bank recapitalization and privatization efforts. Recovery has been slow in Indonesia and much of it premised on a return to agriculture and natural resources (including mining, which I cannot cover in this chapter), a shift that a World Bank (1999) report called “building on strengths”, despite the long praise for Indonesia’s manufacturing growth. On the other hand, the need for foreign exchange leading to more intense natural resource extraction can be tempered by declines in global demand for commodities during crisis and underpricing of natural resources (Seymour and Dubash 2000). Also, although international fund managers had returned to Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia by early 1999, investors continued to lack condence in Indonesia due to social unrest and political instability. Total non-oil exports contracted by 5.9 percent in 1997, 7.3 percent in 1998 (Athukorala 2002:157) and 12.3 percent in the rst quarter of 1999 (Johnson 2000:80). From 1999 to 2000, amid high world prices, oil and gas accounted for almost half of the 27 percent export growth (Dick 2001). In 2001, investor condence continued to decline as Standard and Poor’s reduced Indonesia’s rating to CCC+ (Pangestu and Goeltom 2001) and total non-oil exports declined 8.5 percent further (Athukorala 2002). For the plywood industry, the results of opening log exports and freeing export marketing channels were complex, affected by neoliberal reforms, industry resistance, and regional and global market factors. In 1998, plywood export prices dropped from $450 to $250 per cubic meter (ITTO 1999:169). After some price recovery, the onset of global crisis and declines in key construction sectors in core economies, led the ITTO (2001:24) to observe “global overcapacity” and new record lows in 2001. With its high growth rates, as well as 1998 ban on logging in the southwest provinces, China (PRC) emerged as a new export destination. In 1999 China overtook Japan as the world’s largest importer of tropical logs, and with Indonesian log exports re-opened,


the ITTO reported that China imported over 600,000 m3 of logs in 2000 (ITTO, 2001: Table 2–1). Large domestic timber industry actors, recognizing the threat to “their” claim on raw material supplies, resisted market reform. Ofcial plywood exports had declined from 8.5 million in 1997 to 5.8 million m3 by 2000 (FAOSTAT 2004). Under the guise of a response to the “epidemic” of illegal logging, APHI (Indonesian Concession Holders Association) and Apkindo lobbied successfully for a reinstatement of the log export ban, as a “temporary moratorium.” Now in place since October 2001, this ban and the reassertion of the power of the industrial associations it represents were a rebuke to the intent of IMF conditionality. It also distorted the intent and words of WALHI’s call for a total logging moratorium until industrial capacity could be adjusted and local and regional institutional capacity to manage the forest resources could be prepared. The environmental effects as seen in Indonesia’s forests have been dramatic and arguably worsened by neo-liberal reforms. Although 1990s logging rates were perhaps twice the legally specied sustainable yield rate (Barr 2001; FWI/GFW 2002), they may have been limited by the desire of Apkindo to control all production and exports. By opening export channels and dismantling domestic levers of control, the limiting factor became global demand. Additional complexities have arisen with decentralization, which “magnify the consequences of the weaknesses” in state technical capacity and poor coordination across sectors and agencies (World Bank 2001:x). Structural adjustment’s emphasis on decreasing government makes such weaknesses more difcult to overcome. Updated estimates are that Indonesia’s deforestation rate since 1996 is 2 million ha per year, perhaps the highest in the world, and that commercially viable lowland tropical forests rich in biodiversity will disappear in Sulawesi, Sumatra and Kalimantan by 2010 given current trends (FWI/GFW 2002). While it is difcult to draw direct causal links between trade liberalization and deforestation, it is easy to do so in the case of liberalization of foreign investment in palm oil, as required by IMF conditionality. Given the weak currency and lower labor and land costs than Malaysia, palm oil exports seem an obvious choice. Initially, the boom was “hesitant” (Casson 1999), in part due to price volatility as export prices dropped 60 percent from highs over $700/ton in late 1997 to $287 in August 1999, a level not seen since 1986. From 1997/98 through 2001/02 palm oil exports increased from 2.4 million to 5.6


million tons (USDA FAS 2002). For 2003, with global prices again exceeding $400 per ton (Malaysian Palm Oil Board 2002), a further jump was projected by Indonesian producers to 6.5 million tons (Simamora 2002). Also, Indonesia’s market share of global exports increased from 20 percent in 1997/98 to 31 percent in 2001/02 (USDA FAS 2002). The most fundamental impacts of neoliberalism will likely come from the debt, which ballooned as a result of the crisis. Although the loans in Asia were heavily private – only about 15 percent of Indonesia’s was public and in Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand it was closer to ve percent – the loans were still “tantamount to sovereign debt” (Palat 1999:22) because Asian governments underwrote much of the debt and, it was assumed, the governments would not allow these companies to go bankrupt. As of September 2002, Indonesia’s domestic debt was Rp 656 trillion, two thirds of which was bonds to recapitalize insolvent banks, and external debt was $73.5 billion (Alisjahbana and Manning 2002:289). Over 21 trillion rupiah ($2.4 billion) of forestry company debt8 came under the control of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), created in 1999 to revitalize Indonesia’s ailing banking sector (Barr 2001:Table 5.3). As IBRA neared the end of its ve-year mandate, it was poised to sell off forestry assets at 15 to 20 percent of their value, and despite a government commitment to shut down forestry companies due to overcapacity (Kaimowitz and Ahmad 2003).9 The sell off and writing off of much of the debt would put many of the same conglomerates back in nancial health for further expansion (Barr, Brown, Casson, and Kaimowitz 2002). Recapitalization of the banking sector, one of the pillars of an IMF structural adjustment, therefore may herald renewed growth in some of the same sectors so pointedly criticized during the crisis.

8

I have converted Barr’s rupiah gures at the approximate 2003 rate of 9000 rupiah to the dollar. This debt gure notably does not include additional debts incurred by the conglomerates involved in their non-forest businesses, as well as overseas debts. A World Bank report notes that $4.1 billion of the $51.5 billion in private debt owed to IBRA is forestry industry debt and $2.7 billion of that debt is “non-performing” (World Bank 2001:23). 9 According to CIFOR analysts, IBRA sold about $1.3 billion dollars of the forestry debt to Bank Mandiri, a Government owned bank slated to be privatized. As they note, “By ‘selling’ the debts from one government entity to another, the government’s net revenue from the sale was zero” (CIFOR 2003).


Deepening Ecological Contradictions and Discursive Battles By renancing Indonesia’s ailing nancial sector and opening foreign investment ows, neoliberal reforms of Indonesia’s forest-based sectors portended deepening ecological contradictions. Seldom have such contradictions been analyzed by supporters or even critics of neoliberal reforms. In fact, both the “Wall St.-Treasury-IMF complex” neoliberals (Wade and Veneroso 1998) who blamed yesterday’s “miracles” for their “crony capitalism” and neoliberal “dissenters” (Robison 1999) like Stiglitz who blamed lack of global nancial governance for the crisis focused on economic recovery at any environmental cost. From a regional and global political economy perspective, I argue, one can better understand how environmental degradation gures importantly if differently into both pre- and post-crisis growth. The integration of Asia into global capital ows and the availability of core capital for short-term speculative investment in East Asia, particularly due to global overproduction caused by a debt-nanced expansion led to the manufacturing booms (Palat 1999:16; Bernard 1999).10 After the 1990 collapse of the Japanese “bubble” economy, even more capital was available to produce overinvestment in the region. Importantly, the expansion of investment in pulp and paper and palm oil in Indonesia, heavily dependent on cheap access to Indonesian forest lands, were fueled by this nancial inow. Neoliberal reform continues these expansions while providing opportunities for the globalization of Indonesian resources, even as Indonesia’s economy thus far continues to stagnate under a lack of investment, foreign or domestic. Because of the demotion of long-time domestic foes such as Suharto and Hasan, environmentalists and other critics in Indonesia were caught in an ambivalent attitude toward the international nancial institutions (IFIs) (WALHI 2000).11 This ambivalence was revealed in an open letter from 55 transnational and national NGOs to the IMF and World Bank noting “inconsistencies” in the simultaneous dismantling of Apkindo and encouragement of palm oil investment (Fried and Rich 1998). Under mounting pressure, bilateral and multilateral lenders in the Consultative Group on Indonesia put

10

The deeper historical roots of the crisis are in the deregulation of nance in the US (Arrighi 1994). 11 Hasan was convicted and spent several years in jail for embezzlement of Forestry Department funds before his release in 2004.


forestry on its agenda, resulting in a high-level seminar on forestry in 2000 (Ginting 2000; World Bank 2001). The Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops made commitments, among others, to interagency coordination, a moratorium on natural forest conversion, and closure of indebted forest industries. In subsequent practice, however, these commitments have been difcult to fulll, and it is increasingly clear that the power of the timber industry was larger than the persons of Hasan and Suharto (Gellert 2005). Moreover, the IMF and governmental evaluations of progress on reform have gradually pushed these environmental conditions back off the agenda in favor of conventional concerns such as balance of payments and stable currency. This is not surprising since “Neither negative nor positive environmental impacts are systematically addressed in structural adjustment loans” (Seymour and Dubash 2000:18). At the same time, one sees the widespread presence of a discourse blaming Indonesia’s developmental ills on corruption, including illegal logging and the associated lack of effective governance. During the New Order, criticisms of the developmental trajectory and its reliance on natural resource exploitation and the diminished livelihood of people in the extractive areas were muted (Dove and Kammen 2001), but since 1997, strident criticism of the New Order for its tendency to engage in “KKN” (korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme) is commonplace even among its former supporters. The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta writes (in 1999) of “favored companies with deep pockets,” logging with “little or no regulatory oversight” and “few environmental safeguards,” as well as “illegal logging ourish[ing] with the complicity of local ofcials” (quoted in Human Rights Watch 2003:17). The World Bank, which had previously joined in blaming shifting cultivators for deforestation, now berates the Government of Indonesia for doing so, observing, “The smallholder category has been overrated as a cause of deforestation” (World Bank 2001:13). Less surprising in source, Forest Watch Indonesia and the World Resources Institute wrote, “Deforestation in Indonesia is largely the result of a corrupt political and economic system that regarded natural resources, especially forests, as a source of revenue to be exploited for political ends and personal gain” (FWI/GFW 2002). Finally, with respect to the debt, Kaimowitz and Ahmad claim that the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, WWF, CIFOR, the IMF and the World Bank all “believe the government should be closing down companies that lack sustainable timber supplies” (Kaimowitz and Ahmad


2003). Since in fact few of the old conglomerates have been shut or gone bankrupt, one might ask, as Ferguson (1994) does of criticism of “development” generally, what exactly is all this criticism accomplishing? One interpretation, I propose, is that it has taken the wind out of the critics’ sails by coopting the agenda of reformasi total of the political economy into narrow reforms of the economy. There is obviously tension but also, surprisingly, commonality between populist critics of the New Order who advocate community-based natural resource management or indigenous rights to the forest on the one hand and neoliberals from the international nancial institutions, especially the IMF, on the other. It may seem highly unusual, to argue that environmental critics of an authoritarian regime such as Suharto’s would have anything in common with the advocates of market reform and neoliberalism who are so frequently the targets of opprobrium. If one is sympathetic to the broader agendas of environmental sustainability and social justice, these are uncomfortable possibilities to consider. And, to be sure, in their efforts to expose the state’s lack of autonomy from capital, NGOs diverge from neoliberal commodication and market-based solutions. Yet, both focus on (excessive) instances of KKN in Indonesia. That is, they both worked and – intentionally or not – worked together to bring down Suharto’s illegitimate regime of authoritarian state developmentalism. As the focus of governance reform increasingly centers on the problem of illegal logging, it is worth considering whether NGO participation in this framing, which blames both nancial and ecological troubles on government intervention and the close government-private embeddedness of the previous period, unintentionally supports the transition to neoliberal globalism.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have used the conjuncture of the Asian crisis and structural adjustment in Indonesia to reexamine the ecological underpinnings of the periods before, during and after the crisis. On the one hand, important differences exist between the policy discourses and political economic practices of authoritarian state developmentalism and neoliberal globalism. On the other hand, there are glaring continuities in the degradation of environment. These continuities are most evident in the forestry sector that includes logging, plywood, pulp and paper, and palm oil. As critical theories of political economy argue, there are also overriding similarities in the processes of uneven and socially unequal “development” that characterize global capi-


talism (Barham et al. 1994; Bunker 1992; O’Connor 1994). Economic recovery under neoliberal structural adjustment means intensied resource exploitation. More critically, neoliberalism “tends not only to generate serious environmental consequences, but . . . is signicantly constituted by changing social relations with biophysical nature” (McCarthy and Prudhamm 2004:275). In the developmentalist era, investor condence (especially but not only by foreign investors) was based on taking on a (domestic) partner who “enjoyed the support of the president or his close associates” (Athukorala 2002:145). In practice, what was left unsaid in depictions of personalistic, patron-client relations was that they relied in turn on the violence or threat of violence against recalcitrant workers, peasants, and indigenous forest dwellers by the armed forces (see Human Rights Watch 2003). In the era of neoliberal globalization, a slightly different meaning is attached to “investor condence”. In this case, investors seek legal assurance that their interests, such as in clearly dened and stable access to forest lands for plantations, will be respected and upheld. Barring that, new foreign investment does not ow in and the potential for economic collapse, beginning with inability to make debt payments, grows. As Bienefeld (2000) observes, structural adjustment is a debt collection device that creates nancial transfers from debtor nations to the centers of global banking. It is thus far from a development strategy that inherently benets the poor or the forests of Indonesia. One of the most important differences is that the national developmentalist project based its legitimacy in part on the (unfullled) promise of nationally distributed benets from “development.” By contrast, in neoliberal globalism, it is not at all clear whose responsibility poverty and environmental degradation are, and there is little if any normative imperative towards equity – except perhaps equity in the market. Those interested in social justice and environmental sustainability will need to be creative in mobilizing for alternatives. If Indonesia’s economy recovers on the neoliberal path it may be faced with “overcapacity” in two senses. First, overcapacity in regional and global export markets translates into collapsing markets, layoffs, and social dislocation. With low wage manufacturing such as textiles and shoes shifting to Chinese locations, unemployment has risen. Similar effects may be felt in the forest industries. However, there is a second sense of overcapacity in relation to the forest sectors. Because the forests and the livelihoods (and even lives) of those dependent on them have been priced so cheaply by both nationalist development projects and by global capital interests, market overcapacity


does not, in fact, translate into a large-scale collapse of the forest-related industries. Instead, industrial overcapacity exacerbates exploitation of forests well beyond the capacity to regenerate timber (i.e. “sustained yield”) and encourages illegal logging, as well as cheaper land clearing by burning, to further depress the price of the forest resources. The pressures to maintain constructive working relations and attractive investment climates with the global nanciers of the IMF, the Paris Group, and portfolio investors will not abate until the social and/or ecological contradictions reach a crisis. In the meantime, it seems likely that numerous local ecosystems and social groups will suffer the consequences of the neoliberal export growth strategy.

Stephen G. Bunker Matter, Space, Energy and Political Economy: The Amazon in the World System

Introduction Incorporating the local into the global in analytically compatible ways poses a major challenge for scholars of both world-systems and globalization. (ChaseDunn 2000, Tomich 2000, Robinson 2001). Worldsystems analysis, though, is rooted in processes of production, and all production remains profoundly local. Instead of searching for the local in the global, I propose to examine the ways that the local – and particularly as manifest in the materio-spatial features of production – structures and organizes the world-system. Understanding the expansion and intensication of the social and material relations of capitalism that have created and sustain the dynamic growth of the world-system requires analysis of material processes of natural and social production in space. Examining the effects of the local on the global requires that we consider space as materially differentiated by topography, hydrology, climate, and absolute distance between places. I suggest some steps toward this goal by considering materio-spatial congurations that have structured local effects on global formations within a single, topographically, hydrologically, and geologically distinct region: the Amazon Basin. I rst detail the tendency in world-systems and globalization analysis, and in the modern social

194 • Stephen G. Bunker

sciences generally, to use spatial metaphors to bound or contextualize social processes without considering the effects of space as it impinges on the material processes around which social actors organize economy and polity. I then examine the work of some earlier social scientists who analyzed specic materio-spatial congurations as these structured human social, economic, and political activities and organization. I consider the theoretical and methodological tools these scholars provide for the task of building analysis from local detail into the global system. I next review some recent analyses of materio-spatial effects on social and economic organization in the Amazon Basin. This basin is the largest, most complex tropical rain forest in the world. Historically and currently, it is a signicant source of the raw materials that are critical for industries around the globe. Finally, I show how some of the lessons provided by the local congurations of space and matter in the Amazon have informed my colleagues’ and my efforts to discover and explain mechanisms that drive the secular material intensication and spatial expansion of the world-system. I conclude by considering materio-spatial effects of social-environmental interactions that have driven and been driven by expanded reproduction of capital. Industrial production has accelerated consumption of raw materials and thus increased the absolute space across which ever larger volumes and more numerous types of matter are transported. I demonstrate that globalization – identied as a recent or novel phenomenon by Sklair (2000) and others – is, in fact, the latest phase of materio-spatial expansion and intensication that emerges from technical innovations. States, rms, and sectors collaborate technically, nancially, and politically to develop and implement these technologies. This collaboration generates episodic incidents of dramatic increases in economies of scale, in industrial production, in raw material extraction, and in transport. Technological and organizational economies of scale drive the expanded reproduction of capital, but the increased absolute space across which the increasing volumes of matter consumed must be transported raises unit costs. The contradiction between economies of scale and the cost of space creates a tension out of which cost reducing, scale-dependent innovation and organization of transport emerge. I attempt to show that these processes: (1) drive the spatial expansion of raw materials markets, and thereby (2) stimulate development of progressively cheaper, faster technologies and more extensive infrastructure for their transport, and thus, (3) drive the globalization of the world economy. I will argue that globalization can best be understood

Matter, Space, Energy and Political Economy • 195

by focusing our analysis on the secular expansion and intensication of materio-spatial congurations of local extraction, transport, and production.1

Space and Nature in Modern Social Scientific Analysis World-systems analysts use spatial terms (e.g., core, periphery, world, global) as a conceptually central organizing metaphor, but they seldom elaborate the most fundamental mechanisms and processes that expand and intensify the social and material relations of capitalism to the entire globe. This oversight is peculiar given the strong explanations in economic theories, Marxian and classical, of mechanisms that favor agglomeration or spatial concentration of industial production. The primary reason for progressive spatial dispersion of production is that the expanded reproduction of capital creates the need for greater volumes of a greater variety of raw materials. Varied topographic, hydrological, geological, and atmospheric conditions are needed to produce all of these different types of matter. All of this matter is naturally produced in distinct local places. Space is simultaneously a means and a condition of its production and an obstacle or cost for its transport. The vast array of raw materials consumed in expanding industrial production is therefore dispersed among multiple ecologically different locations. Industrial economies expand materially while agglomerating spatially. Accelerated depletion of the most proximate sources of each type of raw material enhances the need for seeking sources across expanded space created by increased consumption. Expanding industrial economies must therefore procure raw materials across ever greater spaces and distances. Increasing costs of distance generate incentives for states, rms, and nance to develop more efcient means – technological and infrastructural – of transport. The successive campaigns and strategies of nations striving to dominate world trade – the Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Japan – have each superceded the then-established capacities to procure and transport cheaply over great distance the raw materials they used in greatest volume. The cumulative effects of these technological and infrastructural increases have progressively globablized the world economy.

1 Even transport, the movement of matter through space, is at each moment as local as the location of the vehicle and of the capital sunk in the built environment at each point in the space traversed.


Technological and social organizational innovations reducing the inputs needed per unit of production and reducing the unit costs of transport2 thus reiterate (cf. Haydu 1998) and surpass (cf. Arrighi 1994) the sequentially cumulative power and scale of earlier solutions to the contradiction between scale and space. Each solution depends on expanded technical economies of scale. Each scale increase accelerates the depletion of proximate sources of raw material and drives the procurement of new sources at greater distance. Each such episode thus perpetuates and exacerbates the cycle of contradiction between economies of scale and the cost of space. The contradiction between scale and space is constant, but each solution to it is rooted in the the intersection of (1) the geography, demography, political and nancial organization of the economically expanding nation and (2) the technological innovations that drive its economic growth with (3) the materio-spatial characteristics of the raw materials that these new technologies require. The reiterated solutions to this contradiction can only succeed in each instance if they take topographic, spatial, and material properties of local production into account. The scale of the contradiction increases with each systemic cycle of accumulation (cf. Arrighi 1994). Each solution therefore tends to be scale dependent (Bunker and Ciccantell 2001). The reiterated solutions are thus sequentially cumulative; that is, each separate solution is distinct in the characteristics of its technological innovation and the sources of its raw materials, but the scale of its technology and the distance to its raw materials accumulate sequentially. The reiterated, cumulatively sequential, but materio-spatially distinct, solutions to the contradiction between scale and space constitute a central mechanism behind the expansion and intensication of the world-system. In other words, the local – in all of its natural diversity – signicantly drives the global towards its apparent social homogeneity. Analysts of the world-system and of globalization have overlooked the contradiction between scale and space and have thus ignored its dynamic consequences. In this they follow more general trends in the social sciences. Over the past half century, social scientists have tended to consider space as the passive context, container, or boundary of social organization and activity. Space conceived thus is neither analyzed nor theorized.

2

Unit costs of transport can be calculated by ton/mile, that is weight/distance.


To the extent that modern geographers attempt to analyze or theorize space, they tend to emphasize the social construction of space. Neil Smith (1984) for example, incorporates Schmidt’s notions of second nature into Harvey’s (1983) discussions of the built environment to declare that the dynamic of capital leads to a social reconstruction of nature, including of space. He interprets Marx’s position, that time annihilates space, within a generalized vision that capital recreates nature and time. Smith’s subsequent critique of renewed attention to the early Marxist writings of Wittfogel betrays the extent to which geography’s unhappy battle against the excesses of environmental determinism and geopolitical analysis continues to constrain radical geographers’ attention to the natural characteristics and effects of space on society. Lefevbre’s (1991) and Soja’s (1989) oversocialized views of space manifest a similarly dogmatic rejection of any consideration of what Smith calls “absolute,” or natural, space. Even though David Harvey (1983) has to address the material characteristics of space when he elaborates Marx’s theories of differential rent, his explanations for the incorporation of new space into economic expansion rest completely on notions of the over-accumulation and site-specic devaluation of capital, thus ignoring the lessons about material and space in both Marx and von Thunen.

Materio-Spatial Configurations in Earlier Social Scientific Thought Earlier social scientic traditions take the material effects of space on economy far more seriously. Wittfogel ([1929]1985) was not alone in his attention to the materio-spatial logic of hydrology and topography. In the rst half of the last century, descriptive economic historians such as Richard Albion (1926) or Harold Innis (1956) analyzed specic local extractive economies by (1) the material attributes of topography, geology, hydrology, and climate that produced the resource extracted and (2) the topographic and hydrological characteristics of the space between the locus of extraction and the locus of consumption as these characteristics affected the technology and the cost of transport across this distance. Innis and Albion both used materio-spatial analyses in ways that contributed to explanations of how and why efforts of dominant groups in Europe structured the conquest, settlement, exploitation, and struggles over the territories incorporated into European imperialist systems.


For Albion, both shipbuilding and metallurgy in Britain were constrained by the location, accessibility, and transport cost of timber.3 The course of navigable rivers and the location of soils and climates conducive to the growth of different tree species determined the location and organization of these economically and politically critical industries. As growing demand for iron and for ships overshot the domestic supply of oak for charcoal and for timbers, these same considerations inuenced the imperial strategies of a British state enormously sensitive to Admiralty needs for ships and cannon. Albion showed that the material features – masts, keel, hull planks, rudder, or caulk and tar – of different kinds of ship required the strengths, exibilities, shapes, saps, and sizes particular to various species of tree that grew in specic climates, soils, and elevations. Albion used these materio-spatial details to explain the geography of British imperial expansion and trade relations, as well as the organization and relations of labor, transport, and exchange in the zones thus incorporated into Britain’s raw material periphery. Similarly, for Innis (1956) the incorporation of Canadian space into the world economy conformed to the material needs of British, French, and Spanish struggles for economic expansion and military power. The natural processes that transformed matter and energy in distinctive – topographically, hydrologically, geologically,and climatologically structured – spaces into sh, beaver, different kinds of trees, and different metals and fuels, together with the ways that river systems and land forms interacting with transport technologies created the cost of their export, molded Canada’s social, economic, nancial, political, and demographic organization. For Innis, space as a differentiated condition of natural production – combined with space as an obstacle to exchange or export – determined the material composition and the location of different extractive economies. Naturally occurring spatial and material features set the parameters within which socially constructed technologies, markets, and geo-political forces determined the organization of labor, the settlement patterns and demographic characteristics of different populations, the composition of capital, the infrastructure in which capital was invested, and the organization and structure of the Canadian state. The natural course, ow, and size of navigable rivers

3

Albion notes, for instance, that the cost of animal traction limited the harvest of trees to an area of three miles or less distance from river’s edge.


presented obstacles and opportunities to extract and export staples to world markets. Social organization and technological innovation created and adapted various means – vehicles and infrastructure – of transport. These mediated between space as a natural obstacle to access and exchange and rivers as an avenue of cheap access and export. Space, and the topographic characteristics that determined the type and abundance of material production in that space, set the parameters for transport systems. These systems, in turn, determined the utility of the resources available and the cost of their extraction and export. They thus determined not only the structure, cost, and protability of each separate extractive export economy, but also national social and political structure. State’s and society’s obligations to pay for these systems affected nancial, economic, and political organization of the Canadian nation in enduring ways. Like Albion, Innis related materio-spatial features of both the European core and the North American periphery to the patterns of settlement and exploitation of the newly incorporated areas. Britain lacked France’s access to cheap salt, and so was obliged to settle and defend land-spaces to dry cod caught on the Grand Banks while her rival could salt the sh without landing. This disadvantage in shing later gave Britain an advantage in moving across the Pre-Cambrian shield surrounding the St. Lawrence. The British rst used this river for access to the Artic zones. There, cold temperatures and thin human populations created the best environments for the ne thick furs favored for elegant comfort in European winters. Trade routes, transport and ware-housing infrastructure, military posts, and settlements developed to support the high-value, luxury commerce of beaver pelts, particularly around the make-bulk and break-bulk afuences of tributary rivers into the larger stream. These later facilitated the inux of capital and labor for extraction of the timber required by the expanding military and commercial transport eet in Britain. The initial advantage that the British acquired in the control of the St. Lawrence River meant that the Hudson Bay Company paid relatively higher prices for beaver than the French could afford. When a French company penetrated Hudson Bay and established that route to Europe as a shorter distance accessible to larger ships than the St. Lawrence provided, the British were able to coopt the French agents into the Company’s supply networks and thus control this more economical route to markets. The shorter trip and larger ships signicantly reduced the cost of raw materials in England. The


accumulating materio-spatial advantages contributed to Britain’s eventual expulsion of the French from Canada. The shift to Hudson Bay favored the British economically but initially led to signicant economic stagnation of the established commercial centers along the St. Lawrence. This was true until the national state supported the construction of canals and locks to improve, and rail lines to supplement, the river’s natural channels. The state was pressured by wheat farmers who were brought in by the cheap fares, open lands, and seasonal wages made available by the lumber trade. Innis’s comparative analysis of beaver, sh, timber, and wheat showed how the physical features of the natural resource, the topography of its natural location, and the character of its end uses and markets affected settlement and commercial patterns as well as social, economic, and political organization. These same factors determined the ratio of value to volume of the raw material exported, and thus the distribution of costs and prots along the localized nodes of its trade. The physical features of the raw material and of its sources in nature also determined the intensity and organization of labor, its demographic characteristics and location, and the costs and requirements of its reproduction. Combined, these factors determined the ratio of the volume of inbound provisions to outbound products. The beaver pelts sent down river and on to Europe, for example, occupied far less cargo space than the goods and provisions sent from Europe in trade. Logs and wheat both reversed this proportion of inbound to outbound cargo. This ratio of imports to exports determined the relative cost of freight or of passage on the inbound and outbound trip. Extra cargo space on a boat from Europe provisioning the beaver trade from Europe was very costly; passage on a timber boat returning relatively empty to Canada was far cheaper. These relative costs directly affected the cost and thus the rate of immigration, and thence settlement patterns and the cost and availability of labor. These, in turn, determined the cost of imported relative to locally produced goods, and thus the chances of establishing local productive economies. The scale, type, and cost of transport technology responded to the material characteristics of the goods transported and to the size and topography of the rivers transited. City location reected the logic of make-bulk and break-bulk locations determined by the volume of matter and the relative size and navigabililty of rivers and by the dendritic patterns formed as tributary rivers joined to form larger waterways. Innis’s theorization of matter and space did not preempt, but rather facilitated and extended, his analysis of social and economic processes. By inte-


grating social and natural mechanisms, he could account for such temporally and spatially consequential phenomena as the changing demand and size of the world economy, the political and economic dimensions of empire and colonial resistance, or the role of conicts in the core, rst between Britain, France, and Spain, and later between the United States and Europe. Incorporation of materio-spatial data enriched his analysis of the economic, nancial, and political trajectory of the Canadian nation and state. Even the most precise of the more recent studies of the material and economic effects of space lack this close-grained analysis of specic commodities in particular places. Mandel’s (1975) discussion of how technological innovations in transport reduced the natural tariff barriers of space shows considerable sensitivity to some of the physical attributes of space. Douglas North (1958), and later O’Rourke and Williams (1999), in their specic consideration of technical change in transport and its effect on world trade, attend to space as the naturally autonomous locus of socially produced technology and infrastructure. These works, however, do not achieve explanations of the interactions between space as condition of production – and therefore determinant of the kinds of economic activity apt for protable exploitation – and space as obstacle to exchange – and therefore determinant of the location of materially bound human activity. They thus cannot achieve the dynamic dialectic that characterized Innis’s or Albion’s work and that Wittfogel found in Marx’s analysis of naturally produced use values. They do, however, provide paths that can contribute to analyses that integrate locally observable dynamics into world-systemic relationships. Studies of extractive economies in the Amazon Basin provide similar paths. Their authors confront materio-spatial constraints on economy and society too obvious to ignore. Barbara Weinstein (1983), for instance, in her study of the rubber economy, notes that the Amazon Basin as an object of analysis is spatially so enormous and topographically and biologically so complex that it overwhelms the modern tendency to ignore or deny the effects of natural space on human social and economic observation. She does not explicitly analyze the effects of space and topography on the organization of the rubber trade, but the data she presents as the empirical foundations for her explanation of the rise and fall of Amazonian prosperity allow a fairly detailed vision of these effects and a judgement of their importance. Roberto Santos’s (1968, 1980) earlier and more detailed analysis of the activities of local rubber-trading rms and of their nancial, social, and commercial relations with each other, with their own labor forces, with the state, and


with the international buyers and suppliers that located in Belem and Manaus provides an even richer source of empirical detail. Santos appreciates space as the biologically and hydrologically determined locus and condition of natural production and of space as topographically and hydrologically determining the location and relations of social production and exchange. In these and in other works on the Amazon, it is consistently clear that the river shaped human activities far earlier and in greater degree than human activities ever changed the river. Santos’s and Weinstein’s descriptions, together with ecological analyses of the Amazon and its tributaries by Nimuendaju (1954), Palmatary (1960), Lathrap (1977), Sioli (1975), and Fittkau (1973), provide data and conceptual tools to construct a model of how space, topography, biology, and demography in the Amazon interacted with, responded to, and inuenced industrial growth, technical innovation, international trade, and the geopolitics of the world-system. In Underdeveloping the Amazon (Bunker 1985), I elaborate such a model as a sequentially cumulative series of socially organized extractive cycles molded interactively by (1) technological, geo-political, and market transformations within the world-system and (2) the demographic, ecological, political, and economic conseqences of local social efforts to take advantage of the opportunities these changes in the world-system created. Local spatial and material congurations constrained both local and world-systemic actions in each cycle. My strategy was to extend the mechanisms of stages of autocatalytic diversication and growth that underlay models of ecological succession to include the sequentially accumulated ecological and social effects of each extractive cycle on both the social and natural resources available in subsequent cycles.4 The following sections detail how local and international actors in these successive extractive cycles responded to and mediated between the changing technologies and markets of world capitalism, on the one hand, and the local spatial and material features that formed the substance of their participation in the world economy.

4 The term “sequentially cumulative” emerges from my reading of Arrighi’s (1994) demonstrations that each systemic cycle of accumulation incorporates and surpasses the expansion achieved in the earlier one it superceded. This idea is remarkably similar to classic formulations of ecological succession.


Space in the Geopolitics of Colonization and in the Subordination and Decimation of Indigenous Populations The Portuguese rst settled and fortied the Amazon because it provided a hydrologically dened space available to Dutch eets to penetrate the sugar plantations of the Northeast or to Portuguese eets to protect that commercially protable space. In order to cheapen administration and defense of the Amazon, the Portuguese crown ceded huge concessions of land and rights to indigenous labor to its ofcers. The Amazonian space was not appropriate – biologically, hydrologically, or climatologically – to the technologies or to the labor relations preferred by the Portuguese. Portuguese economic exploitation of the Amazon was never protable enough to purchase or to sustain imported labor. Instead, the Portuguese enslaved the indigenous population and exploited its captive labor to construct edices and roads as well as for extraction of forest and river products. Costs of extraction rose and prots fell as these expeditions depleted the most proximate sources of labor and material. The conditions of work and living in an increasingly impoverished settlement, combined with exposure to exotic germs brought in on ships from Europe, caused numerous epidemics and consequent reduction of native populations. The need to replenish their vulnerable supply of captive labor drove the Portuguese to mount more slaving raids and to provoke slaving wars. These raids and wars drove the remaining indigenous population further and further upriver. This increased the distance travelled on subsequent raids: this increased the need for provisions – for Indian rowers on both legs of the journey and for captured Indian slaves on the return. Both rowers and new captives suffered malnutrition, disease, and death from attempts to economize transport across this ever greater space (Hemming 1978; Sweet 1974). The densest indigenous populations had located in the mouthbays of tributaries to the Amazon, where the calmer waters provided access to sh and turtle protein and the seasonal oods maintained soil fertility. The mouthbays and varzeas – spaces with abundant fertile grounds to cultivate and waters to sh – became spaces dangerously accessible to the Portuguese slavers’ boats. Portuguese slaving drove the populations that survived war, disease, and enslavement to ee up the tributary rivers to the less fertile land and the less rich waters of the terra rme. Enslavement, disease, war, ight, and refuge in less fertile environments hugely reduced indigenous populations.


The naturally occurring attributes of space and of matter within it had facilitated and enhanced certain human activities such as hunting, shing, cultivating, and transporting, while constraining other activities, including European styles of agriculture. These same attributes of space structured Portuguese violence and exploitation and indigenous reaction and ight. The interaction between these natural and social forces created a demographic vacuum that seriously impeded local response when technological and industrial changes in Europe and in North America created rapidly growing demand for Amazonian rubber.

How Space, Time, and Matter Structured Relations of Property, Labor, and Exchange in the Rubber Economy The ravenous demand for rubber started early in the second industrial revolution. European inventors, engineers, and capitalists had found ways that combined iron, coal, and steam to provide matter and energy for machines that performed an increasingly broad range of work. These machines could move far greater loads more rapidly and apply far greater force at much higher temperatures than either human or animal effort could manage. Innovation and capital rapidly extended these functions to the development of machines that transformed iron into other machines. The rms that pioneered these innovations realized huge and expanding surplus prots; the national economies in which these rms participated realized rapid economic growth; and the states that directed these national economies greatly increased their revenues and their powers. Control over the the raw materials that made up and powered these machines and over innovations that extended their productive use were of critical importance to these states and rms. Many such innovations stimulated discovery and use of new types of raw material; others adapted machines to the physical and chemical properties of the new types of matter discovered or processed. The iron-coal-steam triad accelerated the historic interplay between technology and capital on the one hand and matter and space on the other. Some of the most rapid and dramatic episodes of this interplay occurred as engineers sought to adapt their machines to the very different chemical and physical properties of different deposits of iron and coal and as states and rms searched for new sources of material. These new sources had to be (1) large enough to sustain the expanding scale of new technologies and (2) of chem-


ical and physical compositions that enhanced the performance of their machines and the quality of the commodities they produced. Innovations and improvements in these machines and the extension of the kinds of jobs that could be mechanized increasingly required the transmission of motor energy between different planes. Metallurgical techniques were not yet exact enough, nor was machine-tooling precise and standardized enough, to achieve this transmission through mass-produced systems of steel cogs, wheels, and shafts. Flexible belts strong enough to hold their shape and texture through heat and friction were cheaper and more practical. Fabrics and rope tended to slip against restistance and also wore out fairly quickly. Rubber provided greater strength and grip but tended to stretch. The growing importance of steam-driven pumps and motors to business prots and to state revenues from an increasingly mechanized world capitalism stimulated searches for technologies that stabilized rubber even under high temperatures and friction. Goodyear ’s invention of vulcanization rst achieved these goals in 1939. Rubber thus treated served for the transmission of mechanical energy with exible belts and for tires to allow mobility for these machines. Subsequent research and investments improved vulcanization. These improvements progressively extended the protable mechanical applications of rubber. At the same time, technical innovations, particularly the invention of the bicycle and the automobile, and then the rapid mechanization of military force, added to the hugely expanding demand for rubber. The rapid expansion of mechanical uses of steel and the rapid development of new mechanical technologies eventually generated incentives for the invention, fabrication, and standardization of machine-tooled screws, cogs, wheels, and shafts. Once these new inputs were possible, the steel of which they were made transmitted more force, resisted greater heat, and lasted longer than rubber. At the beginning of the machine age, however, rubber’s material qualities – both natural and socially improved – allowed less technically demanding performance of these highly protable functions. Rubber of a quality found only in the Amazon worked best for these new technologies. Much of the most protable research into and development of new technologies were thus based on Amazonian rubber. Incremental renements in this technology, combined with inventions of new mechanical applications, drove demand for rubber far higher than local labor and transport systems could supply. Prices soared, and the local attempts to respond


to this booming demand radically changed the economy, the demography, the politics, and the law in Amazonia. Materio-spatial features of the Amazon and the social and economic history of European responses to them made full response to the soaring demand impossible. Local attempts to corner or manipulate the market made the inadequate supply erratically volatile. The rubber boom coincided with one of the most dynamic episodes of material intensication and spatial expansion of the world economy. The discovery of vulcanization and the rapid proliferation of new mechanical uses of rubber closely parallelled the development and diffusion of Bessemer conversion for smelting iron, which made durable steel of uniform quality cheap enough for mass production. The introduction of Bessemer steel is generally credited with the rapid ascent of the U.S. economy in the second half of the 19th century. The U.S. led the world in its rate of adoption of Bessemer converters and rapidly achieved primacy in both world production of steel and in world extension of railroads. The U.S. had surpassed the longer established steel industries of Britain and Germany by the 1890s, though European steel production was still expanding rapidly. The new steel-based technologies that depended on rubber provided huge surplus prots and stimulated major economic growth in the rapidly industrializing core, particularly in Britain and in the United States. Industrial rms there, and national states, were intensely interested in the supply and price of rubber, but had to adapt to the materio-spatial, the economic, and the political structures of the Amazon to satisfy their needs. The local actors who organized to take advantage of the new demand for rubber were directly constrained by (1) the biological characteristics of the rubber tree, hevea brasiliensis, particularly as those characteristics determined the spatial distribution of the tree itself and the temporal distribution of the labor process involved in tapping, collecting, and curing the rubber, (2) the course and ow of the rivers that provided the only commercially viable access to the seringais, or rubber groves, and (3) the seasonal patterns of rainfall and ooding. The biology of the trees and their distribution in space had evolved to a very wide dispersion of single trees across spaces broad enough to impede the proliferation of dothidella ulei, a fungus that would thrive in the presence of thick groves of trees. The sap of this tree dripped slowly enough that only a cup could be collected every second day. Exploiting the rubber trees thus required single individuals to walk great distances between trees to collect a relatively small amount of rubber each day. They then had to cure the rub-


ber and agglomerate it in small daily increments into a large ball for eventual delivery against their debts to the capitalist who had transported and provisioned them. Just as the high cost and slow speed of animal traction limited the 17th century logging described by Albion (1926) to trees three miles or less from river’s edge, the time and effort of carrying latex through the jungle limited the paths, or veredas, to distances within an area that a man could tap and carry to river’s edge in a day’s work. The inward transport of labor and provisions at the beginning of the dry season and the outward transport of labor and rubber at the beginning of the rainy season depended completely on the course and ow of rivers, so rivers determined which seringais could protably be tapped. The low density of rubber trees and the restriction of tapping to trees within a day’s round-trip circuit from a river meant that response to increasing demand required longer voyages up-river. This increased labor and transport needs and so drove up the costs and prices of rubber. The absence of human population in this space, result of the earlier exploitation of slaves, imposed the need to transport labor and then to control and discipline that labor across space. The low density of trees, the slow dripping of latex from them, and time-consuming, daily chore of curing and agglomerating the latex into solid bulks required that labor was widely distributed over long periods of time. Sufcient capital had to be advanced to sustain the workers transported in a manner that would accommodate the slow, biologically set rhythms of latex dripping, and the slow, materially set, process of smoking-curing and agglomerating it. Control or supervision of this widely dispersed, very slow, labor process would have been excessively costly. Direct control of labor, direct security over the capital advanced for its transport and provisioning, and physical security over its product were all impossible under these conditions. Time, space, and matter all threatened the capitalist’s ability to assure that he could appropriate rubber as return and prot on his investment. Capital was thus impelled to organize the labor process through devices that guaranteed returns on investments in transporting, sustaining, and disciplining isolated laborers at great distance over extended periods of time. One solution was to prevent boats owned by other merchants from providing transport of labor or product to rubber tappers, who might choose to sell the rubber they had tapped and ee to avoid the debt that capital claimed for their transport and provisions. Another was exemplary violence against any such tapper unlucky enough to be caught unprotected.


The rubber traders, or seringalistas, devised customs, and the state devised legal forms of property and usufruct, based on the ow of rivers, that designated the owner or lessee of a seringal as the sole legitimate claimant to rights of transport on each river. These rights could be enforced by violence. In this sense, the material and spatial natural conguration of rubber trees and rivers created the parameters within which social, economic, and political relations of property, extraction, transport, exchange, and law could be arranged to t both the local ecological and social situation and the global economic demand.5 The same spatial and material congurations that constrained and molded the local organization of rubber extraction also limited and destabilized supplies to an industrializing world increasingly dependent on and enriched by rubber’s role in production. The potential for prot in rubber-dependent technologies accelerated even more when bicycles, and then automobiles, entered consumer markets as pioneer instances of machines made as consumer items for end use rather than as limited to inputs for other production. The natural constraints on supply catalyzed both the scientic efforts to improve vulcanization sufciently to expand the utility of lower grades of rubber and the efforts of the British state and colonial administration to transform the rubber cultivar from a feral resource to a domesticated cultigen. These efforts eventually transformed rubber from a wild plant where British capital “controlled neither land nor labor” to a plantation crop in Asia, where British capital controlled both (Brockway 1979). The ood of plantation rubber onto world markets in 1910 reduced the price of rubber below the costs imposed by the widely dispersed distribution of feral rubber trees in the Amazon and the high costs of the transport needed to extract and export it. The ports and boats of the aviamento system were too costly to maintain under this new price regime. Most were allowed to deteriorate while their diminishing use values were applied to a vastly reduced trade in rubber, gathered now by autonomous peasants as a supplement to diversied subsistence activities.

5 The whole system took the name of the Portuguese word for providing (aviamento). Merchant capitalists in this system were know as aviadores. The rubber grew in seringais leased in long-term aforamentos to seringalistas. The seringueiros delivered the rubber they tapped and cured to pay off the debt for transport and provisions. The seringalista or the aviador, who might or might not be the same person, set the prices for provisions and transport and for the rubber that was delivered against them. Tappers’ debts thus tended to be perpetuated across seasons.


Space and matter thus dened the mode by which the Amazon was reincorporated into the world-system as the source of a critical raw material. At the same time, space and matter created the conditions that eventually led coalitions of social actors in the core to search for technological and organizational means to increase and stabilize the supply and to reduce the cost of rubber. Agents of industrial rms and of imperial states collaborated to move its material reproduction and to import colonial populations for its cultivation in these new locations. These initiatives ultimately impoverished the Amazon’s economy as rapidly and radically as the local responses to growing core demand had enriched it. Rubber was not the only input into the rapidly developing iron, coal, and steam-based technologies that so expanded the economies of scale in industrial production and the rates of growth and prot in industrializing nations. The Bessemer process depended on low sulphur ores and fuels and on manganese to combine strength with durability. The rapid expansion of steel processing required mechanization of mining and of loading for transport. New technologies were developed for stripmining and loading, but at rst they required large surface deposits of soft ore. These characteristics – soft, lowsulphur ore in large supercial deposits – were discovered in the iron-ore deposits of the Mesabi range in the Northern Great Lakes region. There, the complex interdependence of natural resource characteristics, topography, hydrology, technology, economies of scale, and massive accumulation of capital supported sustained development around the Lakes, even though the ore-supplying areas suffered relative economic collapse as resources depleted and technologies changed. The deposits on Mesabi, at that time the largest ever exploited, were sufciently great and sufciently concentrated to allow science, technology, and capital to discover and implement new economies of scale and speed. These materio-spatial properties of iron allowed owners of mines, ships, docks, and railroads to accommodate the rapid expansion of demand. By the 1950s, decades of intensive exploitation of the highest quality ores had reduced the Mesabi deposits to taconite. This ore is much harder and thus more costly to mine and process than the soft ores that had favored the early technologies of steam shovels, drag lines, and dump loaders. Huge increases in the tensile strength of steel, in the precision of metal and tool working, in the power of motors, and in the efciency of mechanisms to convert heat energy into mechanical energy and into controlled chemical reactions had provided capital access to new mine and transport technologies. The economies of scale – particularly in the hull size and strength of boats


and in the power, weight, and fuel efciencies of internal-combustion motors – that these new technologies supported made it possible to exploit Australian, South American, and African deposits. By 1973, iron ore and coal could travel the thousands of miles between these sources and Japan more cheaply than U.S. Steel could move ore from its mines on the north of the Great Lakes to its smelters on the south. Stronger rail systems and more efcient diesel motors made it economically viable to haul huge loads of iron and coal out of mines that were far more distant from navigable water than were the Mesabi deposits. These new technologies, combined with the continued discovery of larger deposits of higher grade ores in places so far from industrial centers that earlier transport techologies were left outside the sphere of competitive exploitation, obviated any impulse for capital to support technical searches for a material substitute or alternative means of procurement for iron. These same technologies and discoveries interacted with iron and coal deposits across the globe to create a strong impulse to cheapen transport of bulky material across wider spaces. U.S. Steel suffered devaluation of the capital it had invested in infrastructure and technology appropriate to the chemical composition of the Mesabi ores and to the size of ship that could sail on, and between, the Great Lakes. The steel industry of Japan, Europe, and Korea, however, exploited the cheapened transport of matter over greater distances, increasing both the material intensity and the spatial expanse of steel production. In comparison, the dispersal of rubber trees and the slow biological rhythms of their internal circulation of latex so constrained tapper’s and trader’s ability to expand supply that consuming rms and states collaborated to alter the spatial, and thus the social and political, features of rubber production. States and rms were later impelled to change rubber’s material features as well. U.S. and German efforts to circumvent the impediments of intercore wars on their access to Asian plantations accelerated their search for techniques to synthetically fabricate rubber from petroleum. Their success expanded the supply and reduced the price of raw material essential to the huge cheapening and expansion of automobile, truck, and airplane trafc after World War II. It also further depressed the price of natural rubber.

Topography and Hydrology in the Extraction of Plants and Animals Multiple studies of oral and fauna extraction in the Amazon provide complementary perspectives on the ways that matter and space rst mold local


responses to world-system demand for new resources and then structrure the ecological and social conseqences of these local responses. Data presented by Alden (1976) and Sweet (1974) on the extraction of rosewood and cacao; by Nigel Smith (1974, 1980–81) on the extraction of turtles, manatees, and caymans, and the consequent impoverishment of biological energy capture and exchange in river and varzea; and in Fittkau’s (1973) analysis of the spatial and material functions of the cayman in maintaining the fertility required for sh in the mouthbays of the tributary rivers all indicate the autonomy of natural spatial and material systems in the Amazon and the extent to which successful human extraction from these systems must adapt to them. The human activities may have profound, complex, and unpredicted consequences upon these systems, but these consequences themselves occur through the dynamic natural interactions of spatial and material processes, however much human intervention may have catalyzed these changes.

Implications of Amazonian Export Cycles for Materio-Spatial Analysis Human endeavors to exploit the resources produced in specic locations can only succeed if they adapt to the material and spatial features of those locations. In all of the Amazon’s extractive cycles – the slave wars, the trade in turtles, sh, cayman, manatee, and capybara, the rubber boom and its eventual decline – the river system as a hydrologically, topographically, materially and biologically differentiated space created the conditions for the reproduction of the resource extracted and the means of its transport. The hydrology and the topography of the river directly shaped the human activities aimed at protable extraction. In the case of rubber, they directly limited the speed and proliferation of core technological innovations that incorporated rubber into an expanding range of increasingly productive and prot-generating machines. The materio-spatial attributes of rubber and of the river system that conditioned its natural production and commercial access to it affected the economic opportunities and the social and political organization of rms and states in the industrializing nations as much as of local merchants, rubber-tappers, boat owners, and politicians. The ways they affected these different social groups, however, and each group’s behavior in response, varied enormously according to their different positions in relation to these materio-spatial characteristics and to the technical and economic processes to which these characteristics gave rise. The consequences of these actions –


their costs and their benets – were unevenly distributed in the same way. In this sense, the dynamic, sequentially cumulative processes of technological and social organizational innovations in extraction, transport, and processing of matter emerge from reciprocal and interactive dynamics between local and global instances of nature and society. These reciprocal dynamics belie notions of the social construction of nature and of space. Humans do not transform or construct space socially; at most they accelerate and intensify their own transit and their transport of matter across it. Time does not annihilate space in this model, rather space as condition of production provides opportunities, and space as obstacle to and cost of transport constitutes the challenges, that foment innovations in social organization and technology.

Andrew Jorgenson, James Rice, Jessica Crowe and Julie Rice Integrating Resource Consumption into Macrosociological Analyses of Global Social Change and Environmental Degradation

Introduction Macrosociological studies of human/environment interactions generally involve a production-based explanatory model while paying little attention to the impacts of material consumption. In this chapter, we review recent analytical and empirical approaches from different social scientic disciplines that incorporate resource consumption into their frameworks and analyses. Our primary objective is to challenge other macro-comparative researchers to pay more attention to these areas. We contend that scholars studying environmental degradation from world-systems or other political-economic perspectives would greatly benet from more nuanced treatments of resource consumption in their research. We begin with a brief ecohistorical discussion of resource consumption in the emerging modern worldsystem of earlier centuries, and a summary of relatively new analytical approaches to consumption and degradation, largely developed by political-scientists. This is followed by a summary of central environmental sociological perspectives, most notably Schnaiberg and Gould’s “treadmill of production,” O’Connor’s “second contradiction of capitalism,” and the consumption-based environmental impacts

214 • Andrew Jorgenson, James Rice, Jessica Crowe, and Julie Rice

of military infrastructures and technological developments, recently termed the “treadmill of destruction.” We continue with a discussion of ecological modernization theory and noteworthy critiques of this more neoliberal orientation. The essay concludes with a review of recent quantitative crossnational studies of consumption-based environmental impacts measured as ecological footprints, and the presentation of GIS descriptive analyses of the relationships between world-system position, deforestation, and per capita footprints of nations.

Population Dynamics, Uneven Material Consumption, and the Environment in the Emerging Modern World-System At the end of the fteenth century, the world began to experience a “demographic takeover” by Europeans that was largely facilitated by a population explosion resulting from a sharp decline in death rates. This decline was a function of the benecial effects of improved nutrition and sanitation, and the expansion of peripheral capitalism and extraction into Eastern Europe and colonized regions on other continents (Broswimmer 2002; Chase-Dunn 1998; Chase-Dunn, Jorgenson, Reifer, and Lio 2005; Wallerstein 1974). The European population explosion tapered off in the early twentieth century. By this period most of Europe and its settler colonies had reached relatively advanced stages of economic development and further imposition of peripheral exploitation of land and labor. Birth rates began to fall in the nal phase of this demographic transition. This was largely in response to higher levels of afuence (Foster 1999: 15). During demographic transitions, populations experience a gradual change from a demographic equilibrium of high death rates and high birth rates, to a demographic equilibrium of low death rates and low birth rates. In the rst phase of the transition, such as during early European industrialization, there is a decline in the death rate that is not matched by a corresponding decline in the birth rate, which leads to a population explosion. In the second phase, economic development, stimulated by peripheral exploitation, leads to a drop in the birth rate as well, which slows down the rate of population growth (e.g. Foster 1999; Broswimmer 2002). Thus, in Europe, relative power and afuence eventually resulted in lower population growth rates, which then tended to reinforce and reproduce relative power and afuence. When population explosions occurred, the larger populations required additional natural resources to sustain themselves. Europe and its settler colonies met

Integrating Resource Consumption into Macrosociological Analyses of Global Change • 215

this requirement by expropriating and consuming additional resources to the detriment of the periphery (Moore 2003). Yet, as the population growth rate diminished in the core regions of Europe and its settler colonies, relative power enabled overall resource consumption to remain high, which increased their levels of resource consumption at the environmental and social expense of colonized regions (Foster 1999; Chew 2001; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997b). Due to structural conditions and relative levels of inequality between core and peripheral areas, colonized regions and countries in the periphery of the world were unable to experience a similar path of industrialization followed by the completion of the demographic transition. Rather, these areas experienced a legacy of colonialism, and the “development of underdevelopment” (Frank 1966; Foster 1999) in which there was a continual outow of surplus natural resources from peripheral areas to core regions, rather than the internal development of the peripheral areas themselves (Foster 1999; Moore 2003; O’Connor 1998). This also contributed to the growing gap in per capita income between core and peripheral regions (e.g. Jorgenson 2003b). Many underdeveloped peripheral societies were and continue to be caught in a demographic trap between an industrial death rate and an agricultural birth rate (Foster 1999). Overall, their populations have continued to grow while their rates of economic development are retarded by their subordinate position in the world-economy. Barry Commoner (1992) and John Bellamy Foster (1999) characterize this as “demographic parasitism” in which the second population-balancing phase of the demographic transition in more powerful countries was and is fed by the suppression of the same phase in impoverished, less-developed countries. Historically, urbanization occurred as part of the accumulation of surplus, wealth, and the structuring of the global core/periphery hierarchy. By its very nature, urbanization is highly resource consumptive (Chew 2001; Cronon 1991; Jorgenson 2003a). As the modern world-system emerged, urbanization in core regions increased at rapid rates. Great amounts of natural resources were transported to urban areas where accumulation of populations and manufacturing processes emerged. Forested areas were often cut for agricultural production in which grown foodstuffs were transported to densely-populated urban regions. Energy inputs for the transportation of natural resources to urbanizing regions depleted resource stocks, and additional materials were required to build and maintain urban infrastructures for the local movement and transportation of food products and other natural resources (Chew 2001).


Moreover, urbanizing areas required vast amounts of materials for the construction of housing for intensifying populations. Thus, urbanization is a resource dependent and resource intensive process, which casts a disruptive shadow on the peripheral areas of core urban regions (Cronon 1991). The shifting structure of the emerging modern world-system often led to various pressures to feed and provide goods to the growing populations of urbanizing regions. A primary mode of transportation for these goods was shipping, which required vast amounts of wood for the construction and maintenance of maritime eets. With increasing levels of trade in the nineteenth century, maritime shipping continued to increase, resulting in further wood consumption (Chase-Dunn, Kawano, and Brewer 2000; Chew 2001). Land transportation of people and goods became largely dependent on railway systems. Railroads engendered deforestation. Approximately fteen hundred crossties were used for every kilometer of track. Generally, these crossties were replaced at least once every decade (Chew 2001). During the nineteenth century, the colonizing core countries built and maintained railway systems that extended deeply into the peripheralized colonies. This provided resources for consumption, largely in urbanized areas of Western Europe (Davis 2001). Thus, train and maritime transportation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries impacted regional environments through a combination of wood consumption for their construction and maintenance, and the expansion of peripheral resource-extraction by European colonizers.

Analytical Approaches to Resource Consumption in the Contemporary World-Economy Many social scientists argue that ever-increasing consumption in the contemporary world – a byproduct of the logic of capitalism and its need for continual growth and interrelated social and ecological contradictions – is ultimately destructive and self-defeating (e.g. Princen et al. 2002; O’Connor 1998; Foster 1999, 2002; Jorgenson 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b; Jorgenson and Kick 2003; Burns, Kentor and Jorgenson 2003; Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). Recently, researchers developed a series of analytical and conceptual frameworks to address consumption from a more structural political-economic perspective. These include the social structural embeddedness of consumption, commodity chain linkages of resource use that shape consumption-oriented decisions, and hidden forms of consuming embedded


in all stages of global-economic activity (e.g. Hornborg 2001; Princen, Maniates, and Conca 2002; Maniates 2002; Manno 2002; White 2002; Jorgenson 2003a). The social embeddedness of consumption characterizes the institutionalization of material consumption in all contemporary societies. At every stage in the production process, material resources are consumed while commodities are being produced. Paradoxically, there is an inverse relationship between exchange value and the productive potential of commodied goods (e.g. Bunker 1984, 1985; Hornborg 2001: Jorgenson 2003a; Foster 1999, 2002). In accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the productive potential of a given set of resources diminishes as it is being converted into a product, that is, as its exchange value or utility increases (Bunker 1985, 2003; see also Hornborg 1998, 2001). A signicant aspect of this conversion process is the consumption via fuels, waste, and manipulation of potentially productive materials and energy. Many forms of consumption during production are unintended consequences of “inefciency” in production processes that negatively impact the biosphere (Princen et al. 2002; O’Connor 1998; York and Rosa 2003; see also Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000). Ironically, these forms of inefciency contradict the material interests of producers. The commodity chain approach asserts that consumption decisions are heavily inuenced, constrained, and shaped through a chain of linked choices being made by relatively powerful forces as commodities are being designed, produced, distributed, used, and disposed of into the ecological sinks of the natural environment (e.g. Princen et al. 2002; O’Connor 1998; Foster 2002; Bunker 1985; Hornborg 2001; Goldfrank, Goodman and Szasz 1999). Two underlying processes are revealed through a commodity-chain perspective: distancing and downstreaming (e.g. Princen et al. 2002; Conca 2002; Princen 2002). Distancing refers to the severing of ecological and social feedback as decision points along the chain are increasingly separated by geography, culture, and power (e.g. core-periphery distancing). This concept also points out the isolated character of consumption choices as decision makers at individual nodes in the commodity chain are cut off from a more contextualized understanding of the ramication of their choices, both upstream and downstream (Princen et al. 2002:16; see also Princen 2002). This also characterizes what Dickens (2002) refers to as human alienation from nature. Downstreaming – in this context – refers to the increasingly disproportionate exercise of power and authority at certain critical nodes in the chain (Princen et al. 2002:16; see also Conca 2002; Steingraber 1997).


Economy and the Treadmill of Production Schnaiberg (1980) and Schnaiberag and Gould (1994) apply the analytical concept “treadmill of production” to represent the forces underlying economic growth, production, and consumption in modern capitalist industrial societies.1 The treadmill represents the relentless expansion of production, accumulation, and consumption, which are all critical to the logic of capitalism as a continual process. The heart of the treadmill is the increasingly dominant role of monopoly capitalism headquartered in more powerful countries of the world-economy – especially in terms of the consequences of investments in production/consumption and a strong inuence on political institutions and decision-making (e.g. Humphry et al. 2002; Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). The treadmill also creates conditions in which the rst and second contradictions of capitalism occur (O’Connor 1998; Dickens 2002). These contradictions suggest that capitalism is inherently its own gravedigger – in the long run. The rst contradiction is central to Marxist analyses of the relations of production to labor. Technologies introduced to deskill workers and to decrease wages constantly generate crises of overproduction. Yet, such changes in the modes of production/consumption are in contradiction with the social relations of production because overproduction can lead to large-scale layoffs and declining rates of prot (Dickens 2002; Harvey 1999; Marx 1906). Similarly, Marx and later O’Connor argued that there is a contradiction between capitalist growth, the environment, and labor power (O’Connor 1998; Marx 1906). In modern agriculture, much like urban industry, the relative increase in the productivity and mobility of labor is purchased at the cost of emitting waste and debilitating labor power. Furthermore, “progress” in capitalist agriculture is progress in the destruction of the more long-lasting productive potential of the soil (Marx 1906; see also Dickens 2002). This describes what O’Connor (1998) calls the “second contradiction of capitalism”, which characterizes the inherent tendency of capitalism to create further barriers for capital accumulation/consumption by ruining the very natural material conditions needed for its continual expansion (see also York and Rosa 2003). In the modern world-economy, like earlier periods, this largely involves degradation displacement by more powerful societies to less powerful ones, much like

1

A recent special issue of Organization and Environment (2004, Volume 17, Number 3) deals explicitly with current debates concerning this social scientic approach.


the peripheral exploitation of formal colonies by their colonizers (e.g. Amin 1974; Chase-Dunn 1998; Davis 2001; Frank 1966, 1967; Jorgenson 2004a; Jorgenson and Kick 2003; Moore 2003).

Militarism and the Treadmill of Destruction Military institutions in the contemporary world-economy consume vast amounts of natural resources and nonrenewable energy for the construction, maintenance, and operation of their infrastructure and hardware (Dycus 1996; Hooks and Smith 2004, forthcoming; Hveem 1979; Jorgenson forthcoming a; Klare 2001). For example, social scientists posit that the Pentagon is the largest consumer of nonrenewable energy resources in the United States and quite possibly the entire world (Hynes 1999; Santana 2002). The military apparatus of the more dominant countries globalize their lines of operation for defensive and geopolitical strategic purposes (Hveem 1979). This form of military globalization taps the natural resources of the global ecological system while emitting waste into the biosphere (Roberts, Grimes, and Manale 2003). High levels of military spending per soldier reect a technologically based military, while a lower level generally reects a reliance on large standing armies (Jorgenson forthcoming a; Kentor 2004; Kick et al. 1998). The former characterizes the ability to project military power globally, while the latter generally reects regional power. Continual arms research, development, and production in military defense, which leads to greater military technological strength, greatly increases overall environmental impacts through the required inputs of material resources for newly formed technologies and their use (Hveem 1979; Jorgenson 2003a). Increased capital accumulation and intensication in more powerful countries leads to social and economic surplus that states divert to war-making, and technological developments in military hardware become the “normal state of affairs” (Van Creveld 1989:218–219; Hooks and Smith forthcoming). Hooks and Smith (2004, forthcoming) characterize the expansionary dynamics and profound environmental impacts associated with militarism and military technological developments as the “treadmill of destruction.” Overall, this treadmill is set in motion by arms races and geopolitical competition. In the contemporary world, the growing environmentally damaging capabilities of militarism are partly a function of technological developments with weapons of mass destruction that require less military size for their potential use and effectiveness. In the last few decades, relative sizes of military personnel decreased in many of the most


powerful countries of the contemporary world-economy. The social space occupied by these militaries shrink, but their relative power and global reach increase with further developments in weapons technology, all of which directly and indirectly impact regional environments and the global ecological system (Hooks and Smith forthcoming). Besides consuming large amounts of resources, stronger and more technologically advanced militaries use their global military reach to directly and symbolically reproduce uneven ecological exchanges between more-powerful and less-powerful countries. This increases levels of natural resource consumption in developed countries at the ecological expense of less-developed ones (Jorgenson 2004c). In general, military caused environmental degradation is not only a matter of direct resource consumption by the armed forces and their hardware. It also includes strategic stockpiling of fuels and other material resources, military R&D programs, and goods and services consumed daily by the military other than crucial hardware. Levels of resource consumption are further impacted by industry that produces and supplies marginal equipment to the military and the support economy, which provides additional goods, services, and production facilities essential to the normal functioning of the military infrastructure (Hveem 1979:4–5; Jorgenson forthcoming a). Thus, the relative size of militaries for many powerful countries may decrease, but their per capita environmental impacts increase through the continual development of more technologically sophisticated weaponry that require material resources in research and development. Technologically advanced weaponry also exhibit greater potential to impact regional environments and the global ecological system through their storage, disposal, and use (Davis 2002; Hooks and Smith forthcoming).

Ecological Modernization Approaches Ecological modernization theory has emerged as one of the more prominent neoliberal theories in environmental sociology. One of the theory’s general arguments is that continued industrial development offers the best solution to escaping the ecological problems faced in the contemporary world-economy (Mol 1995; Mol 2001; Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000; Mol and Spaargaren 2002). More specically, “the only possible way out of the ecological crisis is by going further into the process of modernization” (Mol 1995:42). Moreover, ecological modernization theory [EMT] asserts that inherent in the process of societal modernization are self-referential mechanisms.


Specically, “environmental interests and considerations are starting to make a difference with respect to the organization of modern society” (Mol and Spaargaren 2002:36). Strands of EMT focus on changes in environmental control practices that institutions make with respect to environmental concerns. This concentration is based on the assumption that an autonomous ecological sphere (i.e. separate from the political and economic spheres) exists that affects industrial and state decision making (Mol and Spaargaren 2002; Schnaiberg, Pellow, and Weinberg 2002). While advocates of EMT believe that economic criteria currently dominate decision making toward production and consumption, they believe that ecological interests and criteria are slowly gaining ground on economic considerations. This contrasts with neo-Marxist theories that nd that economic criteria remain at the foundation of industrial and state decision making and overshadow most, if not all, ecological concerns (Schnaiberg, Pellow, and Weinberg 2002). Contrary to the other theoretical perspectives reviewed in preceding sections, ecological modernization theory argues for the potential of attaining ecological sustainability from within a capitalist system. This attainment involves the inclusion of ecological criteria toward production and consumption decision making rather than by signicantly changing the structure of production and consumption. However, other environmental social scientists raise several important criticisms of this perspective and its empirical validity (e.g. Carolan 2004a; Jorgenson 2004c; York and Rosa 2003). For example, proponents of ecological modernization theory fail to provide adequate evidence that the change in the structure of institutions reduces the overall environmental impacts of capitalist based production (Buttel 2000). York and Rosa (2003) remind researchers to be aware that different processes occur at different levels of aggregation. They argue that by focusing on individual sectors and organizations within an economy, ecological modernization theorists miss overall processes of environmental degradation occurring at more macro levels. In the contemporary world-economy, prot acquired in one sector is free to be invested in other domestic or external sectors. By focusing on one industrial sector, such as the Dutch chemical industry (Mol 1995) or the Thai pulp industry (Sonnenfeld 1998), “it may be misleading to interpret rising prots coupled with declining resource use in that sector as a genuine instance of ecological improvement, because the prots generated in a specic industry may be invested elsewhere and therefore contribute substantially to expanding production and concomitant resource use and pollution in the economy as a whole” (York and Rosa 2003:279).


In an analysis of the material intensity of ve core economies from 1975 to 1996, Matthews et al. (2000) nd no evidence supporting an absolute reduction in resource throughput. Rather, they nd that the absolute quantities of resource additions increased by 16 to 29 percent. Similarly, Bunker (1996) provides evidence suggesting that economies become more efcient in their use of resources as they develop, but growth in production cancels any savings made from “efciency”. Moreover, cross-national studies reviewed in the following section provide robust evidence indicating that the most developed nations with greater levels of institutional environmental commitment tend to consume the greatest amount of resources (e.g. Jorgenson 2003a). Of more relevance to the current discussion, one must question ecological modernization theory’s treatment of overconsumption (see Carolan 2004a, 2004b). Arguably, the conceptual and analytical concern for this perspective is processes of production in which overconsumption is often treated as a non-issue (Carolan 2004a). Mol and Spaargaren (2004:264) criticize this treatment of ecological modernization theory by arguing that the challenge set forth ignores other sociological perspectives that might be helpful, but rather takes the “route or dead ends of approaches” offered by IPAT and POET models that are largely derived from ecological science. However, the latter approaches are central to environmental sociological analyses that do take a macro-comparative approach to the study of human-environment interactions (e.g. Burns, Kick, and Davis 2003; Dietz and Rosa 1994, 1997). Indeed, Spaargaren (2003) attempts to tackle issues of sustainable consumption through the adoption of a social practices model largely grounded in Giddens’ (1984, 1991) structuration theory. However, Spaargaren’s (2003) approach suffers from the same weaknesses described above in that it lacks comparative evidence across multiple cases (Fisher and Freudenburg 2001; York and Rosa 2003), and places too much evidence on micro-level processes rather than macro institutional-materialist factors most salient to issues of environmental degradation (e.g. Chase-Dunn and Jorgenson 2003a, 2003b). Moreover, Spaargaren (2003:698) offers an important caveat somewhat hidden in an epilogue: “While our analysis of sustainable consumption draws upon empirical research from European countries only, we are well aware of some of its Eurocentric biases and the problems that can occur when applying the analysis in other parts of the global network society.”


The Ecological Footprints of Nations A growing body of empirical work in the social sciences addresses structural and relational factors that explain variation in cross-national levels of consumption of all natural resources. This comprehensive approach to material consumption and its environmental impacts focuses on the ecological footprints of given populations (e.g. Jorgenson 2003a, 2004b, forthcoming a; Jorgenson and Burns 2004; Jorgenson and Rice 2005; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003). Mathis Wackernagel and associates (2000) provide national-level ecological footprint estimates (both total and per capita) for the majority of nations in the world. These footprints consist of the area of cropland required to produce the crops consumed, the area of grazing land required to produce the animal products, the area of forest required to produce the wood and paper, the area of sea required to produce the marine sh and seafood, the area of land required to accommodate housing and infrastructure, and the area of forest that would be required to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the unit’s energy consumption (Wackernagel et al. 2000). Footprints are measured in area units where one footprint equals one hectare.2 The footprint method captures indirect effects of consumption that are difcult to measure, and the approach does not require knowing the specic use of each consumed resource. York, Rosa, and Dietz (2003) model and test the effects of population, afuence, and other factors on total national-level ecological footprints. The model set forth is derived from ecological science, whereby environmental impacts are a function of population, economic afuence, and technology. Their results indicate that population and afuence (i.e. capital intensity) by themselves account for 95% of the variance in total national footprints, but the impact of population is higher in more developed countries (York et al. 2003). In a more recent study, York, Rosa, and Dietz (forthcoming) analyze cross-national variation in the ecological footprint per unit of gross domestic product. Findings suggest that there is limited variation across nations in this form of relative eco-efciency and limited plasticity in levels of footprint intensity or eco-efciency, especially among more afuent countries. In general, eco-efciency may be higher in developed countries, but the pace of domestic production and consumption outstrips the benecial environmental

2

One hectare is the equivalent of approximately 2.47 acres.


impacts associated with lower levels of consumption per unit of production (York, Dietz, and Rosa forthcoming). Jorgenson (2003, 2004a, forthcoming a) analyzes the structural causes of per capita ecological footprints, and nds that a country’s level of per capita consumption is largely a function of its relative position in the international stratication system, level of urbanization, domestic income inequality, and human capital. Through the unpacking of relative international power into its relevant geopolitical-economic components, Jorgenson (forthcoming a) empirically illustrates that economic power in the form of capital intensity, military technological power, and overall export dependence are the driving structural forces of per capita resource consumption, which further validates the treatment of international power in multidimensional terms (Jorgenson 2003a). On average, core countries contain more productive economies and articulated markets while peripheral regions generally contain more extractive oriented economies and disarticulated markets3 (Boswell and Chase-Dunn 2000; Bunker 1985). Unprocessed, natural resources are generally exported from more extractive peripheral economies to productive semiperipheral and core economies where they are either consumed in their natural form or transformed through industrial material production into commodities. These commodities generally remain in the same regions that contain articulated markets, or are transported to other core regions where – due to domestic levels of development and relative position in the world-economy – consumption levels are relatively high as well. On average, non-core countries with extractive economies are rather highly dependent on a small number of primary exports, most notably agricultural products and other natural resources (e.g. Burns, Kentor, and Jorgenson 2003; Jorgenson 2004a). The complicated processes of underdevelopment, emerging dependent industrialization,4 and economic stagnation limit the domestic levels of natural resource consumption in foreign capital dependent nations. This is further exacerbated by the classically dependent, extractive characteristics of many non-core countries (Bunker 1985; Jorgenson 2003a).

3 Disarticulated economies depend on external markets while articulated economies are able to focus on internal, domestic markets. 4 Dependent industrialization refers to industrial development resulting from foreign capital dependence in less-developed countries that focuses on the production of goods via cheap labor and less-efcient, dirty production practices for export to more-developed countries.


Populations in core nations have relative economic advantages when compared to non-core countries, which enable them to acquire and consume natural resources and produced commodities at higher levels (Burns et al. 2001; Jorgenson 2003a). Moreover, core nations possess relatively greater military size, strength, and international political dominance, which increase their abilities to maintain and reproduce unequal trade relations with less-powerful countries, and overall military size as well as continual research and development elevate both total and per capita consumption levels (Chase-Dunn 1998; Jorgenson forthcoming a; Kentor 2000). Within countries possessing higher levels of income inequality, a relatively higher proportion of a nation’s annual income is accounted for by the top ten or twenty percent of the domestic population (Beer 1999; Beer and Boswell 2002). Non-core countries with higher levels of intra-inequality also tend to possess characteristics of disarticulated extractive economies. Thus, these regions possess relatively lower per capita consumption levels since on average (1) the majority of the population has substantially lower income levels and (2) the domestic market focuses on the exportation of raw materials and commodities produced by means of dependent industrialization (Jorgenson 2003a). Many core nations with higher levels of urbanization contain productive economies of scale that favor large and integrated economic enterprises and a spatial concentration of economic and industrial activities (Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985). Biospheric resources are consumed at higher levels in core urban regions through (1) modern industrial processes of commodity production and (2) corresponding domestic articulated consumer markets (Jorgenson 2003a). These areas, some of which t the criteria of global cities, are key markets for material goods that require bio-productive elements in their production (Sassen 1991). Moreover, major urban regions require vast amounts of natural resources in their infrastructural development and continual maintenance. Most urban areas possess relatively higher literacy rates than agrarian regions. On average, educational institutions are more developed and accessible in urban areas, and higher literacy rates are a characteristic of the managerial sectors and specialized labor populations nested within urban regions of core countries in the world-economy (Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985). Generally, higher levels of literacy correspond with higher incomes, which increase the opportunities for greater material consumption. More literate populations are also subjected to increased consumerist ideologies and


contextual images of “the good life” (Princen et al. 2002) through mass media, primarily advertising, which corresponds with what many social scientists label the “cultural ideology of consumerism/consumption” (Clapp 2002; Sklair 2001). Urbanization processes in less-developed countries vary substantially from urban regions in more-developed core nations. Foreign capital dependence accelerates rates of urbanization in many peripheral nations, but only certain sectors of the domestic urban economy experience relative growth: the informal and tertiary sectors (e.g. Kentor 1981; Smith 1996). Moreover, this effect of investment dependence is accompanied by its inhibition of growth in the industrial labor sector and often results in overurbanization5 (Kentor 1981; Timberlake and Kentor 1983). Often, overurbanization leads to out-migration, also referred to as rural encroachment, which generally leads to growing pressures on domestic forested areas and water sources because of increases in slash-and-burn and slash-and-mulch activities accompanied with agricultural production (Burns et al. 1994; Burns, Kick, and Davis 2003; Jorgenson 2004c). This agricultural production is largely geared towards export to higher-consuming, more developed nations (Jorgenson and Burns 2004). Many urbanized regions in less-developed countries are largely characterized by their relative increases in outdated manufacturing sectors that are exported from more-developed cities of core nations (Grimes and Kentor 2003). This is coupled with their increased roles as nodes in the exportation of natural resources from regional extractive economies (Smith 1996; Bunker 1985). Various major cities in less-developed countries experienced domestic changes resulting from regional economic crises and the restructuring of the world-economy in the 1980s (Portes et al. 1997; Smith 1996). Furthermore, this led to a major shift in the roles many of these cities play in the global economy. More specically, this shift is largely a function of the movement from import substitution industrialization (ISI) to export oriented development (EOD) and reduced government intervention (Portes et al. 1997). These structural changes dramatically impacted levels of urban inequality, poverty, the structure of informal sectors, and spatial/residential polarization (Smith 1996).

5 Overurbanization refers to an excessive growth of a region’s urban population relative to its economic growth, usually represented by the size of the industrial labor force.


Overall, slowed rates of economic development and increased levels of domestic inequality in overurbanized regions of less-developed countries limit relative levels of domestic consumption of natural resources. This is further exacerbated by the common shift to export oriented development coupled with the continual role as nodes for the exportation of natural resources from regional extractive economies to core nations in the world-economy (Jorgenson 2004b). Jorgenson and Rice 2005 provide direct evidence of the externalization of costs by higher-consuming countries. More specically, less-developed nations with higher levels of exports sent do more-developed, higher-consuming countries exhibit relatively lower per capita levels of consumption, net of the effects of economic development/world-economy position, relevant domestic conditions, and other export characteristics. Moreover, lower-consuming countries experience higher levels environmental degradation largely caused by production processes of foodstuffs and commodities as well as raw material extraction for export to higher-consuming nations.

GIS Descriptive Analyses The studies reviewed in the preceding section provide robust evidence of the relationships between position in the world-economy, certain domestic conditions, and the ecological footprints of nations. Moreover, a clear paradox exists in which nations with lower levels of material consumption experience higher levels of particular forms of environmental degradation, including deforestation, water pollution intensity, methane emissions per capita, and growing carbon dioxide emissions (e.g. Jorgenson 2003a; Jorgenson and Burns 2004). This paradox is suggestive of the “outsourcing” of environmental costs by higher-consuming, more-powerful nations (Jorgenson forthcoming b; Jorgenson and Rice 2005). In this section, we provide visual presentations of two bivariate relationships: (1) world-economy position and per capita footprints [Figure 1], and (2) deforestation and per capita footprints [Figure 2]. Footprint measures for the year 2000 are now available that involve a more developed methodology in their calculation (Venetoulis et al. 2004). We create a categorical scaling of world-system position consistent with preexisting measures and use forest cover data for 1990 and 2000 to create average annual percent change scores (FAO 2001). We use geographic information systems [GIS] mapping techniques




to provide descriptive spatial presentations for the variable couplings of interest. Other macrosociologists underscore the use of GIS for cross-national comparisons (e.g. Chase-Dunn and Jorgenson 2003a, 2003b). The geospatial presentation of these relationships is intended to illustrate the empirical, pedagogical, and policy forming utility of GIS. Figure 1 clearly shows that the most powerful nations in the contemporary world-economy consume the greatest amount of resources, while Figure 2 shows the paradoxical relationship between consumption and domestic environmental degradation. Together, the two maps provide a clear picture of the structural dynamics involving international power, consumption, and environmental destruction. The highest consuming nations are primarily in North America, Northern and Western Europe; the peripheral and semiperipheral nations in South America, Africa, and Asia generally possess lower levels of consumption yet higher rates of deforestation.

Conclusion In this essay we discussed social scientic approaches to the study of environmental degradation that include resource consumption in their analytical schemas and empirical analyses. Various types of macro-level data that quantify different forms of resource consumption are becoming more available for comparative studies. We challenge other social scientists – particularly those adopting an international political-economic approach – to pay closer attention to the environmental and social impacts of resource consumption in their research. Only through more nuanced analyses can researchers offer policymakers accurate information to assist in the development and implementation of well-informed policies, treaties, and institutional arrangements to curb forms of uneven environmental degradation and concomitant human suffering.

Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall Ecological Degradation and the Evolution of World-Systems

Introduction In this chapter we summarize and build upon our work in comparative world-systems analysis (ChaseDunn and Hall 1997, 2000, 2002) to explore the roles played by anthropogenic ecological degradation in the evolution of world-systems over the past one hundred thousand years. Our analysis builds on work by anthropologists on population pressure and ecological degradation. Among other things, we find that the expanding spatial scale of sedentary worldsystems corresponds to the expanding scale of ecological degradation. Thus in the long run, more complex and hierarchical systems face the same problems that smaller and simpler systems faced, despite the effects of institutional developments that temporarily overcome the constraints of demography and ecology. Processes of ecological depletion have long been central in the evolution of social structures and human institutions, and are likely to continue to be so in the future. We begin by summarizing our general approach, highlighting the role of ecological processes, especially environmental degradation, in systemic social evolution. Many geo-scientists have focused on the problem of the extent to which changes in climate, soil, and biosphere over the last two hundred years have been caused by human action. A few social

232 • Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall

scientists have begun doing formal comparative research on the causal connections between world-systemic developmental processes and changes in the biosphere (e.g. Grimes and Roberts 1995; Kick et al. 1996, and the other chapters in this volume). It is helpful to place such work in the context of the roles that ecological factors and anthropogenic ecological degradation have played in the evolution of world-systems over the past 100,000 years.

World-System Evolution: Basic Concepts Because we wish to study systemic transformations, we maximize the range of possible cases by including both nomadic and sedentary human groups. In our earlier work (Hall and Chase-Dunn 1997) we began with sedentism, but now we have realized that the same principles that influenced the expansion of sedentary world-systems were operating long before the first peoples began living in hamlets and villages. Indeed it was the search for new resources that motivated our species to migrate out of Africa and to populate the whole Earth. Chase-Dunn and Hall (1997) argued that we should begin worldsystems analysis with the emergence of sedentism. But nomads do not wander aimlessly across space and so it does make sense to study world-systems composed solely of nomads. The yearly migration cycles of nomads reflect both the seasonal location of resources and interactions with other groups of humans. Both the sequence in which larger yearly migration routes become gradually smaller and the emergence of regional differences in Paleolithic toolkits show that the same processes of growing population density that affect sedentary peoples are also operating on nomads. We define world-systems as intersocietal networks in which the interactions (e.g., trade, warfare, intermarriage, and information) are important for the reproduction of the internal structures of the composite units and importantly affect changes that occur in these local structures (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997). Because the boundaries of non-state social groups (e.g., “bands” or “tribes”) are often empirically fuzzy, and because the term “society” can too easily imply a clearly bounded social group, we use the term “composite units” in our definition. World-systems are fundamentally socially structured interaction networks that include different cultural groups and polities within them. As social structures they are based on biological and ecological substrata, but they are ana-

Ecological Degradation and the Evolution of World-Systems • 233

lytically separate from, and different from, biological and ecological systems. The key difference is due to culture – the invention by humans of synthesized symbolic systems of representation and communication. We begin with an already-formed human institutional process based on linguistically constructed social roles, relationships and normative structures that had been developed by nomadic foragers since the emergence of oral language. Worldsystems involve interactions among culturally different groups, and this idea can usefully be applied to nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic age. Sedentary world-systems began when diversified foragers (hunter-gatherers) first began living most of the year in villages and they interacted with their still-nomadic neighbors. With sedentism concepts of territoriality and control of access to natural resources intensified. This intensification was motivated by a desire to mitigate the effects of over-exploitation of resources. Thus, concern with human-caused ecological depletion coincides with the development of world-systems. The importance of deforestation and other types of ecological depletion as factors in long-term social change have long been recognized by social scientists (e.g. Chew 2000, 2001). What we add is an extension to before the time of the invention of the emergence of states. But what is a world-system, and where are its boundaries? A. Spatial Boundaries: A Multicriteria Approach Spatially bounding world-systems necessarily must proceed from a specific locale. While all human societies, even nomadic hunter-gatherers, interact with neighboring societies, not all intersocietal interactions have had global consequences. Here we use “world” in “world-system” in the way Wallerstein (1974a, 1974b) originally intended, as a self-contained system, not necessarily global (Earth-wide) in extent. We use the notion of “fall-off” of effects over space to bound the networks of interaction that importantly impinge upon any focal locale. The world-system of which any locality is a part includes those peoples whose actions in production, communication, warfare, alliance and trade have a large and interactive impact on that locality. Interactions must be two-way and regularized to be systemic. One-shot deals do not a system make. From this perspective world-systems were small regional affairs that gradually became larger as long-distance transportation and communications technology developed. Clearly, economic forms of interaction are important in all world-systems. Of these, bulk-goods exchanges that form an intersocietal division of labor


are constitutive forms of interconnection (Wallerstein 1974a, 1974b). However, we also agree with Jane Schneider (1977) that luxury goods can be very important for the reproduction of power structures. Prestige goods networks typically are much larger than bulk goods networks. Clearly, too, regularized political-military conflicts and/or alliances are important in all systems. The political/military network is typically intermediate in spatial size between the bulk and prestige goods networks. Finally, we note that networks of information flows including such intangibles as ideology, religion, technical information, and culture can be an important from of systemic interaction. Thus, we propose four types of interaction for spatially bounding world-systems: • • • •

bulk goods exchange network (BGN) prestige goods exchange network (PGN) political/military exchange network (PMN) information exchange network (IN)

Figure 1 gives a graphic representation of typical nested relations among these networks. Occasionally, as in both the modern global world-system and some earlier geographically isolated systems (e.g., the Hawaiian Islands), these four networks converge to become of similar spatial scale.

P M N

Information Network

BGN

Prestige Goods Net

BGN + Bulk Goods Network; PMN = Political/Military Network Figure 1. Spatially Bounding World-Systems with Interaction Networks.


B. Core/Periphery Relations We divide potential core/periphery relations into two aspects: (1) core/periphery differentiation exists when two societies are in systemic interaction with one another and one of these has higher population density and/or greater complexity than the other; (2) core/periphery hierarchy exists when one society dominates or exploits another. While these two aspects often go together, but there are important instances of reversal. We make this analytical distinction to facilitate empirical investigations of actual intersocietal relations. We also note that the question of core/periphery relations needs to be asked at each level of network interaction. Core/periphery relations can be quite complex. Mitchell Allen (1996: Chapter 1) developed the concept of a “contested periphery,” a peripheral region for which two non-contiguous core regions compete. He finds that once an area has been incorporated into one world-system it can more easily be moved into another world-system than if it were being incorporated for the first time. Not surprisingly, contested peripheries have more leverage in responding to core demands. Furthermore, what is peripheral in one world-system can become semiperipheral in another. A semiperipheral region may be: 1. one that mixes both core and peripheral forms of organization; 2. spatially located between two or more competing core regions; 3. mediate activities between core and peripheral areas; 4. one in which institutional features are in some ways intermediate between those forms found in core and peripheral regions. 5. recently founded societies that are located near the edge of an older core region. All world-systems do no necessarily have a semiperiphery, and some may have several different kinds. We leave the existence, number, and types of intermediate levels as an empirical problem in need of further investigation. C. Semiperipheral Development World-systems have gotten larger in terms of population size, population density, territorial extent, absolute and per capita productivity. Growth necessarily entails absorption of formerly external areas, the incorporation of new peoples and territories and/or the merger of formerly autonomous worldsystems. Throughout these processes no one core area remains a core area


indefinitely. Development is uneven. Old cores are replaced, often by formerly semiperipheral societies. The semiperiphery is fertile ground for social, organizational, and technical innovation and has an advantageous location for the establishment of new centers of power (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: Ch. 5). In particular, secondary state-formation on the marches of empires has frequently been recognized as a semiperipheral phenomenon that is related to the rise and fall of empires and the shift of hegemony within interstate systems (e.g. Mann 1986). A broadly similar phenomenon occurs among chiefdoms (e.g. Kirch 1984:204). City-states, many of which engage in merchant capitalism and production capitalism, are one special type of semiperipheral society. They often mediated trade between the core and peripheral regions. Sometimes they manipulated this position in order to maintain political and economic autonomy, although they were often swallowed up by imperial expansion (Frankenstein 1979). Some important examples are: e.g. Dilmun, Old Assur, Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Malacca, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Antwerp, and the cities of the Hanseatic League. Frequently they were agents of commodification and commercialization within the predominantly tributary world-systems.

World-Systems Evolution We see world-systemic evolution as open-ended and path dependent. That is, it occurs within the context of specific historical legacies and conditions. Important bifurcations and discontinuities of development, rapid transformations, and instances of devolution are normal characteristics of social change (see Sanderson 1990). A world-system is composed of the totality of interactions that constitute the social, economic, cultural, and political system. Thus, world-systems analysis must attend to the complex dialectics that link social change within composite units with the entire system. Causality can run from the system to the parts, but also from the parts to the system. World-systemic evolution has three major elements: 1. semiperipheral development; 2. an “iteration” model that involves demographic and ecological variables as causes of hierarchy formation, economic intensification and technological change; and 3. transformations of modes of accumulation.


The main long-term forces of world-systemic evolution are population growth, ecological degradation, and population pressure. Population growth, other things equal, causes the decline of natural resources – ecological degradation because more people use more natural resources. The type and scale of ecological degradation varies with the nature of production technology and the scale of the exploitation of natural resources. Population pressure results when resource scarcities require people to increase the amount of effort necessary to meet their needs, e.g. as a resource becomes depleted it take more labor to produce the same amount of a needed product. It is not necessary for resources to be completely destroyed to promote change. Rather, it is only necessary that more effort becomes necessary to obtain the same return. Yet, people usually prefer to continue in the way that they know as long as the increase in effort is not too great, what George Zipf (1949) called the principle of least effort. More production leads to greater environmental degradation. This occurs because more resources are extracted, and because of the polluting consequences of production and consumption activities. Nomadic hunter-gatherers depleted the herds of big game and Polynesian horticulturalists deforested

Semiperipheral Development

+

population growth

+

technological change

intensification

+ –

+

environmental degradation

+

hierarchy formation

–

+

+

– population pressure

–

conflict Geographical, botanical and zoological capital

+

+

– circumscription

+

+

emigration

Figure 2. Basic Iteration Model of World-System Evolution.


many a Pacific island. Environmental degradation is not a new phenomenon. Only its global scale is new. When increased effort fails or becomes too costly in terms of labor time or other expenditures, emigration can be an attractive alternative. Sometimes, however, suitable new locations are not available, either due to a lack of desirable new sites or because of effective resistance from existing occupants of desirable sites. In such cases of social and/or environmental circumscription (Carneiro 1970) people cannot easily migrate to solve these problems and so competition for resources within and between societies increases. This usually leads to increased conflict. Sometimes endemic warfare functions as a demographic regulator by reducing the population density and alleviating (temporarily) population pressure. But in other cases new hierarchies and/or larger polities emerge (hierarchy formation) to regulate the use of resources (e.g. property, law), and/or the invention and implementation of new technologies of production (e.g. horticulture, irrigation, manufacturing, etc.) that allow larger numbers of people to live within a given area. Even where such solutions are found, eventually population grows and causes the same problems to reemerge on a larger scale. Hence, the process is “iterative.” In regions in which no solution emerges the system may cycle around the lower conflictive end of the iteration model. Semiperipheral actors are usually the agents of political expansion, hierarchy formation and technological development. Competition, conflict and semiperipheral development are world-systemic processes, not societal ones. As Jared Diamond (1998) points out, all continents around the world did not start with the same animal and plant resources. In Western Asia both plants (barley and wheat) and animals (sheep, goats, cows, and oxen) were more easily domesticated than the plants and animals of Africa and the New World. Since domesticated plants and animals can more easily diffuse lattitudinally (East and West) than longitudinally (North and South), these inventions spread more quickly to Europe and East Asia than they did to Africa. These exogenous factors of zoological and botanical capital affected the timing and speed of hierarchy formation and technological development. As well, climate change and geographical obstacles and opportunities affected the development of transportation and communications technologies. Many analysts contend that the early large state that emerged on the Nile was greatly facilitated by the ease of controlling transportation and communications in


that linear environment, while the more complicated geography of Mesopotamia stabilized the system of city-states and slowed the emergence of a core-wide empire. Patrick Kirch (1984) contends that it was the difficult geography of the Marquesa Islands (short steep valleys separated by high mountains and treacherous coasts) that prevented the emergence of islandwide paramount chiefdoms, and kept the Marquesas in the “nasty bottom” of the iteration model. This model, illustrated in Figure 2 above, involves complex feedback loops, and by no means is meant to imply that bigger hierarchies or technological development inevitably occur in each region. Primary (or pristine) states emerged in interaction with other societies. Virtually all of them occurred in a context that had already experienced the formation of complex chiefdoms. Thus, as with ecological succession in the biosphere, higher orders of complexity can only emerge once the soil of institutional development has been brought to a certain level of complexity by earlier development. But this kind of succession does not reoccur in the same place. If it did Iraq would still be the center of the world-system. Rather it is uneven in space, with the semiperipheries out on the edge performing the greatest leaps in the creation of new high levels of complexity and techniques of power. Ecology structures the economics of least effort because it limits available resources and potential alternative resources. As world-systems become more complex and hierarchical these ecological limits and potentials change their spatial scale because of changes in social organization and technology. The comparative world-systems perspective allows us to see that the scale of ecological constraints grows with the expanding scale of intersocietal networks and intensification. Thus, continental and global ecological constraints become more important as world-systems increased in size. Contrary to what some social evolutionists have argued (e.g. Lenski and Nolan 2004); complex societies do not transcend ecological constraints. As the scale of ecological constraints expands, their importance as intermittent constraints on social change does not diminish overall (for detailed history for these processes among states see Chew 2003). Technological innovations act back on population growth by increasing the number of people who can be fed and sheltered within a given amount of land. This stimulates population increase, or more typically reduces the incentives to maintain cultural and social regulations on population growth. So population density tends to increase to the point where resources are again


pressed. Then the whole cycle goes around again. As systems become larger, and especially as they become more diversified, regulation or maintenance of the overall system becomes more complex. Those systems that develop hierarchical structures are generally better able to manage these complexities. We are not proposing a teleological process. Increasing complexity does not cause hierarchy formation or extension. Rather, among systems that face complex regulation, those that develop hierarchical systems tend to survive more often than systems that do not. But the notion of semiperipheral development provides an important gloss on this generalization. How and when does a high level of conflict created by population pressure and ecological degradation in a circumscribed setting result in the emergence of a new level of hierarchy? We note that hierarchy-formation by conquest occurred most frequently when a semiperipheral polity conquered an old core. The iteration model combines core-periphery hierarchy with considerations of “internal” stratification and class struggle. Semiperipheral polities in precapitalist world-systems generally had less internal stratification than older core polities. Older core regions developed greater internal inequalities as well as greater divisions among different factions in the ruling elites. Semiperipheral marcher states (and semiperipheral marcher chiefdoms) usually had less class inequality, more solidarity among elites and more solidarity between leaders and followers. This gave them an important military advantage over older core regions and allowed them to conquer entire core regions and construct larger polities.1 Because semiperipheral polities often occupied regions that were less ecologically desirable than those occupied by older core regions (e.g., Kirch 1984), the application of core techniques of production reached their ecological limitations more quickly. This motivated polities in stressed regions to take the risks associated with attempts to conquer the older core chiefdoms and/or to experiment with new technologies. This model does not explain the exact kind of social change that takes place. Nor does it explain where or exactly when social change takes place. But it does provide a processual backdrop for explaining the most general features of human social change – increasing population density, scale, and hierarchy of social organization. Just as earlier hierarchies and technological changes were responses to the problems created by ecological degradation, popula-

1 Ibn Khaldun’s (1967) theory of dynastic cycles is an important subtype of this process. See Turchin (2003) and Chase-Dunn and Anderson (2005).


tion pressure and intensified conflict, larger empires, greater long-distance economic integration and the development of commodified goods, labor, land and wealth were also responses to these same problems. The difference is that in the iteration model the institutional inventions – larger empires, larger markets, and capitalism – temporarily altered the way in which the iteration model worked. This was especially true during periods of expansion. The development of these institutional structures allowed population pressure to temporarily affect hierarchy formation and technological development directly rather than through the path of circumscription and intensified conflict. The demographic and ecological constraints reappear in periods of contractions, and especially in those extreme contractions that Tainter (1988) calls collapse. This modifies the model in Figure 2 by adding positive arrows directly from population pressure to both hierarchy formation and technological change (see Figure 3). When market mechanisms articulate growing scarcities (e.g. deforestation in England), they provide incentives for new kinds of production (e.g. the coal industry). These institutional inventions are responses to the constraints and opportunities created by ecological degradation and population pressure. They allow for greater population growth and density by temporarily bypassing the conflictive path in the iteration model. We say this is temporary because eventually population pressures reemerge to create problems on a scale that the new institutional structures cannot handle. This leads to a return to the conflictive lower section of the iteration model. Similarly, in some cases ecological degradation operated directly on technological intensification rather than by means of increasing conflict. Once the market mechanism is working, resource scarcities may provoke substitutions avoiding the disruptive processes of conflict and violent competition. Rapid population growth also causes disruption in modern societies. Jack Goldstone (1991) demonstrates that both reform movements and revolutions originate in the effects of rapid population growth and a consequent increase in state expenditures beyond revenues. He argues that, as the revenue gap increases, the state must either raise new taxes or curtail expenditures. The growth of elite population (which is often greater than among the non-elite population) heightens competition for resources and positions. Rising grain prices create new wealth holders who, if blocked by traditional or new barriers, become marginal elites. Population growth increases the proportion of young persons, who due to un- or under-employment become an impoverished


population growth

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technological change

intensification

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–

+ hierarchy formation

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environmental degradation

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Figure 3. Iteration Model with Shortcutting Institutions.

group with high potential for mass action. The increase in poverty further strains state resources. As conditions deteriorate, elites and commoners lose confidence in the state and elites struggle for control and promote reform. If a formerly marginal elite seizes power and if the prevailing culture has an eschatological tradition, reform radicalizes into revolution. If any of these components is absent or very weak, reform or regime collapse are typical results. Goldstone’s demographic analysis is congruent with the iteration model. However, we disagree with his claim that world-system processes do not affect state crises. The East Asian and West Asian/Mediterranean regions he studies had been linked by long-distance trade into a single PGN at least as early as 400 B.C.E. (see Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: Chapter 8). In the first few centuries of the common era this linkage became sufficiently strong to transmit pathogens from Central Asia to China and Rome, unleashing epidemics in both (McNeill 1976). This recurred in the century after the Mongols temporarily merged Afroeurasia into a single PMN when the Black Death swept through Europe and epidemics occurred in China. Goldstone acknowledges that the severe population losses brought by the Black Death set the conditions for a rather spectacular population increase a couple of centuries later when European populations had built up immunities and climate changes favored increased agricultural production. But Goldstone does not acknowledge that the pathways along which the pathogens spread were precisely those by which the Eurasian PGN was linked. That is,


the occurrence of epidemics was not an exogenous, or randomly induced, change, but one that worked along predictable world-systemic pathways. Now when we add to this the linkages implied by the correlation of urban and empire growth/decline phases in the Mediterranean/West Asian and East Asian PMNs (Chase-Dunn, Manning, and Hall 2000; Chase-Dunn and Manning 2002), the synchronies of the revolutions Goldstone examined are very likely produced by larger system-wide processes. Rather than abandoning the basic iteration model for completely different explanations of how transformations take place in complex and hierarchical systems, we explain why the iteration model moves back stage to geopolitical and capitalist dynamics only to come forth again during periods of collapse and crisis. The basic demographic, economic, and ecological constraints posited in the iteration model do not become irrelevant. Rather, institutional superstructures such as states and capitalist accumulation temporarily overcome these constraints by raising the pace of spatial expansion and technological development.2 But eventually even these institutional mechanisms run into limitations posed by the material substratum of demographic, economic, and ecological factors. These operate somewhat differently in the different transformations, but they do not ever completely transcend the basic iteration model. To recapitulate, population pressure affects hierarchy formation and technological change directly once states and commodities have come into existence rather than through the mechanisms of conflict and circumscription. But the path of causality that goes through conflict and circumscription is yet again important even in the presence of states and commodities during periods of institutional breakdown and systemic collapse. In this sense there is a single underlying model of transformations, though it works somewhat differently once states and markets have become widespread social forms.

East/West synchrony of urban and empire growth/decline phases We have demonstrated that city growth and empire growth and decline phases occur synchronously in the Central (West Asian and Mediterranean) and the East Asian PMNs (Chase-Dunn et al. 2000; Chase-Dunn and Manning 2002).

2 In the modern system David Harvey (2003) calls this the “spatio-temporal fix” that is generated by recurrent crises of capitalist accumulation. Our point is that earlier systems resolved their contradictions in somewhat similar ways.


Figure 4 shows the territorial sizes of the largest empires in the Central and East Asian PMNs from 1500 B.C.E. to 1750 C.E. are temporally correlated. We also found that the intermediate Indic PMN did not experience a similar sequence of growth and decline phases. The synchrony of the growth of cities and empires in the Central and East Asian PMNs remains a puzzle begging for an explanation. One possibility is northern Eurasian-wide climatic fluctuations. India, in an equatorial latitude south of the Himalayas, may have experienced very different climatic fluctuations. Does climate change cause urban change, or does the expansion of agriculture associated with urban growth cause climate change? It is possible that expanded agricultural activity, and/or deforestation due to human exploitation, may have affected local and regional rainfall patterns and ground water levels (see Chew 2001). Thus, population density, mediated by intense agriculture and forest exploitation, and hence urbanization, may have affected climactic fluctuations.

3000 B.C.E.

??

M i s s i s s i p p i a n P M N

A e g e a n

?? ?? P e r u v i a n pmn

M e s o a m e r i c a n

W e s t A f r i c a n

P M N

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E g y p t i a n PMN

Mesopotamian PMN

↓

West Asian Phase of Central pmn

P M N

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Greco-Roman Phase of Central PMN

Medieval Phase of Central PMN

?? I n d i c P M N

?? I n d o n e s i a n

?? E a s t

P M N

P M N

Western Phase of Central PMN Global Phase of Central PMN 2000 C.E. Figure 4. Synchrony of Empire Sizes in East and West Asia.

A s i a n

?? J a p a n e s e pmn


We must note, however, that micro parasites could also be an underlying cause, spread along trade networks. As trade increased in density and volume, formerly isolated disease pools came into contact, unleashing virgin soil epidemics (Crosby 1972, 1986). These epidemics can unleash all sorts of social, economic, and political changes (Goldstone 1991). As pathogens and hosts adapt to each other, these diseases become less lethal, and populations recover. Trade then resumes, and the cycle can repeat as other, formerly isolated disease pools come into contact, or as new diseases spread along trade networks. Another possible explanation may be the world-systemic role played by Central Asian steppe nomads in linking both ends of the Eurasian continent (Frank 1992; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: Ch. 8). The Mongol Empire briefly brought Western Asia and China into a single polity in the thirteenth century CE (See Figure 4). Thus, peripheral migration and steppe-empire formation and their affects on the long distance trade carried along the Silk Roads could be the explanation of urban and empire synchrony. It is wellknown that Central Asian steppe nomads importantly interacted with agrarian states for thousands of years before the rise of the Mongols (Barfield 1989). Finally, work by population ecologists shows that very small process, such as trade, pathogens, climate etc. can induce synchronization of population cycles over great distances (for a review see Turchin and Hall 2003). Figure 5 is a diagram that inventories all the hypothesized causes mention above.

The Modern World-System and Transformations Our comparative world-systems approach suggests some tentative conclusions about the nature of transformations of modes of accumulation and possibilities for the future. Social and ecological circumscriptions were important features of the evolutionary changes that took place in tributary modes. Circumscription emphasizes regional contextual factors that facilitated or constrained state formation and the intensification of production activities. The logistical factors involved in long-distance transportation and communications constrained the emergence of larger empires. Clearly, there is little point in conquering a territory if little surplus is produced there (unless it is a strategic link to a richer zone or an important trade node). Also, it is far easier to extract surplus from a region that already has an existing tributary structure. Thus, both the growth of surplus production and the spread of institutional structures of exploitation facilitated the


Global Climate Change West Asia

Central Asia

Local Climate Change

Local Climate Change

Local Climate Change ?

?

Pasturage and Herds

Agriculture

Agriculture

Human Population

Human Population

Warfare Empire Formation

East Asia

City Growth/ Decline

Steppe Empire Formation

Human Population

Warfare

(Trade, Epidemics)

Empire Formation

City Growth/ Decline

Figure 5. Synchronization of East/West Growth/Decline Phases.

construction of larger and larger state structures. As agriculture and states spread they made possible the erection of larger political structures. Conversely, one state’s possibilities for expansion by conquest were constrained if neighboring states were powerful enough to prevent conquest. Thus, contextual features could both constrain and facilitate expansion. Too little development in adjacent regions made expansion unprofitable, while too much development prevented it. The costs of escape by emigration from large states increased as people became more dependent upon states for the protection and the maintenance of productive infrastructure. The tendency for peoples to attempt to escape hierarchies could be counter-balanced by either coercive force or the infrastructural supports and trade-based surpluses that the tributary empires were able to muster. Contextual factors were also involved in the emergence of capitalist institutions and their spread. Production for exchange was much easier once more land-efficient technologies of production became widespread, which in turn facilitated the growth of markets. Contextual factors made possible the eventual concentration of many capitalist city-states in a single region – the European “dorsal spine.” One was


the absence in Europe of a tributary state sufficiently powerful to extract tribute or taxes or to threaten the operations of the city-states. Another important contextual factor was the existence of the much larger Asian empires. The institutional heritage of contract law, money, and market institutions from the Roman Empire and the opportunities for trading with the larger Afroeurasian system strongly stimulated the European cities despite their mutual proximity. Local and regional markets were too small to stimulate such growth by themselves. Whereas the tributary modes emerged and developed over the tops of the kin-based modes, the capitalist mode (commodification) emerged within spaces inside and between the tributary states. The capitalist mode did not, however, become predominant in any region until capitalist states emerged in the core of the European subregion. Though there had been many semiperipheral capitalist city-states, the first capitalist core state was the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. The common feature here is that, even though transformational institutions tended to arise first in the semiperiphery, it was necessary for core polities to become agents of a mode of accumulation before it could become the predominant mode. To sum up, transformations involve circumscription, systemic contradictions, uneven development, and core-periphery relations. Agents of transformation most often come from semiperipheral regions. A comparative approach suggests that while some tributary states (such as Rome) needed to expand in order to survive, capitalism intensifies this systemic feature to a new level. Capitalism handles this by geographical expansion, by commodifying more and more aspects of life, and by paying some workers more so that they can purchase additional products. Geographical expansion of the capitalist system has reached global limits. Commodification still has room for expansion. But eventually capitalist expansion will be constrained, which will exacerbate the contradictions of capitalism. Environmental degradation continues to push new technological innovations and to exacerbate population pressure.3 We have already argued that the spatial scale of environmental degradation increases with the size of the system. The case of oil reserves reminds us that depletion is not the only way

3 Jason Moore (2003) points to how Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974b) account of how modern agrarian capitalism emerged in Europe paid close attention to environmental history.


in which degradation operates on economic and political incentives. Degradation is also caused by the side effects of consumption. Once the system has become global the possibilities of escape from ecological ruin are greatly reduced. Global industrial development wrecks the environment on a global scale, whereas earlier intensification wrecked it on a more local or regional scale. Taking a world-systemic approach to these issues also helps analysts to cut through the tedious debates between doctrinaire Marxists and doctrinaire Malthusians. Both extremes are wrong. The Marxists are right in noting that population growth is almost never a truly independent variable. Rather, it is deeply embedded in social structures, especially those that reproduce class and other inequalities. Yet the Malthusians are right in noting that population pressure is often a key variable in social change. By contextualizing both approaches within a larger system their interconnections can be explored more fruitfully. Also, noting that the ecological impacts of societies increase in scale as world-systems expand helps us understand both the romantic idealization of ecological awareness of “tribal” societies and blindness of modern states to ecological issues. Small societies are embedded in smaller and more visible feedback processes, so often they must attend to ecological impacts or perish. Conversely, the contemporary global system is so complex and so large that tracing ecological connections has until recently been all but impossible.

Future Transformations What do these observations suggest about possible transformation of the world-system in the next few centuries? The invention of the first states took place about five millennia after humans first became sedentary. The rise to dominance of capitalism took nearly another five millennia. Despite it relative newness, capitalism has a much higher rate of social change and contains such severe internal contradictions that it is unlikely to continue for more than a few centuries. What might come next? How? Why? Clearly, the contemporary world-system is far from the best of all possible worlds. Exploitation, oppression, and warfare are endemic and systemically reproduced. The proportion of national populations killed in “industrial” wars has risen geometrically (Galtung 1980). Rapid technological advancement has produced a species-threatening horror (McNeill 1982). Donella Meadows


et al. (1992) suggest ecological disaster as population exceeds global resources. Political ecologists have argued that capitalism is fundamentally different from earlier modes of accumulation with respect to its relationship to the natural environment (O’Conner 1989; Foster 2000). There is little doubt that the expansion and deepening of the modern system of global capitalism has had much larger effects on the biogeosphere than any earlier system. There are many more people using hugely increased amounts of energy and raw materials, and the global nature of the human system has global impacts on the environment. Smaller systems were able to migrate when they depleted local supplies or polluted local natural resources and this relationship with the environment has been a driving force of human social change since the Paleolithic. But is all this due only to capitalism’s greater size and intensity, or is there also something else which encourages capitalists to “externalize” the natural costs of production and distribution and produces a destructive “metabolic rift” between capitalism and nature (Foster 2000)? Capitalism, in addition to being about market exchange and commodification, is also fundamentally about a certain kind of property – private property in the major means of production. Within modern capitalism there has been an oscillating debate about the virtues of public and private property, with the shift since the 1980s toward the desirability of “privatization” being only the most recent round of a struggle that has gone on since the enclosures of the commons in Europe. The ongoing debate about the idea of the “commons” – collective property – is germane to understanding the relationship between capitalism and nature. The claims about the commons being a “tragedy” because no one cares enough to take care of and invest in public property carries a powerful baggage that supports the notion that private ownership is superior. Private owners are supposed to have an interest in the future value of their property, and so they will keep it up, and possibly invest in it. But whether or not this is better than a more public or communal form of ownership depends entirely on how these more collective forms of property are themselves organized. Capitalism seems to contain a powerful incentive to externalize the natural costs of production and other economic activities, and individual capitalists are loathe to pay for the actual environmental costs of their activities as long as their competitors are getting a free ride. This is a political issue in which core countries in the modern capitalist system have been far more successful


at building institutions for protecting the national environment than non-core countries. And, indeed, there is convincing evidence that core countries export pollution and environmental degradation to the non-core (Jorgenson 2004). Certainly modern capitalism has been more destructive of the natural environment than any earlier system. But it is important to know whether or not this is completely due to its effects on technology and the rapidity of economic growth, or whether or not there is an additional element that is connected to the specific institutions and contradictions of capitalism. Technological development, demographic expansion and economic growth cause problems for the environment. But are there better alternatives? And is capitalism more destructive of the environment than earlier modes of accumulation net of its demographic and technological effects? Undoubtedly the human species can and must do better at inventing institutions that protect the geobiosphere. Regarding earlier modes of accumulation, certainly some cultures did better than others at protecting the environment. The institutions of law, the state and property evolved, in part, as a response to environmental degradation (recall our “iteration model” above). It is not obvious that contemporary capitalist institutions are worse than earlier ones in this regard. The main problem is that the scale and scope of environmental degradation has increased so greatly that very powerful institutions and social movements will be required to bring about a sustainable human civilization. Capitalism may not be capable of doing this, and so those theoretical perspectives that point to the need for a major overhaul may be closer to the point than those that contend that capitalism itself can be reformed to become sustainable. One solution would be the development of a world state capable of regulating these processes. But how might that occur, and what kind of world state would it be? According to the iteration model a period of conflict typically precedes state formation. But such a period of disorder is likely to be fatal to human life. Maybe a near-catastrophe could create the political will among survivors to inspire formation of a world state, as suggested by Wagar (1999). Seen in a long run comparative perspective, the struggle for democratic socialism within core states, though currently in the doldrums, could be another path to systemic transformation. Contemporary involvement in electoral politics, coalition-formation, and in reformist movements represents an adjustment to the current period of neo-liberal ideological hegemony. As we have seen, a new mode of accumulation builds by accretion in the interstices


of an old one. The continuation of capitalist uneven development will likely spur new broad populist, anti-systemic movements. Certainly capitalism developed as a subsystem in the interstices of another mode of production. Its individualist and partial rationality thrives in a competitive and conflictive setting. In contrast, democratic socialism is a mode of accumulation in which the whole arena of interaction needs to be organized on a collectively rational and democratic basis in which reciprocity and politically articulated redistribution play an important role. The interaction of capitalism and socialism has produced an interactive spiral in which the spatial scale of organization of each has increased in interaction with the other (see Boswell and Chase-Dunn 2000 for much more elaborate discussions of this possibility). The technological dynamism of global capitalism and the extraordinary costs of the modern arms race led to the reincorporation of the Soviet Union into the international polity of the capitalist states and to the partial reincorporation of China. Thus, capitalism has evolved partly as a result of the socialist challenges mounted over the past 200 years. Are these challenges now finished with the ideological hegemony of neo-liberalism? We think not, because the structural causes of socialist challenges – uneven development, increasing inequalities, and environmental degradation – are still prevalent. Despite the global scale of capitalist organization and the new forms of production that are characterized as “flexible accumulation” we expect that both old and new forms of resistance will again play an important part on the stage of world politics. What about semiperipheral development? We have already noted that the communist states were semiperipheral. Class struggles in the capitalist worldsystem have been dampened by nationalism in both the core and in the periphery. In the core the domination of the periphery and competition with other core states have operated to reinforce nationalism at the expense of working class solidarity in several ways. In the periphery peasants and workers have either been suppressed by elites in alliance with the core or they have made common nationalist alliances with elements of the elite against the core. So class struggle was either suppressed or crosscut in both the core and the periphery. In the semiperiphery class struggles have been less dampened by the coreperiphery hierarchy. The contradictory interests of semiperipheral elites and masses regarding alternative development paths have provided contexts in


which strong peasant/worker parties could come to state power. The Russian and Chinese revolutions are the best examples, but the Mexican revolution and populist regimes in Brazil and India also fit this model to some extent. The industrialization of the semiperiphery has already led to important labor movements and electoral challenges. It is likely that these forces will continue to grow. The communications technology that the capitalist world-system has produced can greatly facilitate the formation of world society while at the same time allowing people to understand one another’s differences. The emergence of global democracy will require more than an international civil society composed of national elites, though this is how it is emerging. Trade unions and socialist parties need to understand the dynamics of the modern worldsystem and the prospects for transforming it into a socialist system. This will require organization at the global level, though that must be linked to local and regional organizations. Communications technology will help in this grand organizational task. But a clear understanding of the developmental dynamics of the capitalist world-system will also be necessary. The processes of globalization are an important arena of contention for ideological and organizational hegemony. Despite the current hegemony of neo-liberalism we are optimistic about the prospects for world socialism if we can survive the next window of vulnerability without bringing on a nuclear holocaust or environmental catastrophe. World state formation, international and transnational socialist organization and forms of exchange are, thus, our prescriptions for political action. Further comparative study of world-systems and earlier systemic transformations will help us to survive and to build the institutions of a more peaceful and just world. We have made great advances in the natural and biological sciences that have transformed us from servants of the gods to kings of the jungle. Social science can now help us to understand our own past and to shape a more harmonious and wise collective future.

Sing C. Chew Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution1

Introduction System crises represent phases in world history when the continued reproduction of the world system is in peril. Over world history, these crisis moments are rare. When they do occur, these phases are extremely impactful and transformative in terms of geographic coverage and time duration. These crisis periods therefore provide opportunities for us to understand the dynamics of world-system evolution and transformation (long-term social change). Conceptually, the factors and processes that trigger system crises over the last five thousand years of recorded human history have not been fully understood. Their identifications have relied on analyses of the political economy of the world system in the 1970s and 1980s, and on the whole, are based on Marxian crisis theory. The outcome of this is that several interrelated and intrinsic factors have been distinguished providing conditions for the generation of barriers to system reproduction: overproduction/under consumption, crisis of state authority and competition, social exploitation and polarization leading to antisystemic social movements, and crisis

1 Revised paper presented to the American Institute of Archaeology, San Francisco, January 3, 2004. Many thanks to Greg Gibson/Purdue University for assistance in the pollen analysis profiles.

254 • Sing C. Chew

of sustainability. Clearly, the first three factors relate to the dynamics occurring at the social (world) system level with the fourth focusing on the interaction between the social (world) system and the natural system.2 With the first three factors being anthropogenic in origin, system crisis and transformations are considered to have socioeconomic and political roots.3 Such a basis recently has led some, for example, to rationalize along Marxian lines that the “rise of the global economy (italics in original) as structurally determinant” of the world-system transformation and reproduction process (Robinson 2004: 10). Notwithstanding such a declaration of economy as being determinant in “the last instance” in terms of system reproduction there is a need to treat Nature as part of the equation in understanding system dynamics. In addition to the widely accepted capital/labor relation contradiction, there is also a second basic contradiction of capitalism: the capitalist system’s insatiable consumption of natural resources leading to crisis conditions. If the latter is the case, on several occasions, I (see, e.g., Chew 1997, 2002) have suggested that based on a materialist conception of history we should reintroduce Nature back into social analysis, and perhaps it is “ecology in command” in the last instance that induces system crisis conditions. The rationale for this is based simply on the material fact that the social system requires the natural system to reproduce itself.4 Besides the above considerations, it is also clear the duration of these worldsystem crisis phases have not been worked out clearly. Different duration for each crisis phase has been proposed according to the different views of worldsystem development (Wallerstein 1974, 1980; Frank and Gills 1992; Modelski and Thompson 1999; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chew 2001).5 Time-wise, the duration stretches from 50 years to a thousand years in length. Such differences are based on a number of factors and conditions such as the span of historical epochs, empirical verification of economic stagnation, sociopolitical trends, and natural system indicators such as the rate of deforestation. In addition to these differences in the duration of a system crisis or B-phase, there are also different interpretations of system crises or B-phases. The com2

For the first three anthropogenic factors see for ex., (Wallerstein 1974, 1980; Frank 1993;). For the issue of sustainability, see for ex., Chew (2001). 3 For the Bronze Age crisis see for ex., Friedman (2003). 4 This argument falls flat if we consider an idealist conception of world history. 5 For an overview of these varied world-system(s) position see Denemark et al. (2000), and Chew and Knottnerus (2003).

Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution • 255

mon understanding of a system crisis or B-phase is that it is a period of extended economic stagnation most often associated with Kondratieff long waves.6 In this context, the duration is about 50 years. Other determinations have indicated that the duration is as long as 200 to 300 years and that these B-phases can be found as far back as five thousand years ago (see, e.g., Frank and Gills 1993).7 These interpretations focused more on the recurring nature and underplaying the specific character of each particular crisis phase. It means opting more for a nomothetic explanation instead of an idiographic one. Instead of a nomothetic from of explanation, a more idiographic interpretation of a system crisis is to view it as a logistic signifying not only an economic crisis period (price fluctuations, etc.) but a phase demarcating specific characteristics of system transition, reorganization, and consolidation depending on the particular logistic in question. The work of Immanuel Wallerstein (1980) comes to mind. For example, according to Wallerstein (1980:25, 31) the widely known system crisis (the crisis of feudalism) between A.D. 1300 and A.D.

1450 was a systemic, social structural reorganization, whereas the crisis of A.D. 1600 to A.D. 1750 was different. It was “a period of consolidation” of social relations and structures. Such a distinction between specific system crises introduces the element of contingent or conjunctural factors (e.g., the breakdown of feudal relations) specific for each crisis period that condition the downturn phase. It elicits the combination of recurring factors with contingent factors of the period in order to understand the system crisis. This line of thinking is represented not only in Wallerstein’s work (1974, 1980), but is also found in Modelski and Thompson’s contributions (1999). Besides pinpointing recurring conditions that underlie a system crisis such as deurbanization, barbarian invasions, and political hegemonic struggles; they have also suggested contingent factors such as writing, technological innovation, and cultural ideas (religion) that form a matrix circumscribing system crisis and transition.8 System crises, therefore, are transition points of system adap-

tation and evolution.

6

Occurring with the economic stagnation, one also finds sociopolitical upheavals and changes. 7 Such a position suggests that world-system development started over five thousand years ago (Frank and Gills 1992, 1993). 8 Technological innovations and cultural ideas can also be treated as generic concepts and be recurring factors, and specific innovations and cultural ideas such as computers or iron smelting or democratic ideas can be viewed as contingent factors as well.


The above so far distinguishes recurring and contingent factors of an anthropogenic nature that condition system crises. What about those of ecological and natural origins? Ecologically stressed conditions (deforestation, soil erosion, desiccation, etc.), climate changes, and tectonic shifts/volcanicity have been introduced as factors that can precipitate system crises (Chew 1997, 2001, 2003). How can we be more precise in demarcating these ecological factors? I believe our precision can be enhanced by materialistically identifying system crises with recurring Dark Ages that have occurred in human world history, for it is during these Dark Ages that system transformations occur. Not only do we witness socioeconomic and political declines, but also ecological degradation, climatological shifts, and natural disturbances. The latter recalibrates our understanding of the evolution of the world system by adding natural system factors to the already declared anthropogenic ones for our understanding of system transformation.

A Theoretically Generalized History of Dark Ages9 Nature of Dark Ages Given the above parameters, we abstract historically the several processes and factors that depict a Dark Age period in order to have a clearer understanding of the various factors that precipitate a system crisis and transformation. Such an abstraction starts by delineating the connections between the natural system and social system in the reproduction of the world (social) system. Barriers to the reproduction of the world system are formed when humans induced changes to the ecology and climate.10 The degradative aspects of human activity are conditioned by social organizational factors (urbanization, accumulation, wars, technological innovations, and population) that affect system reproduction. Natural disturbances such as earthquakes and 9 This endeavor is to move away from a history understood and interpreted within a geo-spatial dependent and time contingent framework. The aim is to abstract a theoretically generalizable account of the dynamics and structures of the evolution of world system from historical events. 10 Some like Fernand Braudel (1972, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1989) have couched the social, political, and economic factors in concert with the natural environment and climatological patterns as determinants of long-term and large-scale transformations. For a fuller explication of Braudel’s analytical levels of long-term social change see Chew (1997).


volcanic eruptions also condition the reproduction and evolution of the world system, and thus work independently. We need, therefore, to consider the degree of weight these factors have in precipitating a system crisis. Through the course of human history, system crises have appeared in the “concrete” in the form of Dark Ages. Over world history, these historical phases are rare. There have been indications of only two such identified phases between 3000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. From Northwestern India, West Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe,11 these are 2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C. and 1200 B.C. to 700 B.C., which considered as one phase in terms of the crisis of the Bronze Age, and A.D. 400–A.D. 800/900. Several scholars such as Snodgrass (1971), Desborough (1972), and Braudel (2001) have discussed the conditions of life during past Dark Ages highlighting the economic, political and social disorder with population losses and deurbanization, and so on. Furthermore, historical records and archaeological evidence indicate a flattening of the social hierarchy and devolution away from a complex form of sociopolitical organization and lifestyles that existed prior to the onset of the Dark Ages. The trends and patterns of the Dark Ages therefore show developmental reversals: fall in population levels, decline or loss in certain material skills, deurbanization and migration, decay in cultural aspects of life, and fall in living standards and thus wealth and trading contacts. This symptomatic treatment of the Dark Ages, however, misses the ecological and natural conditions during the Dark Ages. Ecological deterioration, climate changes, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes also depict this stressful period. Thascius Cyprianus’s depiction during the Roman period underlines such conditions: This truth is proclaimed, even if we keep silence. . . ., by the World itself, which testifies to its own decline by giving manifold concrete evidences of the process of decay. There is diminution in the winter rains that give nourishment to the seeds in the earth, and in the summer heats that ripen the harvests. The springs have less freshness and the autumns less fecundity. The mountains, disemboweled and worn out, yield a lower output of marble; the mines, exhausted, furnish a smaller stock of the precious metals: the veins are impoverished, and they shrink daily. . . . (p. 8)

11

There is some evidence of an earlier Dark Age around 3800–3400 B.C. but it has not been widely documented. Arboreal pollen profiles that we have analyzed provide some indications (see Table 1.0) and in addition, analysis of economic conditions suggests a period of economic stress (Thompson 2001).


These conditions also extend to the periphery of the world system as a consequence of core-periphery relations. Ecological shadows are cast over wide areas of the world system. What we have is ecological degradation on the world-scale depending on the extent the world system has reached. However, the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of the Dark Ages do not extend necessarily and evenly across geo-spatial boundaries of the world system. Depending on the systemic connections of the world economy at a particular point in time, and the level of intensity of the social system and natural system connections experienced by a given region, the extent of the impact is uneven. The state of crisis and/or transition appears to have its greatest impact on the regions of the world system that are considered the core(s) of the system at the specific point in time. No doubt, this is related to the fact that it is in the core region(s) where social system and natural system relations are at their most heightened levels. It does not suggest that the periphery is void of any crisis conditions at all. The connections the core has with the periphery via several economic and political processes assure that at least some (if not all) crisis conditions are felt. The extent, of course, is based on how incorporated the periphery is in the productive processes of the core(s). Besides these devastating ecological outcomes, climate changes are also associated with the Dark Ages. Climate changes and natural calamities, when they occurred during Dark Ages, generated further challenges to social system reproduction (see, e.g., Weiss 1993, 2000; Keys 1999; Weiss and Bradley 2001). Higher than normal temperatures can generate salinization problems for agricultural cultivation, especially in areas where irrigation is extensively used, and, consequently, they lower harvest yields. It becomes a further issue if agricultural products are a major source of trade exports. The aridity that commonly occurs with high temperatures has often generated severe problems for pastoral herds that have led to nomadic migrations, thus causing further pressures on core centers. If the Dark Ages are prolonged ecological crisis periods, crisis provides opportunities. In other words, crisis conditions provide the opportunities for the resolution of contradictions that have developed to such a state that inhibits the reproduction of the world system. It leads to pathways and processes that would mean system reorganization and transition. If reorganization does not occur, system collapse usually follows. These we have seen historically (see, e.g., Kristiansen 1998; Chew 1997; 2001). If this is the case, ecological limits also become the limits of the socioeconomic processes of the world system, and the interplay between ecological limits and the dynamics


of the social system define the historical tendencies of the human enterprise (Kristiansen 1998; Chew 2001, 2002). To this extent, the Dark Ages or system crises also offer opportunities for two parties in this overall equation: the natural system and the periphery. For the natural system, the Dark Ages should be appreciated as periods for the restoration of the ecological balance that has been disrupted by centuries of intensive human exploitation of the natural system. The downscaling of socioeconomic processes during the Dark Ages provides the opportunity for Nature to recover. For the periphery, Dark Ages as system crises enables some peripheral areas to re-articulate themselves within the hierarchical matrix of the zonal production processes of the world system. This opportunity is only open during system crisis periods and has been exploited by some through the course of world history since 3000 B.C. Duration of the Dark Ages Resolution of the crisis moments along social time (i.e., for socioeconomic processes) have been varied. It takes at least 150 years (see, e.g., Wallestein 1980; Frank 1993; Modelski and Thompson 1996). Utilizing pollen analysis of deforestation levels, ecological recovery seems to be much longer at the natural system level in comparison to the world-system level (Chew 2004). Hence, the ecological time of recovery during the Dark Ages extends between 500 and 900 years.12 The lengthy duration (ecological time) provides the window of opportunity for the ecological balance to be restored so as to enable economic productive capacities to continue. If the ecological balance or trade networks cannot be restored, new geographic areas of ecological assets have to be located and/or replacement metals of much depleted natural resources must be adopted for production. Especially when there is resource depletion, the need arises for innovations in social organization and technology; take for example, the transition from bronze to iron production at the end of the Bronze Age. Various social, political, and economic processes that are associated with all these changes come into play as well during such crisis moments. They range from social upheavals (revolts, wars, etc.) and dislocations (such as migrations) to cultural/ideological shifts (rise of religious world-views), along with social and political reorganizations. 12

Ecological time is discussed more in depth in Chew (2005).


Given the above, perhaps what has been identified as long economic cycles might not reveal the long-term trends of the world system and, for me, is not as valuable or insightful for our understanding of the evolution of the world system. Instead, I prefer the utilization of these Dark Age Periods, for they have appeared in the “concrete” – or ecological long phases as markers for system transition moments leading to structural changes of the world system as a whole. The duration could take as many as 500 to 900 years to complete. What this means is that world history is not a flattened history, accounting for networks of trading links and economic cycles of expansion and contraction with little or no distinguishing differences between periods. Rather, it is one with ruptures through time leading to system reorganization and social evolutionary changes. Thus, a Dark Age is a world-system process that occurs in phases in the course of the evolution of the world system. What follows is an attempt to utilize this theoretically generalized history of the Dark Ages to understand a period of world-system crisis and transformation in the late Bronze Age that is not so much different than the system crisis we are experiencing today in the late Iron Age.13

The Bronze Age Crisis14 The Ancient World System The ancient world of the Near East and the northwestern Indian subcontinent during the third millennium was characterized by a system of overlapping core regions (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Harappan Civilization of northwestern India – see, e.g., Gills and Frank 1992; Chew 2001). Within such a political economic matrix, each core interacted with its immediate hinterland and with each other leading to certain core regions attempting to manipulate its adjacent hinterland and, at times, trying to control it (Chew 2001). Given such political incursions and trading initiatives, systemic connections were established, and during moments of systemic crisis, crisis-like conditions reverberated throughout the system providing opportunities and constraints depending on the circumstances. The accumulation of surplus, urbanization, and population growth are the 13

For some preliminary remarks on this see Chew (2002). Page limitations do not permit a full discussion of the data and references relevant to these arguments about the Dark Ages. 14


prime drivers of the processes of the social (world) system, which in turn, define the social (world) system’s interactions with the natural system (Chew 2001). The interacting relationships between urbanization, population, and production/trade mean that resources from the natural system are utilized for the reproduction of the social systems. Thus, social collapse and/or the crisis of the natural world can be attributed to excessiveness in the social world of dynamics, such as accumulation of surplus, urbanization, and population growth. By the late third millennium, sailors from the Aegean were able to sail to the Syro-Palestinian coast thus linking the Aegean and Central Europe by sea with the Near East. Such types of connections foster the beginnings of a “global” division of labor from northwestern India to the eastern Mediterranean and of long-distance trade articulated within a single interacting whole: the Bronze Age World System.15 We thus have the beginnings of a globalization process and the emergence of the world system that started five thousand years ago. Viewed from the perspective of Nature, such world historical processes (urbanization and accumulation) induced a continuous and degradative transformation of the landscape. Trees were removed for agriculture and to meet the energy and material needs of urbanizing communities. The valleys were excavated for canals to provide irrigation for crops and for the transportation of people and goods. Other lands were dug up for their natural resources and building materials. Such wide-scale human activities such as deforestation led to soil erosion in the mountains and hills, and the continuous impact of human activities further heightened the process. Rivers were dammed. In all, socioeconomic activities along with wars were transforming the landscape with scars revealing the scale of such acts. In World Ecological Degradation, the level and scale of resource use by the core centers from near and afar in the third millennium B.C. was traced (Chew 2001). This history started on an intense trajectory from the fourth millennium onwards, and by the third millennium B.C., after one millennium of drawdown of the natural capital, the natural system and social system was exhibiting signs of crisis-type conditions. Accompanying these long phases of ecological crisis were climate shifts and eruptions of natural processes that

15

McNeill and McNeill (2000:43) have identified this as the Nile-Indus corridor and the first metropolitan web.


affected the social, political, and economic landscapes. Economic downturns followed with social-political unrest. The combination of all these conditions induces a systemic crisis of the social system. One such systemic crisis or Dark Age began around 2200 B.C., initially affecting northwestern India, the Gulf, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and West Asia, and had repercussions for the urbanized core areas such as Mesopotamia, Indus, and Egypt (Childe 1942; Bell 1971; Chew 2001). Following this phase of the crisis ending around 1700 B.C., new power centers emerged in the Near East, northern Mesopotamia, and the eastern Mediterranean. This systemic crisis reemerged around 1200 B.C. at the social system level and continued until 700 B.C., with an impact on the main areas of West Asia, Egypt, eastern Mediterranean, and central Europe (from 800 B.C. onwards).

The Early Phase of the Crisis (2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C.) Natural System Changes (2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C.) If as I have argued in the previous pages that world-system crisis is also an ecological crisis accompanied with climate changes and natural disturbances (tectonic shifts, etc.), then we should be able to find trends that reflect the ecological injuries that Nature suffered as a consequence of social (world) system dynamics of accumulation, urbanization, and population increases. The level of deforestation is a good proxy to indicate the state of the natural environment, and we do find indicators of severe deforestation during the Bronze Age crisis period starting from 2200 B.C. onwards. Over world history from at least 3000 B.C. onwards, the available forests have been intensively exploited to meet the needs of an evolving world system, starting from the core centers such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Harappa (Perlin 1989; Chew 2001; Williams 2003). For northwestern Europe, from as early as the third millennium B.C. there was extreme deforestation caused by extensive land use and animal husbandry (Kristiansen 1998:281–292). From an empirical analysis of the trend lines of arboreal pollen, Table 1.0 presents forty arboreal pollen profiles of deforestation and reforestation starting from as early as 3854 B.C. These profiles cover four geographic regions of the world: Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe including Russia, Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean.

Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution • 263 Table 1. Arboreal Deforestation Pollen Profiles and Plantago Growth Pollen Profiles. Area

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Arboreal

3093B.C.–2600B.C.

2002B.C.–1274B.C.

A.D.180–A.D.544

Plantago

3093B.C.–2800B.C.

2002B.C.–1400B.C.

A.D.183–A.D.362

325B.C.–270B.C.

A.D.290–A.D.1500

2175B.C.–144B.C.

A.D.348–A.D.1594

Arboreal

2200B.C.–1700B.C.

A.D.169–A.D.664

Plantago

1514B.C.–722B.C.

A.D.128–A.D.466

Phase 4

Western Europe 1) Belgium (Moerzeke)

2) Germany 1 (Lake Constance) Arboreal 2 3) Germany 2 (Lake Steisslingen) Arboreal 4) Germany 3 (Ahlenmoor) A.D.763–A.D.961

5) Switzerland (Lobsigensee) Arboreal

3920B.C.–2170B.C.

1253B.C.–A.D.767

A.D.1055–

Plantago

3920B.C.–3200B.C.

1253B.C.–242B.C.

A.D.616–A.D.1206

6) France (Le Marais St. Boetien) Arboreal

3520B.C.–585B.C.

Plantago

4810B.C.–3815B.C.

A.D.327–A.D.936

1897B.C.–853B.C.

A.D.631–A.D.1240

7) Ireland (Arts Lough) Arboreal

3726B.C.–1653B.C.

Plantago

4417B.C.–3104B.C.

A.D.352–A.D.1094 A.D.681–A.D.1176

Central and Eastern Europe, Russia 8) Bulgaria 1 (Besbog-2) Arboreal

1730B.C.–A.D.1160

A.D.1500–A.D.1832

1235B.C.–A.D.882

A.D.1162–A.D.1628

9) Bulgaria 2 (Mire Garvan) Arboreal

3901B.C.–2123B.C.

Plantago

3605B.C.–1827B.C.

10) Hungary (Lake Balaton SW) 2683B.C.–816B.C.

Arboreal Plantago

4338B.C.–2923B.C.

A.D.381–A.D.1296

1274B.C.–112B.C.

A.D.1296–A.D.1824

11) Poland 1 (Bledowo Lake) Arboreal

3633B.C.–2518B.C.

724B.C.–A.D.967

A.D.1533–

Plantago3

280B.C.–1531B.C.

257B.C.–A.D.967

A.D.1533–

12) Poland 2 (Puscizna Rekowianska) Arboreal

3638B.C.–1331B.C.

Plantago

3638B.C.–2604B.C.

A.D.402–A.D.881

1331B.C.–86B.C.

A.D.1349–1800

264 • Sing C. Chew Table 1 (cont.) Area

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

A.D.1000–A.D.1573

13) Poland 3 (Kluki) Arboreal

3803B.C.–665B.C.

A.D.452–A.D.884

Plantago

3082B.C.–1277B.C.

A.D.597–A.D.1703

14) Byleorussia 1 (Dolgoe) Arboreal

4800B.C.–3850B.C. 3400B.C.–750B.C.

Plantago

4030B.C.–2500B.C.

A.D.380–A.D.1460

1150B.C.–A.D.380

15) Byleorussia 2 (Osvea) Arboreal

3600B.C.–330B.C.

Plantago

4277B.C.–3153B.C.

A.D.1334–A.D.1778

1579B.C.–A.D.1100

A.D.1889–

1338B.C.–A.D.300

A.D.1229–

16) Ukraine 1 (Kardashinski Swamp) Arboreal

3673B.C.–2170B.C.

Plantago

3316B.C.–2170B.C.

A.D.448–A.D.1482

17) Ukraine 2 (Starniki) 2600B.C.–727B.C.

Arboreal

A.D.93–A.D.1400

18) Ukraine 3 (Stoyanov 2) Arboreal

3900B.C.–2020B.C.

A.D.300–A.D.1660

2020B.C.–600B.C.

Plantago

A.D.863–A.D.1528

19) Ukraine 4 (Ivano-Frankovskoye) Arboreal

3937B.C.–500B.C. 2062B.C.–500B.C.

A.D.125–A.D.1063

Arboreal

2700B.C.–224B.C.

A.D.40–A.D.800

A.D.1200–A.D.1700

Plantago

956B.C.–122B.C.

A.D.395–A.D.900

A.D.1600–A.D.1872

Plantago 20) Ukraine 5 (Dovjok Swamp)

21) Russia (Chabada Lake) Arboreal

3800B.C.–1737B.C.

1400B.C.–306B.C.

A.D.1405–

Northern Europe 22) Sweden 1 (Agerods Mosse) Arboreal

3004B.C.–256B.C.

A.D.435–A.D.1682

Plantago

3266B.C.–2485B.C.

A.D.208–A.D.1294

A.D.1856–

23) Sweden 2 (Kansjon) Arboreal

3752B.C.–A.D.978

A.D.1647–

24) Norway (Grasvatn) Arboreal

4064B.C.–3032B.C.

1612B.C.–A.D.323

A.D.1097–A.D.1700

627B.C.–A.D.837

A.D.1300–

25) Latvia (Rudushskoe Lake) Arboreal

3955B.C.–1700B.C.

Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution • 265 Table 1 (cont.) Area

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

26) Greenland (Lake 31) Arboreal

2864B.C.–2178B.C.

1700B.C.–121B.C.

A.D.1139–

Plantago

3030B.C.–2656B.C.

1898B.C.–500B.C.

A.D.1065–A.D.1213

27) Finland 1 (Kirkkosaari) Arboreal

3022B.C.–A.D.1537

Plantago

3852B.C.–87B.C.

A.D.1384–A.D.1743

28) Finland 2 (Mukkavaara) Arboreal

3618B.C.–A.D.1757

29) Finland 3 (Hirvilampi) Arboreal

4283B.C.–3540B.C. 2611B.C.–696B.C.

Plantago

3726B.C.–2797B.C.

A.D.389–A.D.1040

696B.C.–A.D.400

A.D.823–

Mediterranean 30) Greece (Edessa) Arboreal

3998B.C.–2852B.C. 1941B.C.–292B.C.

Plantago

3500B.C.-2852B.C.

A.D.1026–A.D.1800

739B.C.–292B.C.

A.D.1595–

31) Greece 2 (Khimaditis 1B) Arboreal

1641B.C.–A.D.1700

Plantago

A.D.400–A.D.1639

32) Italy (Selle di Carnino) Arboreal

4539B.C.–3000B.C.

A.D.436–A.D.1220

Plantago

3774B.C.–2626B.C.

A.D.1070–A.D.1270 A.D.1581–

A.D.1529–A.D.1634

33) Spain 1 (Saldropo) 2202B.C.–774B.C.

Arboreal Plantago

3630B.C.–1431B.C.

A.D.300–A.D.948

A.D.1266–

3B.C.-A.D.684

34) Spain 2 (Sanabria Marsh) Arboreal

3500B.C.–1700B.C.

A.D.856–A.D.1850

2192B.C.-110B.C.

Plantago 35) Spain 3 (Lago de Ajo)

1884B.C.-552B.C.

Arboreal Plantago

4963B.C.-2059B.C.

A.D.309–A.D.1170

768B.C.–A.D.94

A.D.1600–A.D.1900

36) Spain 4 (Puerto de Los Tornos) Arboreal

4200B.C.-A.D.395

A.D.1200–A.D.1750

Plantago

3965B.C.-756B.C.

A.D.1101–A.D.1767

37) Spain 5 (Laguna de la Roya) Arboreal

4500B.C.-2728B.C.

968B.C.-A.D.848

A.D.1600

Plantago

4431B.C.-2728B.C.

1594B.C.-A.D.700

A.D.1762–

266 • Sing C. Chew Table 1 (cont.) Area

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

38) Syria (Ghab) Arboreal

3592B.C.–1505B.C.

983B.C.–A.D.500

Plantago

4636B.C.–4000B.C.

1505B.C.–1000B.C.

A.D.269–A.D.1000

39) Turkey 1 (Köycegiz Gölü) 2306B.C.–616B.C.

Arboreal Plantago

3694B.C.–2990B.C.

180B.C.–A.D.916

1278B.C.–419B.C.

A.D.1700–A.D.1941 A.D.1223–1852

40) Turkey 2 (Beysehir Gölü) Arboreal

3500B.C.–2527B.C.

Plantago

4451B.C.–3489B.C. 1556B.C.-724B.C.

243B.C.–A.D.1100 A.D.1560–

Source: Based on data from (van Zeist, W. et al. 1980; Rankama, T. and Vuorela, I. 1988; Bottema, S. 1974; Eronen, M. and Hyvrinen, H. 1982; Rankama, T. and Vuorela, I. 1988; Lazarova, M. 1995; Stefanova, I. 1995; Verbruggen, C. et al. 1997; Bezusko, L. G. 1987; Bzusko, L. G. et al. 1985; Ammann, B. 1985; Watts, W. A. et al. 1996; Penalba, M. C. 1994; Binka, K. et al. 1988; Khomutova, V. et al. 1994; Bradshaw, R. H. et al. 1988; Eisner, W. R. 1995; Behre, K. E. and Kucan, D. 1986)

Table 2. Periodisation of Dark Ages.* Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 2A

3854B.C.–2400B.C.

2402B.C.–594B.C.

1188B.C.–A.D.689

Phase 3

Phase 4

A.D.296–A.D.1171

A.D.1311–A.D.1733

* Mean of 40 Pollen Profiles of Deforestation Phases

The first phase of deforestation started from 3854 B.C. to 2400 B.C., and there were three or four subsequent phases of deforestation followed by reforestation that occurred towards the latter period of the course of a Dark Age. Table 2 exhibits the phase periods based on the mean of the dating periods for the forty arboreal pollen trend lines. If Dark Age Phase 1 started around 3854 B.C., Dark Age Phase 2 started around approximately 2400 B.C. This is the start of the Bronze Age crisis – the early phase of the Dark Ages during the Bronze Age. It should be noted that nested within this Phase 2 Dark Age, there was another Phase 2A that began around 1200 B.C. – the commonly accepted time period for the start of the crisis that witnessed the final demise of the Bronze Age world system. Dark Age phase 2A was followed by Dark Age Phase 3 at around A.D. 300, and Dark Age Phase 4 at A.D. 1300. Dark Age Phase 2 deforestation periods are the most pertinent time points for our discussion of the ecological degradation of the early Bronze Age cri-


sis. With one deforestation period starting around approximately 2400 B.C., this dating also corresponds with Barbara Bell’s (1971) identification of the first Dark Age of the Ancient World. Arboreal pollen from areas in Belgium, Germany, and France suggest that the deforestation period in Western Europe started around 2200 to 2000 B.C. (Table 1). In Central and Eastern Europe, trend lines of arboreal pollen show deforestation levels in areas of Hungary and Ukraine. In Northern Europe, the trend line of arboreal pollen in an area in Finland also supports this deforestation pattern. Finally, in the Mediterranean, we find areas of Greece, Spain, and Turkey exhibiting such trends. The latter area of Turkey is most pertinent for present discussion, for it is where the southern Mesopotamians sought their natural resources. Agriculture and other anthropogenic-induced changes naturally lead to forest fragmentation and deforestation, and the rise in the pollen record of indicator plants and ground weeds such as Plantago lanceolata (Behre and Kucan 1986:224; Williams 2003:12–25). Table 1 provides time phases of the rise in the number of plantago pollen when there was a decline in the number of arboreal pollen, thus supporting our thesis of anthropogenic-induced deforestation over five thousand years of world history. The identification of phases in Table 1 does not imply that deforestation follows a cycle. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a length of time when the ecological threshold is reached as a consequence of natural system and social system connections. These require a time period (ecological time) for ecological recovery and/or social system adaptation (such as reorganization, learning processes, technological adaptation, etc.) to unfold. For ecological recovery, time-wise, it is ecological time that is the underlying basis. For social system adaptation, social time is the underlying basis. In this sense, the durations are of different lengths. We assume that ecological recovery will take a much longer time period measured on a social time scale since Nature has its own intrinsic rhythm driven by factors such as generation time, disturbance frequencies, age of reproduction, and other spatial scales such as topography, interaction lengths, and so on. Similarly, social system adaptation and recovery has its own rhythm as well, dependent on the internal intrinsics of the social organizations and social institutions. From what we have been able to surmise from Tables 1 and 2 and the periodisation of the Dark Ages by historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, the period of social adaptation, i.e. the duration of a Dark Age based on social distress and recovery, is nested within the long duration


of ecological time. The latter suggests that deforestation phases (or ecological recovery) are/is naturally longer and that ecological scars continue despite the fact that social adaptation and recovery have been completed. With deforestation there are also other consequences such as soil erosion, and so on. The lack of vegetative cover increases the amount of erosion. There is ample evidence, even as early as 2200 B.C., during Dark Age Phase 2 (2200 B.C.

to1700 B.C.), in Mesopotamia, Harappa, and Egypt, that soil erosion resulting from deforestation had tremendous consequences for the agricultural economies of these early civilizations (Butzer 1976; Chew 2001). It led to severe economic stress on these social systems and, coupled with climatological changes and natural disturbances, led to crises in the social and natural systems (Chew 1997, 2001). Climate Changes and Natural Disturbances Accompanying these stressed environmental conditions are climate changes, natural disturbances, and catastrophes. Climate-wise, there is evidence of temperature changes (higher temperatures) and increasing drought-like conditions persisting in the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, West Asia, Mesopotamia, northwestern India, Central Asia, Africa and parts of the New World starting from 2200 B.C. onwards during the onset of the Dark Age of the third millennium (Ratnagar 1981; Neumann and Parpola 1987; Bentaleb 1997; Enzel 1999; Chew 2001; Weiss and Bradley 2001; Fagan 2004). The start of this warming phase was by no means a phase that followed the Mini Ice Age of 6200 B.C. to 5800 B.C. An earlier phase began around 3800

B.C. and lasted for over one thousand years (commensurate with our Phase 1 of deforestation or Dark Age Phase 1; see Table 1) when the climate began to be drier, affecting southwestern Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. Another warming trend started eight hundred years later, around 2200 B.C.

According to Fagan (2004) who has argued on the impact of climate change on civilizations, this start of a warming trend again was a global event. Affected areas covered Egypt, northern Africa, Greece, Indus, the Fertile Crescent, Crete, Russia, West Asia, and Palestine (Bell 1971; Bottema 1997; Hassan 1997; Krementski 1997; Chew 2001; Weiss and Bradley 2001; Fagan 2004). Table 3 shows temperature changes in terms of warm and cool periods during the third millennium B.C. in Anatolia and the surrounding regions. Warm periods were followed by drought conditions. From 2710 B.C. to 2345 B.C., Anatolia and the northern Crescent had arid conditions. However, the Nile floodings

Ecological Crisis Phases, Globalization, and World-System Evolution • 269 Table 3. Cool and Warm Periods: Anatolia and Adjacent Regions. Period 3385B.C.–3250B.C.

Cool

3250B.C.–2900B.C.

Warm

2900B.C.–2710B.C.

Cool

2710B.C.–2345B.C.

Warm

2345B.C.–2205B.C.

Cool

2205B.C.–1650B.C.

Warm (Dark Age)

1670B.C.–1655B.C.

Cool

1650B.C.–1410B.C.

Warm

1410B.C.–1205B.C.

Cool

1205B.C.–815B.C.

Warm (Dark Age)

815B.C.–685B.C.

Cold

685B.C.–406B.C.

Warm

Source: (Fairbridge, 1997)

continue to be high (Fairbridge 1997), and by 2205 B.C., the starting point of the Bronze Age crisis, the Nile floods had weakened. From 2205 B.C. to 1650 B.C., a period that covered Phase 2 of the Bronze Age crisis, there was widespread aridity in Anatolia and the northern part of the Fertile Crescent including northern Africa (Fairbridge 1997). For social systems with agricultural practices that are reliant on irrigation waters or from annual floods, this loss of moisture places tremendous stress on the agricultural systems and hence, the economy and social-political stability (Neumann and Parpola 1987).16 Such was the case for the core centers of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Harappan civilization. Each responded differently to such stressed conditions, depending on what they were facing.17 The climate changes were also accompanied with the occurrences of tectonic shifts that added further strain to the social system. Tectonic shifts by themselves would not immediately have an impact on the reproduction of the social system unless they are in the immediate proximity of human communities or they reshape the contours of the landscape by shifting river courses. The latter is what happened in the second millennium B.C. By

16 For example, it has been estimated that a mere 1-degree centigrade rise in temperature may reduce annual rainfall by 30 millimeters in the Near East. 17 For a detailed account of how each civilization responded to these climate changes see Chew (2001).


diverting watercourses, the diversions transformed some rivers into dry waterbeds that further exacerbated the already existing aridity, affecting the social system. Agrawal and Sood (1982) noted that for this time period in northwestern India of tectonic shifts that diverted the course of the Satluz and the easterly rivers away from the Ghaggar, which over time transformed into a lake-like depression during this period. The Ghaggar or Sarasvati, which feeds into the Indus River was alive until the late Harappan Period (1800 B.C.) but was dead by the time of the Painted Grey Ware period (1000 B.C.). Possehl (2001) has also confirmed this drying up of the Sarasvati and its implications for the Harappan urban complexes located on its riverbank.18 Beyond the core centers of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Harappan Civilization of northwestern India, temperature changes also affected other ecological landscapes. In western Asia, the introduction of the Zebu cattle, which can withstand aridity, occurred during the two arid periods (2200 B.C. and 1200 B.C.) of the Bronze Age. In central Eurasia, preliminary data also confirmed marked changes in vegetation, beginning around 2200 B.C. and lasting until 1700 B.C. (Hiebert 2000; Krementski 1997). Pollen cores indicate a sharp decrease in arboreal pollen and an increase in steppe pollen. From 2200 B.C. to 2000 B.C., there was a severe drop in forest cover and an increase in steppification, leading to an expansion in steppe landscape from 1800 B.C. to 1700 B.C. The pollen profiles for the region discussed in the previous section also confirmed the deforestation process. Arid conditions also affected arable land, which caused severe pressure on animal husbandry of the steppe population. For example, the lush feathergrass steppe growing on the landscape near Kalmykia from 2500 B.C. to 2200 B.C. gave way to dry scrubby vegetation – wormwood steppe – and even desertification by 2200 to 1700 B.C. This changed ecological landscape led to outmigration of the sedentary population from river valleys with time and exploitation of the steppes for animal feed.

18

The thesis of tectonic shifts effecting the reproduction of the Harappan civilization’s urban complexes has been advanced by several scholars (Raikes 1964; Raikes and Dales 1977; Dales 1979). This thesis has been questioned by Lambrick (1967) and Dales (1979).


Socioeconomic and Political Transformations 2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Deurbanization and Migration Socioeconomic and political trends during the Dark Ages are reversals of what occur during periods of expansionary growth. Tracking the reversals in socioeconomic trends during the Dark Ages or over the very long-term requires considerable effort, especially when the quantitative data are sparse. Modelski (2003) addresses the broad contours of these processes in their treatment of urbanization and economic expansion have provided us with some broad contours on these processes. In terms of urbanization, growth had progressed to such an extent by 3500 B.C. for the ‘heartland of cities’ such as southern Mesopotamia, that it had three cities with a population at or over 10,000 (Modelski 2003).19 By 2500 B.C., during the period of Early Dynastic III, the rise of Sumer exhibited the largest urban conglomeration at 60,000 persons, and the total urban population of Mesopotamia at 2500 B.C. had reached 290,000. Elsewhere, we have Memphis in Egypt at 30,000 persons, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in northwestern India at 20,000 and 15,000 respectively. By 2200 B.C., the Akkadian period and the start of the Dark Age Phase 2, the total urban population of Mesopotamia had been reduced to 210,000 (see Table 4). This shift is also reflected in the proportion of declining urban settlement sizes (see Table 5). During the Early Dynastic Period II/III (2800 B.C. to 2300 B.C.) the percentage of urban settlements with more than 40 hectares was about 78.4%. By the Akkadian Period (2200 B.C.), it was reduced to 63.5%. Further deurbanization continued such that by Ur III and Isin-Larsa periods (2100 to1900 B.C.) the percentage had dropped to 55.1%. This slippage continued to the Old Babylonian period, with reductions to 50.2% (1600 B.C.). Conversely, non-urban settlement sizes (less than 10 hectares) increased. During the early Dynastic II/III period it was about 10%, almost doubling by the Akkadian period. With the arrival of the Ur III and Isin-Larsa periods, the percentage rose to 25%, and almost tripled to about 29.6% by the Old Babylonian period in comparison to the Early Dynastic period. This deurbanization process and migration to rural communities are also supported 19 These cities have been identified as world cities by Modelski (2003:4–5) with population levels that meet a minimum threshold for the era. In this case, the population level is set at 10,000 based on historical estimates, and these cities are identified as key urban areas of the ancient era.

Nineveh

Nina

Nagar

Mashamsha

Larsa

Larak

16

30

Kish

Lagash

40

10

Kesh

Isin

Girsu

Eshunna

Eridu

Badtibira

Babylon

Assur

Akshak

Akkad

Adab

City

2800

10

60

20

10

10

20

2500

30

10

40

20

10

2400

10

80

10

2300

50

30

30

2200

10

80

10

2100

10

40

40

40

10

2000

10

10

40

40

10

10

1900

15

40

20

10

10

15

10

1800

Table 4. Population of Mesopotamian Cities thousands 2800B.C.–1500B.C.

60

10

1700

10

60

10

1600

10

10

1500


30

Shuruppak

10

20

12

80

10

268

Ur

Uruk

Zabalam

Total

240

10

30

10

40

10

10

20

Derived from (Modelski 2003:28-33;Thompson 2004)

290

10

40

40

10

Umma

10

30

20

Suheri

Sippar

10

Nippur

230

10

30

20

40

30

210

10

40

10

10

30

300

10

30

100

20

10

30

265

10

30

20

25

10

30

190

10

30

10

20

190

10

40

20

70

80

20



by the population decreases in Mesopotamian cities as outlined in Table 4. From 210,000 during the Akkadian period (2200 B.C.), the population in Mesopotamian cities was reduced to 190,000 by the Isin-Larsa period (1900 B.C.).

This was a loss of 10%. The population level was reduced further to 70,000 by the Old Babylonian Period (1600 B.C.). Overall, therefore, between the start of Dark Age Phase 2 (Akkadian Period) to its end around 1700 B.C. (Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods), we see a loss of over 66% of the urban population in Mesopotamia. Deurbanization and population losses were also repeated in northwestern India. According to Possehl (2000), by the late third millennium B.C. there was evidence of abandonment of important buildings in highly urbanized settings such as Mohenjo-daro. Concurrently, the Sindh region and the Baluchi Highlands also witnessed depletion and deterioration. By the early second millennium B.C., Baluchistan was uninhabited. Cholistan, in northwestern India, experienced a drop in size in terms of settled areas from an average of 6.5 hectares in 3800 to 3200 B.C. to 5.1 hectares by 1900 to 1700 B.C., and finally to almost 50% less (2.6 hectares) by 1000 B.C. In the Sarasvati region, the shifting and drying up of the river system saw the abandonment of settlements in the inland delta of Fort Derawar.

Table 5. Urban and Nonurban Settlements in Mesopotamia 2800 B.C. – 1600 B.C. Period

Early Dynastic II/III

Percentage Nonurban

Percentage Urban

(10 ha or less)

(more than 40 ha)

10.0

78.4

18.4

63.5

25.0

55.1

29.6

50.2

56.8

30.4

2800–2300B.C. Akkadian (2200B.C.) Ur III-Isin-Larsa (2100–1900B.C.) Old Babylonian (1600B.C.) Kassite (1400B.C.) (From Adams 1981:138)


Elsewhere for the time period of 2200 B.C., similar signs of deteriorating conditions were also encountered in Anatolia, with abondonment of urban centers such as Troy II to Troy III–IV (Mellink 1986:139–152). Consequently, depopulation also resulted. Sedentary population settlements on the Anatolian plateau were also abandoned. To the west of Anatolia, Palestine also suffered such crisis conditions (Butzer 1997). Walled towns were replaced by unwalled villages. There were signs of cave occupation and migratory movements. In some areas, settlements completely disappeared, and remaining settlement sites were reduced by more than half of what existed before 2200 B.C. (Harrison 1997:1–38). Across the Mediterranean from Palestine, the Aegean experienced distress, though to a lesser extent. Between 2300 B.C. and 1900 B.C. there was a loss of sedentary population. Such losses were experienced both on mainland Greece and even Crete.20 For central Eurasia similar stress conditions also prevailed. The changed ecological landscape led to outmigration of the sedentary population from river valleys over time and exploitation of the steppes for animal feed. Denucleation occurred with the establishment of smaller communities near oases. This spread occurred in Central Asia at Korezm (south of the Aral Sea) and Margiana (Murghab Delta) in Turkmenistan, Bactria, and western China. This process, prompted by ecological degradation and environmental changes, also occurred in Syria and Jordan. Migration out of urban centers located on the coast to the interior, and the establishment of smaller village type-settlements, resulted (McGovern 1987:267–273). Political and Social Changes In Dark Age Phase 2 (2200 B.C.–1700 B.C.), political instability was one feature highlighting political economic events. Climate changes, as identified above, led to famines that, in turn, generated political upheavals and the dissipation of central authority in Egypt. Drought conditions and reduced Nile flooding had an impact on the farmers’ ability to pay taxes because of lower

20 It should be noted that the Aegean recovered faster than the rest of the Bronze Age system, for by 1900 B.C., Minoan Crete was on an expansionary growth path in terms of palace building that lasted until 1700 B.C. However, this was to change following periods of intensification of socioeconomic expansion that occurred for Crete between 1950–1700 B.C. and 1700–1450 B.C. and for Mycenaean Greece from 1400–1200 B.C. As a consequence of this intensification, palace building and socioeconomic expansions were the order of the day (Chew 2001).


harvest yields. This resulted in local administrators and governors, who collected taxes, having to delay their transfers to the Royal House. In turn, the king’s revenues plummeted and, thus, impaired his ability to pay for an army or to deal effectively with drought and famine. As a result, the stability of the political regime was affected. The consequences of this in terms of political stability, as Bell (1971) has concluded, were short reigns. Besides political instability in Egypt during the third millennium Dark Age of 2200 B.C., other reversals also occurred such as artistic degeneration and the downsizing of monumental buildings, as a result of diminishing resources. The size and elaborateness of the pharaonic tombs were reduced; by this time, the tombs of kings were one-chambered affairs with less ambitious layouts (Bovarski 1998:316–319). Boundaries of provinces were also closed to prevent mass migration out of famine-stricken areas. All these initiatives proved fruitless at times, as riots broke out along with the ransacking of granaries. In other parts of the system such as southern Mesopotamia and northwestern India, structural political, economic and social reversals were also occurring. These transformations were extremely impactful in view of the trading relations of the region between southern Mesopotamia, the Gulf, and northwestern India, and led to the demise of the social systems in place. This created system-wide repercussions. By the third millennium B.C. southern Mesopotamia, the Gulf region and northwestern India were linked in a trading network of commodity exchanges. Therefore, an ecological stress in southern Mesopotamia would mean a lowering of agricultural output or production and hence a drop in imports and demand. Reductions of demand in southern Mesopotamia would have an impact on other regions such as Dilmun in the Gulf and the Harappan civilization through a diminished demand for their material and goods. What this type of dynamics further suggests is that supply and demand might not necessarily be a consequence of the state of the economy or based on consumer tastes and needs. Rather, supply-demand dynamics are inextricably linked to the connections between the natural system and social system. Thus, anthropocentric explanations provided for the demise of systems have ecological roots.


The Final Phase of the Crisis (1200 B.C. to 700 B.C.) The demise of southern Mesopotamia and northwestern India, coupled with the socioeconomic and political upheavals in Egypt and their associated hinterlands from 2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C., initiated a significant system crisis of the Bronze Age. With the socioeconomic collapse of southern Mesopotamia and northwestern India, the demise of these economies also meant the breakdown of the Gulf trade. After 1700 B.C., at the social system level, despite the fact that ecological stress (at the natural system level) continued, as reflected in our arboreal profiles listed in Table 1, economic recovery resumed. With recovery, other parts of the Bronze Age system such as the eastern Mediterranean littoral (centered around Crete and mainland Greece), along with central Europe and Anatolia, increasingly began to take advantage of the vacuum generated by the collapse of the southern portion (the Gulf Trade) of the Bronze Age system. Egypt, Syria-Levant (such as Ugarit, Mari, Byblos, Ras Shamra), Crete, Cyprus and mainland Greece expanded their trading volumes utilizing the peripheral areas such as Central and Eastern Europe, and Nubia for their resource needs (Knapp 1993; Kristiansen 1998; Chew 2001). With the loss of trading dominance of southern Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian trade shifted northwards thus making Anatolia an important eastern node of this Bronze Age trading network (Chew 2001). In sum, the eastern Mediterranean littoral became the prime axis where economic activity of the Bronze Age system concentrated during this period. The social system adaptation and resolution of the crisis of the Bronze Age that started in 2200 B.C. and ended around 1700 B.C. was only temporary, for over the longue durée, because of the continued ecological stress and degradation (see, e.g., Table 1), including climate changes, social (world) system crisis would only appear again in 1200 B.C. The system crisis of 1200 B.C. (Dark Age Phase 2A) repeated what occurred in 2200 B.C., except that when it finally dissipated system transformation happened with the arrival of the Iron Age. The collapse of the southern portion of the Bronze Age world system led to the reconfiguration of the trading networks. Shifting away from the Gulf region, the trading networks ranged from Crete, the Cyclades, and the Greek mainland on one side of the Aegean Sea to Troy, Cyprus, and Anatolia located across from it. Included in this configuration were the communities of Syria and Palestine and the kingdom of Egypt. This network of socioeconomic


exchanges of the eastern Mediterranean region was also linked to communities of western, central, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). It was a globalized system of trade and sociopolitical exchanges. Within this trading network, intermediary centers such as Crete increasingly played a part in the eastern Mediterranean region.21 The Minoan command-palace economy was involved not only in the export of surplus agricultural produce such as grains and oil, but also in the export of textiles, metal works, pottery, and wood work, and so on (Chew 2001; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). Initially, such a diversified economic structure provided it with a competitive advantage over other regions of the Bronze Age system such as mainland Greece, the Cyclades, and Europe to the north.22 Later in the millennium, the rise of Mycenaean Greece increasingly eclipsed the role Crete played in the easternmost region of the Bronze Age world economy (Chew 2001). On this trading backbone, Mycenaean Greece began to establish its economic dominance within the Aegean. Similar to the Cretan economy, Mycenaean Greece exported wine, olive oil, grains and manufactured products to eastern and northern Europe and the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and in turn, received needed natural resources such as copper, tin, and horses. To the east of this globalized Bronze Age trading system was the kingdom of Hatti with metallic resources such gold and silver, where precious metals were exchanged for textiles, lapis lazuli, olive oil, grain, horses, tin, and so on. Trade contacts were established with Babylon, Mittani, Assyria, Syro-Palestine, Egypt, and Crete. The globalizing trajectory was extended as early as 2000 B.C. when these cores in the Near East, as Kristiansen and Larsson (2005) put it, “turned their interest towards the barbarian peripheries in Central and Western Europe” for their natural resources and livestock such as horses (p. 99). In the Caucasus, the mines supplied the copper, and there was the development of a Circum-

21 For an extensive account of the political economy of Crete and the Minoan Civilization, see Chew (2001) and Kristiansen and Larsson (2005). 22 Crete’s political economic strength in the Bronze Age trading world was by no means equivalent to Mesopotamia, Harappa, and Egypt. Its urban settlements and palace complexes which directed its commercial and manufacturing capacity were much smaller in scale. Measured on the Mesopotamia-Harappa urbanization scale, the palace complexes at Crete were no larger than fair-sized villages of the early Dynastic Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, with the Gulf trade collapse from around 1700 B.C., Crete because of its location as well, managed to exploit the trading opportunities.


Pontic metallurgical province that included Anatolia (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). With such development, the central and western European metallurgical centers were “increasingly drawn into trade relations with the palace cultures and city states of the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia, which reached a new flourishing after 2000 B.C. when the Minoan palaces were built” (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005:104). It should not be assumed that these trading networks were stable structures over time.23 It was a globalized system of interconnected regions and polities – a world system.24 Their vitality and concentration changed over time and apart from political and economic transformations were conditioned by the pulsations of ecological and climate change. Thus, when the Dark Age returned in 1200 B.C., the collapse was system-wide due to the level of connectivity.

The End of the Bronze Age Starting about 1200 B.C., socioeconomic and political collapses ranged from Mycenae through Egypt, the Levant, and northern Mesopotamia to Anatolia. With the exception of parts of the periphery, the core centers of the Bronze Age system at this point in time were in crisis. The collapse of the Bronze Age world has been explained with a variety of factors. On the whole, these explanations have been rationalized based on anthropocentric arguments related to barbarian invasions, unceasing consumption and cultural decadence, power rivalries and state competition, vagaries of development, overcentralization of authority, military and weapon innovations, and famines and diseases (see, e.g., Toynbee 1939; Childe 1942; Harding 1982; Drews 1993). Without a doubt, these factors at the social system level are ones to consider. But what is lacking is a consideration of the linkage between the social system and the natural system, and how a disruption of this connection would ultimately induce crisis conditions, for the

23 Thompson (2001) has periodized the pulsations of the expansion and contraction of this trading world of the Near East. 24 It is beyond the scope of this study to address the connections and exchanges between these cores and peripheries in terms of sociocultural patterns and cosmologies during the Bronze Age. Furthermore, a complete and extensive study has been made by Kristiansen and Larsson (2005) in their book, The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions, and Transformations.


former (the social system) depends on the latter (natural system) for its continued reproduction. Once again, this underscores the viewpoint that in the last instance it is perhaps Nature that has the final say!25 For Crete, the intensive exploitation of resources for economic transactions had an impact on the landscape (Bottema 1974). Deforestation generated soil erosion and flash flooding; the latter had an impact on the manufacturing processes of Crete. Wood scarcity forced changes in production locations in the closure of facilities. It has even been suggested that such land deterioration contributed to the demise of Minoan Crete. These ecologically devastating trends were also repeated throughout the Bronze Age system. Mainland Greece – which provided the wood supplies to Crete when Crete’s supply ran out – and other areas in Europe and Central Asia showed such scars as well. Intensification of land use and animal husbandry led to severe alteration of the landscape. Population increases, along with the adoption of the ox-drawn plow, further exacerbated the intensity of land utilization. Pollen records from Osmanaga Lagoon in southwest Greece in Messnia show extreme forest removal by 2000 B.C. (Zanggar 1993:5). Between 1600 and 1400 B.C., the pine forests in Messinia were totally wiped out due to agriculture and overgrazing. Soil erosion was endemic and was controlled by terracing and the building of terrace walls. As a consequence, agricultural production was affected. In the Argolid, production of cereals and olive oil generated deforestation of oak trees on the hillsides. This resulted in large amounts of earth and water draining from the slopes onto the plain of Argos and filling up stream beds, leading to extensive flooding. Besides terrace walls to deal with soil erosion, other technological solutions were also tried, such as the building of dams to divert water courses and dikes to facilitate drainage. However, by the late second millennium B.C. such efforts began to fail. Erosion became uncontrollable in Greece during the Dark Age crisis of 1200 B.C. when socio-political life was at a standstill and population density had dropped precipitously (Bintliff 1982). In southern Europe, there were degradative impacts on soil formation from Urnfield settlements (Kristiansen 1993). Kristiansen and Larsson (2005) have

25 The lack of such attention does not mean that there has been no attribution of natural system factors conditioning the collapse of the Bronze Age world at all. Rhys Carpenter’s (1968) thesis of climate shifts affecting Mycenaean Greece and the onset of the Greek Dark Ages is a case in point, though it was severely questioned by Wright (1968) and Chadwick (1976) following its proposal.


also documented widespread ecological degradation in the Caucasus as a result of mining for metals to supply the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. Degradation was repeated for the mining area of Kargaly in the Urals which supplied metals to the whole steppe region, resulting in deforestation (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005). Table 1 of time-series of arboreal pollen profiles of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, parallels the deforestation trajectories. For the northern Pirin Mountains of southwestern Bulgaria (see Table 1-Bulgaria Besbog-2), deforestation was continuous throughout the Bronze Age. Its occurrence during the late Bronze Age was a consequence of the reorganization of the economy of the Thracian tribes between 1000 B.C. and 800 B.C. in the production of iron and population movements into metal producing zones and pastures of mountain regions (Stefanova 1995:29). Collapse came for the eastern Mediterranean when circumstances started to change. Ecological stress coupled with climate changes and natural disturbances had an impact on Crete, Greece, and the Near East. For Crete, such arid conditions had an impact on agricultural production. This development was serious, as it was an important part of Cretan exports needed to offset its import of wood and other natural resources. Furthermore, geological conditions also provide grounds for the arguments made first by Marinatos (1939) and followed by Chadwick (1976) and Warren (1985) on their impacts on Crete. The volcanic eruption on Thera, following the earthquakes, killed vegetation and destroyed the Minoan naval fleet. The loss of this fleet undermined Crete’s power to exercise its dominant position in this region of the world system. As well, these natural system conditions should also be considered with the political changes affecting Crete. From 1500 B.C. onwards, the increasingly competitive roles played by the Hittites and Kassites through their expansion and dominance of Anatolia and Mesopotamia corralled Crete’s dominance. Blended into this political mixture, the ascendancy of Mycenaean Greece eclipsed the economic position that Crete enjoyed. Faced with these desperate conditions in the spheres of the social system and the natural system, Minoan civilization slid downhill. What occurred in Crete was repeated in Mycenaean Greece, except it began much later, around 1200 B.C. By this time the natural environment was severely stretched. Rhys Carpenter’s (1968) thesis of climate change leading to the demise of Mycenaean Greece needs to be considered. Basically, Carpenter’s proposal is that the shift in the tracks of the cyclonic storms, which normally


bring rain to Mycenaean Greece, resulted in arid conditions during the 13th to the 12th centuries. As a consequence, the socioeconomic structure was changed. Wright (1968), Chadwick (1976), and Drews (1993) have challenged this thesis, with Lamb (1967), Braudel (2001), Bryson, Lamb, and Donley (1974), and Bryson and Padoch (1980) supporting Carpenter’s position. Along with these desperate conditions due to climate changes and natural disturbances, invading forces of Dorians and Sea Peoples made the circumstances even direr. Such invading forces most likely have also been displaced from their habitation due to changing climate conditions and natural disasters. Climate changes and disruptions in trade routes also played a part in the overall reproductive capacity of the Hittites and the Egyptians in the other parts of this system. Reduced Nile flows affected Egyptian agriculture, leading to famines. The Hittite empire’s grain shortage led to growing imports from other parts of the world system through Ugarit, and from the SyroPalestine area. In all, the crisis was systemwide, affecting the Aegean, Central and Western Europe, Egypt, Anatolia, Palestine, and Babylonia. Socioeconomic and Political Transformations Greece encountered a decline in socioeconomic life from 1200 B.C. till 700 B.C., such as decline or loss of certain material skills, decay in cultural aspects of life, a fall in living standard and thus wealth, deurbanization, population losses, and loss of trading contacts within and without Greece (see, e.g., Childe 1942; Snodgrass 1971, Desborough 1972; Whitley 1991; Morris 2000; Chew 2001). The archaeological evidence unearthed suggests socioeconomic patterns that are distinctively different from the style and level of socio-cultural life prevailing prior to the onset of the Dark Age. Population decreases occurred between 1250 B.C. and 1100 B.C. Morris (2000) has estimated with losses of about 75%, followed with emigration from the core areas of the Mycenaean civilization. This trend continued for central Greece as well, by 1100 B.C. According to Snodgrass (1971) between the 12th and 11th centuries, there was a reduction of over three quarters of the population. Pottery and other objects recovered from excavated sites along with the architecture and design of dwellings, reflect ecological stress and scarcity of natural resources. Architectural standards were lowered, and there were very few signs of good stone-built construction. Small stone construction was prevalent, and we also increasingly see signs of mud-brick construction. Mud-


brick structures predominated in the building structures between the 11th and 10th centuries. The emergence of a class of handmade burnished pottery, “Barbarian Ware,” had few obvious links to Mycenaean styles. The appearance of this style has been viewed as an economic response to the collapse of centralized production with the demise of the palace economies, and a regression to simpler technology. Furthermore, pottery styles of the period in Greece became austere, unlike the decadent style of the previous era. Starting with the Submycenaean style of pottery (c. 1125 B.C. to 1100 B.C.), the austerity of the design can be seen. As Desborough (1972) has put it, the standards deteriorated sharply not only in the making of the pottery but also in painting and decoration. The design was of the simplest kind and “was a virtual bankruptcy. . . . and often carelessly applied” (Desborough 1972:41). Luxury vases and other pottery items were quickly abandoned and viewed as unnecessary when hard times hit. There was less variety of material goods, the artifactual correlate of a less complex social order. The emergence of the Protogeometric style (c. 900 B.C.) continued to reflect the austerity of the period (Snodgrass 1971). Snodgrass (1971) has also alerted us to the appearance of hand-made pottery during the Dark Ages. The reversion to hand-made pottery when the pottery wheel was adopted suggests the decay of manufacturing production or even, perhaps, the loss of manufacturing skills. It could also mean that with social decay, collapse, and disruption in trade routes there was a revival in the utilization of indigenous material. In terms of decorations and finishing, the bulk of the pot or vase was usually left plain in the natural color of the clay and the decorations covered a third of the surface area at most (Desborough 1972). The lack of intense firing also suggests dwindling energy supplies. The compass and the multiple brush were used for decorating pottery. As recovery proceeds and the balance of Nature is restored, rectilinear or curvilinear patterns in pottery designs gave way to images depicting animals and humans. In the later Protogeometric style period, silhouette figures of a horse or a human on the design were introduced. If we consider the decay of cultural life and the loss of the art of writing, and view pottery design as a way the potter as artist could depict sociocultural life, then the motifs that we find in these pottery designs would summarize life in Dark Age Greece. By the late Geometric style period, we find scenes of organized groups of men in uniforms, the portrayal of warfare and chariots depicting social life when the Dark Age was receding, and the return of biodiversity with animals and sea creatures being depicted.


Beyond pottery styles, other recovered objects indicate a scarcity of natural resources, especially metals, or that the supply sources had dried up. The use of obsidian, stone, and bones for blades and weapons underscores such scarcity and also suggests that trading routes and centers for sourcing the metals might have disappeared or were disrupted. Other primitive materials reappear as apparent substitutes, such as bone spacer-beads for amber in jewelry and stones for lead in sling bullets. Objects buried with the deceased such as iron pins and fibulae and even weapons increasingly were made out of iron, instead of bronze. Bronze wares only returned towards the end of the Dark Age period. Another indicator of its scarcity, bronze was used on the bulb of pins (Snodgrass 1971; Desborough 1972). Ecological scarcity required a downscaling of material and cultural lifestyles. Such changes are reflected in burial practices that exhibited a reorganization of life along modest lines. The design of clothing and shoes was of the plainest kind (Snodgrass 1971). A one-piece woolen garment that did not require cutting or sewing gained popularity among the female population in Submycenaean Athens and became the predominant dress design in the Protogeometric period. Pins for dresses were scarcely used. The downscaling process is exhibited further in the formation of decentralized communities and associated population losses. The collapse of the palace driven economies with centralized monarchies were replaced by smaller political organizations dominated by an aristocrat and his family. Whether this life-style is one that was actively sought as a consequence of ecological scarcity or occurred as an outcome of the depressive conditions of the Dark Age is difficult to gauge. It is clear however, that there was a shift from the Mycenaean way of reproducing life because they longer provided practical models. The loss of sophistication is clearly seen and as Morris (2000) has stated, “in their funerals people seem more concerned with showing what they were not than with what they were” (p. 207). What we are sure of is that as recovery proceeded – we begin to witness this by the mid-half of the 10th century B.C. – trading networks were re-established and communities revived. Such an upswing was characterized by exuberance, materialistic consumption, and accumulation. As the social system recovered, we see an increasing quantity of pottery buried in the tombs, the quantity of gold deposited in the burials, and signs of social cultural recovery. What the Dark Age of this period represented for the Mediterranean region is a time in which extreme degradation of the ecological landscape precipi-


tated socioeconomic and organizational changes to meet the scarcity of resources so as to reproduce some semblance of cultural and economic life of prior times. As a consequence, systemic reorganization occurred at various levels, from the way commodities were produced to clothing fashions and designs. Hierarchical social structures disappeared during the Dark Age, as evident by burial practices, and were restored when recovery proceeded (Whitley 1991). To Whitley (1991) burial practices “may be seen as an expression both of social relations and ideology . . .” (p. 20). During the Dark Ages, there was a shift from multiple tombs burial to single burials which reflected the change from an emphasis on heredity signifying a stratified order with ruling classes, to one which reflect no expectations of descendants and little regard for extravagance (Snodgrass 1971, Desborough 1972). The single tombs lack monumental significance and architectural quality. From the graves excavated of the Protogeometric Period (c. 900 B.C.), there are no indications of disparities in wealth, and social distinction as exemplified in the Athenian graves. Distinction was based on age and sex rather than other social dimensions (Whitley 1991:115). This was changed by the Early Geometric Period (c. 860/840 B.C.) where there is an amplification of status of the person buried. Social and sexual identities of the person interred became more evident. Thus, we find the return of a hierarchical pattern and a departure from the more egalitarian structure of the Protogeometric Period. Such hierarchization continued in the Middle to Late Geometric Periods (c. 770 B.C.–700 B.C.).26 By this time however, early state formation broke down the aristocratic order although social hierarchical differentiation remained in place. With the Dark Age, not only was there a loss of population, but deurbanization was also underway. The latter process continued, giving rise to small communities with lower population levels. Seen from an ecological point of view, this downscaling provided the necessary timing for Nature to restore its balance and for socioeconomic life to start afresh when recovery returned. The collapse of the palace economies enabled the ecological landscape to restore itself. In the Argolid and Messenia, the land recovered and the tree

26 Morris (2000) however has argued that the shift from egalitarianism to stratification might not be the case. Rather the grave burials reflecting an upper class strata, the agathoi, prompting some to conclude of a shift to stratified society by the eighth century did not represent the total spectrum of Athenian society, and that the lower order people were disposed of (or buried) in a different way that have not been excavated by the archaeologists.


population increased. Furthermore, with the loss of centralized control from the various palaces, not only did deurbanization occur but also decentralization. Each region thus had the opportunity to search for new mechanisms and ways to administer and reproduce socioeconomic life in general. New trends emerged following the collapse of the palaces as a consequence of the unexpected liberty that resulted from the collapse, and each region/community began to make contacts with others outside Greece towards the end of the Dark Age. From these small communities, in the case of Greece, the preconditions for the rise of the Greek polis (cluster of villages) were put into play, and what followed was a flourishing of political and economic life as soon as the social system recovered (Snodgrass 1971). The stressed ecological conditions that engendered deurbanization and the formation of small isolated communities precipitated the rise of the polis and the Greek city-states. We need to realize, therefore, that perhaps scarcity of resources can also have productive outcomes, which otherwise under bountiful conditions might not have occurred. Stanislawski (1973:8) has suggested that instead of seeing the Greek Dark Ages as a period of darkness it should be seen as one of enlightenment with contributions such as: the first use of stone-walled agricultural terraces, the use of chicken eggs in domestic diet, the beginning of the spread of alphabetic writing, the spread of iron, the general use of olive as food, and the first use of waterproof plaster.

System Transformation Given that the Dark Ages in world history are significant moments signaling system crisis and system reorganization, the final phase of the Bronze Age crisis led to ecological recovery, certain political-economic realignments and reorganization, and the transition to a new working metal: iron. The Dark Age crisis was system transformative, for it led to fundamental social system changes evolving to a set of new patterns (Chew 2002). The adoption of iron brought to an end centuries of bronze use that was in the control of palace economies and elites. Gordon Childe (1942) has suggested that cheap iron, with its wide availability provided the opportunities for agriculture, industry, and even warfare. With trade route disruption and copper scarcity, iron use spread further, especially among the communities in Greece that were isolated as a consequence of the Dark Age conditions,


for iron was available locally. It led to the development of local iron producing industries (Snodgrass 1971). The low cost of iron, because it was available locally, facilitated its widespread use in agriculture and industry (Childe 1942). All over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East, cultivation was made easier with iron plowshares in heavy clay soils. This enabled the rural communities to participate further in the economy beyond subsistence and maintain a class of miners, smelters, and metal smiths. Such an explanation is also supported by Heichelheim (1968) and Polanyi (1977), who has linked iron adoption to productivity levels in rural communities in south Russia, Italy, North Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Eurasia. Production increases can be seen by the fluctuations in grain prices. The consequence of such transformations is that the urban elites in the Near East, who in the past controlled the grain and other commodities trade, suffered losses as a consequence of changing prices and the falling demand in the copper, tin, and bronze trade which they also controlled. As a result of the above, the social structures were transformed with the formation of different regional centers in the periphery and in the Mediterranean. The opportunity for the farmers to farm in heavy clay soils utilizing cheap iron implements also provided the conditions for economic and system expansion following the end of the Dark Age, whereas, in the past these areas were not as productive. It enabled economic expansion and the move into newer areas for agriculture, for by this time some of the older settled areas were ecologically degraded and overworked. As well, at the social system level, the Dark Age crisis ushered forth the dissociation of high value commodities away from the control of the palace/state, for by the end of the Dark Age, the command palace economies in the eastern Mediterranean were dissolved. What emerged was the continued differentiation of commercial/economic structures from the political structures (Polanyi 1977). Instead of bureaucratic palace-centered trade, we see the development of mercantile city-states where merchant enterprise replaced the palace-controlled exchange. With this transformation, new forms of political powers and structures emerged. We have the emergence of a new political structure, the city-state (polis) in the Aegean, and the continuation of empire type political structures where the rule was via direct political and military control. The new political structure, the polis, as a social organization and political concept emerged in 8th century Greece (Morris 2000). It was, as Morris


(2000) stated, unique among ancient states for “its citizen body was actually the state” (p. 752). The rise of such a state form was a consequence of the collapse of the aristocratic society during the Greek Dark Ages. Other factors also precipitated its formation. Deurbanization and the loss of population in the urban areas, resulting in the development of isolated communities during the Dark Age, engendered the structural conditions for the development of the polis. In addition, with the scarcity of resources and the abundance of poverty leading to less hierarchical social structures, the groundwork for the development of the polis was also put into place. The polis thus was one where all authority was divested to the community, unlike previous political forms in Mycenaean Greece. Force, therefore was located in the citizen body as a whole, and thus there was little need for a standing military. Individual natural rights were not sanctioned by a higher power and the highest authority was the polis, i.e., the community. Such a political structure found expression in the Aegean. However, in other parts of the Near East, divine kingship was maintained with some minor modifications. According to Childe (1950), Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt continued as Bronze Age states. Recovery returned around 700 B.C., with growth and expansion continuing. Endless accumulation and urbanization led again to ecological degradation with the demise of Greece and the rise of Rome. Forests were removed in northern Africa and almost everywhere Roman rule was established. Mines were dug in Spain, with cities, roads, and production facilities established within the Roman Empire. Crisis emerged again 700 years later, around A.D. 400, with similar trends and tendencies in terms of ecological and socioeconomic variables. This time the collapses were not Mesopotamia, Harappa, Mycenaean Greece, Crete or the Hittite Empire, but the western portion of the Roman Empire and the system of the Iron Age.

Conclusion If system crisis emerges in the form of the Dark Ages, clearly these Dark Age phases are significant moments in view of our interest to map the evolution of the world system, for they are devolutionary periods. They also demarcate the limits of system reproduction whereby the structural contradictions of world-system processes, including the natural system and social system relations, reached systemic limits, and resolution is therefore required before


further system evolution can take place. It is important to realize that natural system processes and the linkage between social system and natural system are determinate elements in the reproduction of the world system. Depending on the particular epoch of world-system history, different base materials, technologies, and perhaps, even ideas emerge that provide the basis to overcome the systemic contradictions at that particular point in time. All these will not gain traction for further system expansion if the natural environment has not recovered from the prior period of expansionary thrusts, and if the relations between culture and Nature have not been recalibrated. Over world history, this recalibration has mostly focused on finding new virgin areas for natural resource extraction and also the development of new technologies to replace ones that have not been as efficient. In some instances, new ideas emerge as operating guidance for human life. That has been the course of world history. The occurrence of at least two Dark Age phases in the past raises the question of a return of these ecologically downturn periods. Elsewhere, I have tried to address this possibility for the present and the future (Chew 2002). Ecological indicators suggest that it is very likely that we are now in a Dark Age phase. Current political, and especially economic conditions of competition, very much resemble those of the late Bronze Age crisis.

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About the Authors

YVONNE A. BRAUN is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon. Her recently completed dissertation examines the social and socio-environmental impacts of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) on local impacted communities in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Specifically, her research investigates the gendered effects of development-induced resettlement, the importance of women’s community work in staving off the risks of poverty, and the gendered environmental impacts of the development project in Lesotho. STEPHEN BUNKER is Professor of Sociology and Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has examined different indigenous and peasant communities’ relations with and understandings of their environments in Uganda, Guatemala, Brazil, and Peru. Bunker has paid particular attention to how these relations, and the environments themselves, are degraded by agricultural and extractive economies established to supply world-system demand for raw materials. More recently, he has researched how the ways that nations competed for trade dominance through economies of scale for over 800 years are now pushing raw material consumption past possible global limits. His most recent books include The Snake with Golden Braids: Society, Nature and Technology in Peruvian Irrigation (Lexington, 2005) and Globalization and the Race for Resources, written with Paul Ciccantell (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). THOMAS J. BURNS is Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. His research is directed to developing a theoretical framework describing the outcomes, evolution and emergence of social institutions from a comparative and historical perspective, and testing and refining that framework through empirical analysis. Particularly, his work focuses on how macro-level institutional arrangements affect environmental outcomes. Recent publications appear in Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Human Ecology Review, Journal of World-Systems Research, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Social Science Research, Social Science Quarterly, and other scholarly journals. CHRISTOPHER CHASE-DUNN is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California-Riverside. His recent research focuses on the causes of empire expansion and urban growth (and decline) in the Afroeurasian world-system over the last 3000 years. His studies of structural globalization in the modern world-system since 1800 and global elite integration are supported by the National Science Foundation. His books include the award winning Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy and The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism (with Terry Boswell). His research has appeared in many scholarly journals, such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Annual Review of Sociology, and International Studies Quarterly. Chase-Dunn is also the founder of the Journal of World-Systems Research.

336 • About the Authors SING C. CHEW is Professor of Sociology at Humboldt State University. He is completing the second volume of World Ecological Degradation (Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestation 3000B.C.–A.D.2000) entitled The Dark Ages: Ecological Stress and System Transformation 3000B.C.–A.D.900. JESSICA CROWE is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University. Her research interests include community development, social capital, environmental issues, and the impact of globalization on local areas. BYRON L. DAVIS is the Staff Consultant for Statistics at the University of Utah’s Center for High Performance Computing and is an adjunct Associate Professor in Family and Consumer Studies. He has published papers explaining differences in national development outcomes such as change in national income, education, health, technology, environment and over all well-being. His principle areas of expertise are identification and use of appropriate research and statistical methodologies particularly as they apply to cross-national samples. Currently, he is examining reliability issues in the use of composite indexes used as change scores in cross-national development assessment. Recent publications appear in American Behavioral Scientist, Social Science Research, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Journal of World-Systems Research, and other scholarly journals. R. SCOTT FREY is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He has held appointments at Argonne National Laboratory, The George Washington University, Kansas State University, the National Science Foundation, and the University of North Florida. He has contributed chapters to recent books on environmental issues and he has published his research in numerous journals, including the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review. His work has been funded by the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. PAUL K. GELLERT is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of TennesseeKnoxville. His forthcoming publications include “Oligarchy in the Timber Markets of Indonesia: From Apkindo to IBRA to the Future of the Forests,” in Indonesia Update 2004, edited by B.P. Resosudarmo (Singapore: ISEAS) and “For a Sociology of Socionature: Ontology and a Commodity-Based Approach,” in Nature, Raw Materials and Political Economy, edited by P. Ciccantell, G. Seidman, and D.A. Smith (Elsevier Science/JAI Press). PETER GRIMES has spent 30 years studying how societies affect the environment, and how the environment limits social complexity. His particular focus is global warming and late capitalism, but his interests also include soil depletion, deforestation, and early empires, as well as energy flow within ecosystems. He received his B.A. in Global Studies from the University of Michigan in 1975, an M.A. in Global Population Growth from Michigan State University in 1982, and both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in WorldSystems Theory from Johns Hopkins University in 1996. THOMAS D. HALL is Lester M. Jones Professor of Sociology at DePauw University. In addition to his work on indigenous peoples with James V. Fenelon, he has a continuing interest in comparative studies of frontiers and long-term evolution of worldsystems. Publications in this area include Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems (with Christopher Chase-Dunn, Westview, 1997) and the edited collection titled A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).

About the Authors • 337 ALF HORNBORG is an anthropologist and professor and chair of the Human Ecology Division, Lund University, Sweden. His main research interests are the cultural and political dimensions of human-environmental relations in past and present societies, particularly from the perspective of world system analysis. He is the author of The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment (AltaMira, 2001) and a number of articles in international journals. ANDREW K JORGENSON is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. His current research focuses on the social and environmental impacts of foreign direct investment, the structure of international trade, and the ecological footprints of nations. Recent publications appear in Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociological Perspectives, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Society and Natural Resources, Human Ecology Review, Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Journal of World-Systems Research, Society in Transition, and other scholarly journals and edited collections. JEFFREY KENTOR is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah and Editor of the International Journal of Comparative Sociology. His research focuses on long-term social change at the global level. Currently, he is studying the expansion of transnational corporate power in the world economy, and the impact of the military establishment on development and inequality (with Edward Kick). Recent publications include Capital and Coercion (Taylor and Francis 2000) and articles in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, International Sociology, and the Journal of Political and Military Sociology. EDWARD KICK is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on macro social organization and issues of the world-system, especially globalization, militarization, economic and social development, city and community development, and performance management cultures in organizations. Kick’s recent and forthcoming work appears in journals such as Social Science Research, The American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Journal of Poverty, Journal of World-Systems Research, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and Journal of Economic and Industrial Democracy. JODIE MANALE is Chief of the Community Redevelopment Division in the Escambia County, Florida Neighborhood & Environmental Services Department. Her work concerns areas of brownfields redevelopment, disaster relief, regional planning, and community outreach. JAMES RICE is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Washington State University. He is presently completing a doctoral dissertation on the socio-economic and ecological consequences of international trade integration. Rice has published co-authored articles in the Journal of World-Systems Research, Encyclopedia of Energy, and the Handbook of Political Sociology. JULIE RICE is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Washington State University. Her research is currently focused upon issues related to environmental policy at the community level. J. TIMMONS ROBERTS is Professor of Sociology and Director of Environmental Science and Policy at the College of William and Mary. His books included From Modernization to Globalization: Perspectives on Social Change and Development (Blackwell 2000, with Amy Hite), Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline (Cambridge 2001, with Melissa Toffolon-Weiss), and Trouble in Paradise: Globalization and Environmental Crises in Latin America (Routledge 2003, with Nikki Thanos). He currently is researching relations between global structural inequality and climate justice.

338 • About the Authors EUGENE ROSA is Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy in the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, and Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. In 2004 he was appointed to U.S. National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. His current research focuses on the key human activities that are producing undesirable environmental impacts on a global level, and the question of risk, meaning to assess the degree of uncertainty and consequences of human choices, especially technological choices. Recent books include the award winning Risk, Uncertainty, and Rational Action. Rosa has published articles in Science, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Journal of Risk Research, Ambio, Annual Review of Sociology, and many other scholarly journals and edited collections. IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN is Senior Research Scholar at Yale University and the former President of the International Sociological Association. He writes in three domains of world-systems analysis: the historical development of the modern world-system; the contemporary crisis of the capitalist world-economy; the structures of knowledge. Books in each of these domains include respectively The Modern World-System (3 vol.); Utopistics, or Historical Choices for the Twenty-first Century; Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Other recent books include World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction; The Uncertainties of Knowledge; and Alternatives: The U.S. Confronts the World. In 2003 he received the American Sociological Association’s Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award. RICHARD YORK is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon. He has published articles in Ambio, American Sociological Review, Ecological Economics, Gender & Society, Human Ecology Review, Organization & Environment, Population Research and Policy Review, Social Science Quarterly, and other scholarly journals addressing various aspects of the human interaction with the natural environment. His research interests include the anthropogenic driving forces of environmental change; the connections between theory, meta-theory, and methodology; historical materialism; human ecology; ethnozoology/anthrozoology; and the sociology and philosophy of science.

Index Abion, 207 accumulation, of capital, 1, 2, 4, 15, 34, 251 acid deposition, 7 acid rain, 120 Aegean, 261, 275, 278 affluence, and decreased deforestation, 51 Africa, “lost decade,” 178 African Development Bank, funding for Lesotho Highlands Water Project, 8, 153 age cohorts, and resource strain, 46, 52 agrarian structures, 90 Agrawal, D. P., 270 agriculture: development of, and lower SO2 and NOx emissions, 129, 131; and forest fragmentation and deforestation, 267; modern, 218 Ahmad, M., 189 air pollution: Bangkok, 180; maquiladora centers, 141–42; urban, 91n16 Akkadian period, 271, 274 Albion, Richard, 197, 198, 201 Alden, Davril, 211 Allen, Mitchell, 235 Amazon Basin, 9; economy impovrished by moving of rubber reproduction, 209; environment shaped human activities, 202; floral and fauna extraction in, 210–11; implications of export cycles for materio-spatial analysis, 211–12; indigenous populations decimated by enslavement, 203–4; rubber economy, 204–10; studies of extractive economies in, 9, 201–2; underdevelopment in, 29 American Sociological Association (ASA), Political Economy of the World-System section (PEWS) conference, 2 Amin, Samir, 27 Anatolia, 268–69, 275, 277, 279, 281 Ancient World: first Dark Age of, 267; system, 260–62 Andersen, Mikael, 104n23 “anti-modern,” 27 anti-systemic movements, 20, 21, 251 APHI (Indonesian Concession Holders Association), 186 Apkindo (Indonesian Wood Panel Association), 181, 184, 186

arboreal pollen profiles, 257n11, 259, 262–67, 270, 281 Argolid, 280, 285 arms race, 251 Arrighi, Giovanni, 202n4 Arrow, Kenneth, 147 articulated consumer markets, 225 artistic degeneration, in Dark Ages, 276 Asian crisis of 1997, 8; and ascent of neoliberal globalism, 173–75, 178, 184; post-crisis reliance on natural resources, 176 Asian miracle economies: authoritarian state developmentalism, 174; environmental undersides of, 179, 180; neoliberal interpretation of, 178; reliance on natural resources and the agricultural sector, 180; unusually high rates of growth during the 1980s, 178–79 Assyria, 288 authoritarian state developmentalism: and Asian miracle economies, 174; in Indonesia, 190; and neoliberal globalization, 9, 175 aviamento system, 208 Babb, Sarah, 173n1 Babylonia, 288 Bactria, 275 Baluchi Highlands, 274 Baluchistan, 274 Bangkok, water and air pollution due to industrial waste and high concentrations of vehicles, 180 Baran, Paul, 28 “Barbarian Ware,” 283 Barkin, David, 102n20 Beck, Ulrich, 143 Beer, Linda, 66 behavioral ecology, 57 Bell, Barbara, 267, 276 Belsley, David A., 49 Berkeley Mafia, 175 Berry, William D., 95 Bessemer conversion process, 206, 209 Bienefeld, M., 191 Black Death, 242 Border Industrialization Program (BIP), 137–38 boreal forests, 39 Bornschier, Volker, 68 Boswell, Terry, 66, 68, 69, 70, 76

340 • Index B-phase. See world system crisis Bracero Program, 137 Braudel, Fernand, 256n10, 257, 282 Braun, Yvonne, 8 Brazil, populist regime in, 252 Bretton Woods, 2 Brewer, A., 28 Bronze Age crisis, 257, 260–79; arboreal deforestation pollen profiles and plantago growth pollen profiles, 262–67; climate changes and natural disturbances in early period, 268–70; deurbanization and migration, 2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C., 271–75; disruption of link between social and natural systems, 279–86; early phase of, 262–70; final phase of (1200 B.C. to 700 B.C.), 277–79; natural system changes (2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C.), 262–68; political and social changes, 2200 B.C.–1700 B.C., 275–76; reconfiguration of trading networks, 277–79; socioeconomic and political transformations, 271–76, 282–86; transition from bronze to iron production, 259 Bronze Age world-system, 11; end of, 279–86 Brundtland Commission, 16 Bryson, R. A., 282 Bulgaria, 281 bulk goods exchange network (BGN), 233–34 Bunker, Stephen, 9, 29–30, 177, 222 burial practices, 284, 285 Burns, Thomas, 5–6, 41, 50n5 Bush administration, “New Approach on Global Climate Change” plan, 81 Buttel, Frederick, 80 Camdessus, Michel, 184 Canada, 200 capital accumulation, 1, 2, 4, 15, 34, 251 capital flight, 67, 68, 86 capital intensity, and variance in total national footprints, 223 capitalism: central question about, 26; challenges to, 1; competitive and conflictive setting, 251; emergence of, 247; environmental impact, 2; evolved partly as a result of socialist challenges, 251; externalization of natural costs of production, 16, 42, 249; first contradiction of, 218; geographical expansion of, 247; global

restructuring of, 1, 79, 86, 249–50; “metabolic rift” with nature, 249; monopoly, 86, 218; reduction of costs of extraction of raw materials and the elimination of waste, 16; second contradiction of, 15, 15n4, 213, 218–19, 254; structural inequality, 38; unlikely to continue for more than a few centuries, 248 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions: and economic output, 6–7, 79–80; and global warming, 63; from industrial sources per unit of Gross Domestic Product, 1989 and 1998, 100, 101; per capita in the U.S. vs. India, 29, 32 carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity (inefficiency), 80–82; and export dependence, 103–4; and military spending, 99, 103; and percent of labor organized in unions, 102; and poverty rates, 102n20; and regime repressiveness, 102; social factors predicting, 82, 98–104; and state spending, 103; and world system position, 7, 65–66, 96–99, 107 Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC), 91 carbon dioxide sinks, 17 carbon-scrubbers, 107 Carpenter, Rhys, 280n25, 281 carrying capacity, 45–46, 57 Castells, Manuel, 24 Catton, William R., 83 Caucasus, 278, 281 Central Asian steppe nomads, 245 Central Europe, deforestation, 262 Central (West Asian and Mediterranean) PMN, 243–45 Chadwick, J., 281, 282 Chase-Dunn, Christopher, 10, 68, 232 Chew, Sing, 10–11, 37 Chihuahua Desert, 135 Childe, Gordon, 286, 288 Chile, 27 China: deforestation, 180; partial reincorporation as capitalist state, 251; revolution, 252; world’s largest importer of tropical logs in 1999, 185 Cholistan, 274 Circum Pontic metallurgical province, 278 circumscription, 238, 245, 247 city-state (polis): concentration of many in a single region, 246–47; emergence of, 287–88; as type of semiperipheral society, 236

Index • 341 Clapp, Jennifer, 136 class struggle, 240, 251 climate change: in Bronze Age crisis, 268–70, 281–82; cool and warm periods, Anatolia and adjacent regions, 269; in Dark Ages, 258, 268; urban growth and, 244 Club of Rome, 23 coal, 210 Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, 148–49 coerced labor, 88, 89 collective change, faith in during 1960s and early 1970s, 25 collective property, 249 colonialism, and outflow of natural resources from peripheral to core regions, 215 “colonial legacy,” 104 Colonias, 134–35, 143 commodities, 224, 225 commodity chains, 66, 75, 174, 216, 217 Commoner, Barry, 215 communications technology, 238, 252 comparative advantage theory, 3 conflict, 2, 238, 251 Consultative Group on Indonesia, 188–89 consumption, 2, 9; analytical approaches to in contemporary world-economy, 216–18; “cultural ideology of,” 226; and environmental degradation, 247–48; as a function of population and affluence, 44; hidden forms of, 216; imbalanced, 17; “metabolic rift” in patterns between urban and rural areas, 45, 225; social structural embeddedness of, 216, 217; sustainable, 222. See also energy consumption; overconsumption “contested periphery,” 235 contractions, periods of, 241. See also Dark Ages contract law, 247 Cooney, Paul, 146 core countries, 58; abundant forests, 39–40; and CO2 from fossil fuels, 85–87; and deforestation, 40, 41; effect of regulations on the dispersion of hazardous industries, 135–36; energy efficiency, 65–66, 76; export pollution and environmental degradation to non-core, 250; gap in per capita income relative to peripheral, 215; historical monopoly of the highest

technology goods and services, 39, 89; huge amounts of resources, 39; laborers least coerced and highest paid relative to those outside of the core, 86; outflow of natural resources from peripheral to, 215, 224; relocation of manufacturing to semiperiphery, 66; responsible for majority of environmental problems in the world, 121; service sector economies, 120; transfer of hazardous industries to periphery, 135–39, 144; urbanization in, 215; urban regions, consumption of biospheric resources, 225; wage inequity between core and periphery, 86 core/periphery model, 3; differentiation, 235; difficulty of representing in terms of spatially demarcated areas, 28–29; hierarchy, 235. See also world system position cornucopia model, 24, 30–35 costs, externalization of, 16, 42, 249, 250 Council on Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association, 142 Crete, 277, 278; Bronze Age trading role, 278n22; crisis conditions, 275; ecological degradation, 280, 281; political changes affecting in Bronze Age, 281 crisis of A.D. 1600 to A.D. 1750, 255 crisis of feudalism, 255 cross-national research, 39 Crowe, Jessica, 9 “cultural ideology of consumerism/ consumption,” 226 culture-nature relations, 11, 249, 261 Cyprus, 277 Daly, Herman, 137, 145 dam-development projects: significant social and environmental impacts, 157. See also Lesotho Highlands Water Project dams, Bronze Age, 280 Dark Ages, 10; appearance of hand-made pottery during, 283; artistic degeneration in, 276; climate changes, 258, 268; demarcate the limits of system reproduction, 288; deurbanization during, 271–75, 285–86; developmental reversals, 257, 288; duration of, 259–60; ecological recovery, 259, 267–68; ecological scarcity required downscaling of

342 • Index material and cultural lifestyles, 284; hierarchical social structures disappear, 285; nature in, 256–59; political changes in, 275–76; prolonged ecological crisis periods, 257–59; social system adaptation and recovery, 267–68; socioeconomic and political trends, 271–76; as system crisis and transformation, 11, 257, 259–60, 285, 286–88; tectonic shifts in, 269–70; theoretically generalized history, 256–60; uneven extent of impact, 258 Davis, Byron, 5–6 Davos, camp of, 20, 22 debt crisis, 178. See also Asian crisis of 1997 “debt trap,” 89 decentralization, in Dark Ages, 286 deforestation, 2; during the Bronze Age crisis, 261, 262, 280; and carbon dioxide emissions, 63, 64n1, 90; contextual effects, 58; Egypt, 2200-1700 B.C., 11; more severe in semiperiphery than in either the periphery or core from 1965 to 1990, 41; and per capita footprints, 51, 227, 229, 230; in the periphery, 5, 43, 50, 50n5; in Southeast Asia, 180; studies of, 38; technological diffusion leads to increasing “efficiencies” of, 42; varying by world-system position, 37, 38–39, 40, 40n1, 44n2, 51 de-industrialization, 87 democratic socialism, 250, 251 “demographic parasitism,” 215 demographic transitions, 214 denucleation, 275 dependency theory, 27; and concepts from the natural sciences, 28; criticism directed at, 28; and energy flows, 29–30; surplus not clearly defined in, 28 dependent industrialization, 224 Desborough, V. R., 257, 283 desertification, 2, 270 deurbanization: during Dark Ages, 271–75, 285–86; engendered structural conditions for the development of the polis, 288; in Greece, 1200-700 B.C., 282 development: negative association with carbon intensity, 104; prioritizes market values, 167; result of movements of capital in the world system, 27; in semiperipheral countries, 235–36, 238;

shift in the framing of the state’s proper role in, 175; socio-cultural and socio-environmental impacts, 5, 158–59; technological, 34. See also globalization; sustainable development “development aid,” 26 development institutions, 158 development studies, 106 development theory, reconceptualizing, 34 “deviance amplification,” 67n3 Diamond, Jared, 238 Dickens, Peter, 217 Dietz, Thomas, 44n3, 124, 147, 223 Dilmun, 276 direct foreign investment (DFI), 122, 131 disarticulated economies, 88, 224n3, 225 diseases, 245 distancing, 217 division of labor, global, 1, 71, 261 Dixon, William, 68 domesticated plants and animals, 238 Donley, David L., 282 Dorians, 282 downstreaming, 217 Drews, R., 282 Dubash, N., 184 Dunlap, Riley E., 83 Dutch National Institute for Public Health (RIVM), 122 Dutch Republic, first capitalist core state, 247 dynastic cycles, theory of, 240n1 Early Dynastic Period II/III, 271 Early Geometric Period, 285 earthquakes, 281 East Asia, 243–45; efficient export industry, 90; favorable grants and longer-term loans to states of, 89–90; receipt of capital flight out of core, 67 Eastern bloc-style socialism, 1 eastern Mediterranean: ecological stress, 281; littoral, 277 East/West growth/decline phases, synchronization of, 243–45, 246 ecological constraints, become more important as world-systems increase in size, 239 ecological contradiction, 188–90 ecological debt, 17 ecological disaster, 249 ecological footprints of nations, 10, 38, 121, 223–27; and capital intensity, 223; and deforestation, 51, 227, 229, 230; as

Index • 343 function of population and affluence, 44, 147, 223; increase in of richer nations between 1900 and 1990, 32; structural causes of, 224; and world-economy position, 227, 228, 230 ecological marxism, 177 ecological modernization theory (EMT), 10, 132, 134, 147, 179n4, 214, 220–22; as change in carbon emissions and economic growth, 104n23; costs and benefits associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to the periphery, 144; and efficiency of production, 87; and environmental Kuznets curve, 120–21; as sustainable development, 24 ecological science, 223 economic historians, 197 economic nationalists, 175 economics, neoclassical model, 3, 5 economic stagnation, 224, 255 economies of scale, 30; in core urban regions, 225; and the cost of space, 194, 196; and reproduction of capital, 194, 209 “ecoproductive” land, global access to, 32 Egypt: climate changes during Bronze Age, 282; continued as Bronze Age state, 288; as core region of Bronze Age, 260, 262, 269; deforestation, 11; expanded trade at end of Bronze Age, 277; political changes in Dark Ages, 275–76; soil erosion from deforestation affected agriculture, 268; systems crisis of 2200 B.C., 262 Ehrhardt-Martinez, Karen, 39, 44n3 electrical utilities, 119 elite populations, 85, 241, 242 emigration, 238, 246 Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), 122 energy consumption: increased by production outside of the core, 67–68; inequities in, 29, 64–65; in lower periphery, 103; by the Pentagon, 219; reflects distribution of global income and political power, 64–65 energy efficiency: decrease in within semiperiphery and upper periphery, 65–66, 75, 76; increase in the core, 65–66, 76 energy flows, uneven, 29–30 environmental costs, “outsourcing” of, 42, 144, 227 environmental degradation, 2, 3; caused by the side effects of consumption,

247–48; exported from core to non-core, 42, 144, 227, 250; and the history of states, 37; impact on the evolution of world-systems, 10, 231–32; in lower-consuming countries, 227–30; most severe in industrializing countries of the semiperiphery, 40; and population distributions, 44; and population growth, 237; and production, 237–39; pushs new technological innovations and exacerbates population pressure, 241, 247; and world system processes, 261 environmental justice, 30, 34 Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), 105, 121, 132, 147, 179 environmental NGOs, challenges to Indonesian New Order, 183 environmental regulation: and dispersion of hazardous industries from core to non-core, 135–36; widening gap in, 42 environmental risks: of hazardous industries in peripheral countries, 139; of maquiladora centers, 140–41 environmental sociology, 9, 220 epidemics, 242–43 eschatological tradition, 242 Eskeland, Gunnar S., 136 Eurasia, stress conditions during Dark Ages, 275 Europe: deforestation period, 262, 267; population explosion, 214–15; trade link to Near East in Bronze Age, 261 European Community, funding for Lesotho Highlands Water Project, 8, 153 European “dorsal spine,” 246 Evans, Peter, 149 export dependence, positively related to carbon intensity, 103–4 export markets, primary stimuli to industrializing economies, 40 export oriented development (EOD), 226, 227 export processing zones (EPZs), 133, 148 extractive economies, 9, 29–30, 88, 120, 201–2 Fagan, Brian, 268 “fall-off” of effects, 233 famine, 275, 276 Feldman, Stanley, 95 feminist political ecology framework, 160 Ferguson, James, 155, 156, 190 Fertile Crescent, 268–69 feudalism, crisis of, 255

344 • Index firewood, 64n1 Fittkau, Ernst Josef, 202, 211 flash flooding, 280 “flexible accumulation,” 251 “Fordism,” 86 foreign capital penetration, 62, 73; affect on pollution emissions, 7; in countries in the semiperiphery and upper periphery, 7; expansion of, 66–67; and growth of CO2 emissions, 6, 7, 69, 74, 104; impact on the environment, 61, 69; negative consequences in a peripheral economy, 68–69; and rates of urbanization in peripheral nations, 226; structure of, 69 foreign debt, lagged effect on carbon inefficiency, 104 foreign direct investment stocks/GDP, 73 foreign investment concentration (FIC), 6, 73; effects on growth in total CO2 emissions between 1980 and 1996 in less developed countries, 74–76; and growth of carbon dioxide emissions, 61; retards economic development, net of the effects of foreign capital penetration, 69–70 foreign subsidiaries, 6; effects on growth in total CO2 emissions between 1980 and 1996 in less developed countries, 61, 74–76; growth 1980–1996, 61, 73 forest products, impending shortage of, 42 Forest Watch Indonesia, 189 “formal rationality,” 13 Fort Derawar, 274 fossil fuels: CO2 from in core countries, 85–87; CO2 from in non-core countries, 87–91; consumption of reflects the distribution of global income and political power, 64–65; as a hallmark of affluence and status, 102n20; used by almost all machinery in modern world, 63; use of in lower periphery, 91, 103 Foster, John Bellamy, 15, 215 “Fourth World,” 91 Frank, Gunder, 27, 28 “free trade,” 42 “free zones,” 133 Frey, R. Scott, 7–8, 124 Friedman, Milton, 27 fundamentalist Islamic opposition, 2 Gallagher, Kevin P., 146 Gauteng region, 156

Gellert, Paul, 8 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 138 generational rationality, 19 geographers, 197 geographic information systems (GIS), 227–30 Giddens, Anthony, 222 glaciation, 63, 64 global capitalism: greater effects on the biogeosphere than any earlier system, 249–50; less developed countries as “parts suppliers” to, 66 global cities, 225 global division of labor, 1, 71, 261 global environmental change, 18; intellectual issues, 15; moral questions, 17–19; political questions, 19–20; substantively rational decisions about, 21; and world systems theory, 83–91 global governance, 2 global institutions, policies and programs, 3 globalization, 2, 3; economic restructuring, 1, 79, 86, 249–50; environmental and social consequences, 8; and global dependence, 2, 4; increasing mobility of capital, 25; latest phase of materio-spatial expansion and intensification that emerges from technical innovations, 194; structural, 4; thinking about in past century, 26–27 “Globalization and the Environment: Prospect and Perils,” 2 global resource management, 34 global starvation, 2 global stratification. See world system position global trade, predominance in and GDP, 84 global warming, 2, 61; and its cost, 63–64; overview of, 62; research dominated by physical scientists, 80; social structure of, 64–66 Goldstone, Jack, 241–42, 242, 243 Goodyear, 205 Gould, Kenneth A., 10, 148, 213, 218 Greece, 277; crisis conditions, 275; decline in socioeconomic life from 1200 B.C. till 700 B.C., 282–86; demise of, 288; ecological degradation, 280, 281; emergence of polis as a social organization, 287–88

Index • 345 Greek polis, preconditions for the rise of, 286 “green-bashing,” 26 greenhouse gases, 38, 41, 79, 82 Greenpeace, 25 “Green Revolution,” 58 Greider, William, 146 Grimes, Peter, 6, 7, 61, 71, 147 gross domestic investment/GDP, 73 gross domestic product (GDP): and carbon dioxide emissions, 79–80; per capita, 122 Grossman, Gene, 136, 146, 147 gross national product (GNP): per capita, 73; reflects a country’s position in socially negotiated, global exchange relations, 33 ground-level ozone (smog), 119 Grove, Richard, 16n5 growth and environment, economist’s approach to the relation between, 31 Guha, Ramachanda, 17 Gulf trade, 11, 277 Habibie, B. J., 175 Hall, Thomas, 10, 232 Ha Makotoko, 168 Hamilton, Lawrence, 48 Harappan Civilization, 260, 262, 268, 269, 270, 271, 276 Hardin, Garrett, 18 Harrison Anne E., 136 Harvey, David, 197, 243n2 Hasan, Mohamad (Bob), 181, 188, 188n11 Hatti, 278 hazardous products: costs and benefits, 139, 144–47; international patterns of accumulation and transfer, 38; transferred to the peripheral zones of the world-system, 133, 135–39 health resources, allocation, 19 health risks, 141–42, 143 hegemony: decline of in United States, 174; shift toward neoliberalism, 173; struggle for in world politics, 20 Hettne, Björn, 26, 27 hierarchy formation, 238, 240, 241, 243 Highlands Church Action Group (HCAG), 159n10 high-performing Asian economies (HPAEs), 179. See also Asian miracle economies Hittites, 281, 282 Hooks, Gregory, 219 Hornborg, Alf, 5 Hudson Bay, 200

Hudson Bay Company, 199 “human exemptionalist” approach, 83 hydrology, in the extraction of plants and animals, 210–11 import substitution industrialization (ISI), 226 income inequality, 225 income turning points (ITPs), 121–22, 127 India: political, economic and social reversals in Dark Ages, 274, 276; populist regime in, 252; systems crisis of 2200 B.C., 262; tectonic shifts, 270 Indic PMN, 244 indigenous rights groups, 175 Indonesia: Asian “miracle” in, 178–84; average annual economic growth of 6.5 percent over three decades, 178; bail-out and structural adjustment program, 184; Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), 187; CO2 emissions, 90; crude palm oil (CPO) production, 182; deforestation, 177, 180, 186; domestic debt as of September 2002, 187; ecological contradictions, 182–83, 188–90; forestry development under authoritarian state developmentalism, 175; forestry sector reform, 184–85, 188; illegal logging, 192; increase of natural resource processing industries from 1970 to 1990, 180–81; industrial tree plantations, 182; logging for export, 181, 186; Outer Islands, 181; overcapacity on the neoliberal path, 191–92; palm oil investment, 186–87, 188; plywood exports, 181, 182; post-crisis move toward neoliberalism, 8, 176; post-crisis plywood exports, 185; pulp and paper exports, 182, 188; recapitalization of the banking sector, 187; recovery premised on a return to agriculture and natural resources, 185; Reforestation Fund, 182 Indus: systems crisis of 2200 B.C., 262 industrialization: and carbon dioxide emissions, 90; and higher NOx emissions, 131; and higher SO2 emissions, 129; and upward movement in the world system, 40 “industrial” wars, 248 infant mortality, on the Mexican side of U.S.-Mexico border, 142 infectious diseases, on Mexican side of U.S.-Mexican, 142 information exchange network (IN), 234 information workers, 87n10

346 • Index infrastructural limitations, 88 Innis, Harold, 197, 198–201 institutional inventions, in response to constraints and opportunities created by ecological degradation and population pressure, 241 institutional structures of exploitation, 245 institutional superstructures, 243 interaction networks, 4, 234 inter-glacial eras, 63 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 62, 64 internal stratification, 240 International Chamber of Commerce Business Charter for Sustainable Development, 148 international financial institutions (IFIs), 176 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2; policies promoting and supporting TNC practices, 8; redefined poverty as mismanagement, 27; structural adjustment in Indonesia, 8–9, 186–87; structural adjustment strategy and action, 173 International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14000 environmental management standards, 148 international trade, “regional bias” in, 42 IPAT model, 43, 48, 81n3, 222 iron: adoption of, 286–87; ore, 210; plowshares, 287; production of, 281 Iron Age, 277 Isin-Larsa period, 271 isolationism, 27 Jakarta, 180 Japan: “bubble” economy, 188; colonialism, 178–79; greater levels of saving relative to consumption, 86 Jordan, 275 Jorgenson, Andrew, 9, 224, 227 Kaimowitz, D., 189 Kalmykia, 270 Kalof, 124 Kardam, Nuket, 158 Kargaly, 281 Kassites, 281 Katse basin, 154, 155, 164 Katse dam, 163 “Katse Village,” 154n7 Kentor, Jeffrey, 6, 7, 61, 68, 69, 70, 76 Khaldun, Ibn, 240n1

Kick, Edward, 5–6 Kick’s classification, 47 Kirch, Patrick, 239 Kondratieff long waves, 255 Korea, 179 Korezm, 275 Kristiansen, Kristian, 278 Krueger, Alan, 136, 146, 147 Kuh, Edwin, 49 Kuznets, Simon, 70–71, 121n2 Kuznets’ effect, 7, 40, 54, 56, 70–71 Kyoto treaty, 81, 108 labor unions, 175 Lamb, H., 282 land-clearing, 40n1 La Paz Agreement, 141 Larsson, Thomas B., 278 Lathrap, Donald W., 202 Latin America: debt crisis, 175; “lost decade,” 178 Lefevbre, H., 197 Leonard, H. Jeffrey, 136 Lesotho: annual revenues from sale of water, 163; gendered village economy, 152; government priorities disadvantage the rural poor of the highlands, 154, 159; Ha Makotoko, 161; history of externally funded development projects, 155–59; household production system, 152; Jonathan administration, 156; Land Act of 1979, 167; majority rural population, 152; male migration for wage labor, 152, 153, 153n1; pastoral lands as important direct economic resource, 166–67; prospects of large dams as a development strategy for, 156; restructured access to rural resources to meet the macro-economic indicators of the Western market model, 157, 169, 170; Senqu River, 154; soil erosion programs, 167n11; wild vegetables and herbal medicines supplement household resources, 152–53; women as de facto heads of household, 152 Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), 153, 154, 155, 156, 159n10, 168, 170 Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), 8; “development” portion of, 157, 159; joint commission (JPTC), 153–55; loss of pastoral lands, 166–69; Panel of Environmental Experts (POE), 157; reduced access to water,

Index • 347 163–66; reduced access to wild vegetables/herbs, 161–62; reorganized and commodified rural resources for the benefit of the nation-state, 151, 156; undermining of traditional inherited authority of local chiefs, 168–69 less developed countries, as “parts suppliers” to the global economy, 66 “lifeboat ethics,” 18, 19 literacy rates, in urban areas, 225–26 logging industry, 42; changing face of, 42 Lomborg, Björn, 25, 26 Lovins, Amory, 87n9 Lovins, Hunter, 87n9 lower-consuming countries, and higher levels environmental degradation, 227–30 lower periphery: cheapest of all labor, 67n3; little foreign investment, 67n3; little release of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, 91; state as major consumer of fossil fuels, 103 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 16 macrosociological studies, 213 Malaysia, 179; CO2 emissions, 90; exports, 180 Malthus, Thomas, 43 Malthusians, 248 Manale, Jodie, 6 Mandel, Ernest, 201 manufacturing: Asian exports, 179; percent of GDP, 74; relocation of away from the core toward the lower wages found in the semiperiphery, 66 maquiladora centers, 7–8; air pollution, 141–42; economic costs, 143; environmental risks, 140–41; groundwater and surface water contamination, 142; growth in the mid-1980s and 1990s, 138; hazardous waste, 141; human health risks, 141–42; labor-management practices, 138; move from simple assembly to manufacturing, 138; resistance to through transnational networks, 148–49; social costs, 143–44; transfer of hazardous industries to, 134; uncertain mix of costs and benefits of, 145–46; water pollution, 141; water shortages, 141 Maquiladora Health and Safety Network, 148 maquiladora workers: cancers and birth defects, 142; health costs of women,

143; industrial accidents and adverse health and safety conditions, 142; wages, 143 Maquila Solidarity Network, 148 Margiana (Murghab Delta), 275 marginal elites, 241, 242 Marinatos, 281 maritime shipping, 216 market construction, 175 market institutions, 247 Marquesa Islands, 239 Martinez-Alier, Joan, 17, 18 Marx, Karl, 15, 15n3, 24, 26, 197, 201 Marxism, 28; analysis of the relations of production to labor, 218; crisis theory, 253; population growth embedded in social structure, 248; worldview, 35 materio-spatial configurations: contributed to Britain’s eventual expulsion of the French from Canada, 200; in earlier social scientific thought, 197–202; and globalization, 194; implications of export cycles for in Amazon Basin, 211–12; on social and economic organization in the Amazon Basin, 194 Matthews, E., 222 Mazur, Allan, 80 McCann, James, 167n11 McNeill, J. R., 16 Meadows, Donella, 248–49 medical research, 19 Memphis, 271 mental operations, in which scholars/scientists engage when dealing with any topic, 13–14 mercantile city-states, development of, 287 Mesabi range, 209 Mesopotamia: cities, population of in thousands 2800 B.C.–1500 B.C., 271–74; core region of ancient world, 260, 262; formation of city-states, 239, 271; loss of trading dominance, 277; soil erosion from deforestation affected agriculture, 268; structural political, economic and social reversals in Dark Ages, 269, 276, 281; systems crisis of 2200 B.C., 262; urban and nonurban settlements 2800 B.C.–1600 B.C., 274 Messenia, 285 Messnia, 280 “metabolic rift,” 15 metallurgical centers, 279 metals, scarcity of during Dark Ages in Greece, 284

348 • Index Methane, 63–64 Mexico: export-oriented industrial policies, 135; history of economic ties with U.S., 137; low production costs, 137; revolution, 252 Mexico-U.S. border region, 134–35 micro parasites, 245 Middle to Late Geometric Periods, 285 migration to rural communities, in Dark Ages, 271–76 militarism, and the treadmill of destruction, 219–20 militarized states, suppress labor costs to make up for inefficient infrastructure, 99 military conquest, 88 military spending: and increased carbon intensity, 99, 103; “multiplier effects,” 99 Mini Ice Age of 6200 B.C. to 5800 B.C., 268 Minoan Crete: command palace economy, 278, 279; demise of, 280; palace building, 275n20, 279; volcanic eruptions, 281 Modelski, George, 255, 271 modernization theory, 3, 70, 71, 123 modern world-system: population dynamics, material consumption, and the environment in, 214–16; and transformations, 245–48; urbanization in core regions rapidly increasing, 215 Mohale Dam, 155 Mohenjo-daro, 271, 274 Mojave Desert, 135 Mol, Arthur, 146, 222 Molina, David J., 136 money, 247 Mongol Empire, 245 monopoly capitalism, 86, 218 monumental buildings, downsizing of, 276 Moore, Jason, 17, 247n3 moral evaluation, 14 Morris, I., 282, 284, 285n26, 287–88 mortality rates, on the Mexican side of U.S.-Mexico border, 142 motor vehicle emissions, 119 mud-brick construction, 282–83 ‘Muela, 154, 155 ‘Muela hydropower station, 154n5 multilateral environmental agreements, 148 Mycenaean Greece: ascendancy, 281; climate change, 281–82; establishment

of economic dominance within the Aegean, 278 Myrdal, Gunnar, 14 NAFTA, 141, 146, 147, 148 nationalism, 251 National Toxics Campaign, 142 NATO, 3 natural resources: control of access, 233; crucial to the Asian miracle economies, 174, 175; exported from peripheral economies to semiperipheral and core economies, 224; “fire-sale” prices for, 89; renewal of, 16; variation in cross-national levels of consumption of, 223 nature: human alienation from, 217; “metabolic rift” of capitalism with, 249; role in system crisis, 254; world system processes induce continuous and degradative transformation, 261 Near East, ecological stress, 281 neoclassical economics, 3, 5 neoliberalism, 26; argument that benefits outweigh costs of transfer of core-based hazardous industries to the periphery, 144, 147; counterliberalism, 27; defined, 174; globalism, 9, 173–75, 178, 184; market-based methods of allocation and the removal of the state from decisions about industrial strategy, 175 neo-Marxist theories, 221 Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), 122 “New Economic World Order,” 27 “New International Division of Labor,” 79, 86 Newly Industrialized Countries, 27 Nicaragua, 27 Nimuendaju, Curt, 202 nitric acid, 119 nitrogen oxides (NOx): and agricultural development, 129, 131; and population density, 126, 132; principal cause of acid deposition in industrial societies, 119, 120; and service sector development, 131; and structural characteristics of national economies, 7 nomadic hunter-gatherers, 232, 237, m233 non-core countries: and CO2 from fossil fuels, 87–91; poor infrastructure, 88 non-governmental organizations (NGOs): ambivalent attitude toward

Index • 349 the international financial institutions (IFIs) in Indonesia, 188; and maquiladoras, 148; resistance to neoliberal shift, 175; transnational networks of, 149 non-state social groups, 232 North, Douglas, 201 North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), 148 North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), 148 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 136, 139 Northern Great Lakes region, iron-ore deposits, 209–10 Northwestern India, 11 Nthako, Malefetsane, 164–65 Nthako, Malijeng, 164–65 Ntsoaki Mokose, 164–65 Nubia, 277 O’Connor, James, 15, 83, 177, 213, 218 official development assistance (ODA), 122, 131 oil reserves, 247 Old Babylonian Period, 271, 274 Old Left, 20 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 27 O’Rourke, Kevin H. O., 201 oscillating male migration, 152, 153n1 Osmanaga Lagoon, 280 overconsumption, in ecological modernization theory, 222 overproduction, 218 overshoot, 46, 57 overurbanization, 226, 227 ox-drawn plow, 280 ozone, 119 Padoch, C., 282 Painted Grey Ware period, 270 palace economies, dissolving of, 283, 286, 287 Paleolithic age, 233 Palestine, 275 Palmatary, Helen Constance, 202 pastoral lands, loss of to Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), 166–69 Peet, R., 173n1 Pentagon, largest consumer of nonrenewable energy resources in the United States, 219 per capita income: gap between core

and peripheral regions, 215; ratio of between the richest and the poorest countries, 32 peripheral countries, 59; economies dependent on extractive industries, 120; export-oriented policies, 137; population growth, 41; risk of hazardous industries, 139; substantial variation within, 89; urbanization, 54 peripheralization, 27 peso, devaluation, 138 pharaonic tombs, downsizing of, 276 Philippines, deforestation, 180 Pirin Mountains, 281 Plantago lanceolata, 267 Plaza Accord, 179 POET model, 222 Polanyi, Karl, 287 political economy, and transfer of core-based hazardous industries to the periphery, 135–39 political instability, in Dark Ages, 275–76 political judgments, 14 political/military exchange network (PMN), 234 political repression: indicators for, 95; and less concern over environmental protection, 107 pollen analysis. See arboreal pollen profiles Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, 149 “polluting elites,” 85 pollution: exported from core to non-core countries, 120, 250; intensification of, 2. See also air pollution pollution abatement costs, and U.S. maquiladora investment, 136 “pollution havens,” 136 Polynesian horticulturalists, 237 population: environmental impact, 56, 102–3, 237; impact on national footprints, 147, 223; pressure, 237, 241, 243; and relative affluence in the world-system, 43–46; stimulated by technological innovations, 239 population density: and climactic fluctuations, 244; negative effect on NOx emissions, 126, 131, 132; positive effect on SO2 emissions, 130, 132 population distribution, and environmental degradation, 44 population growth: explosions, 214; prime driver of world systems,

350 • Index 260–61; rapid, 241–42; and world-systemic evolution, 237 population losses, 282 population pyramids, 52, 56 Porto Alegre, camp of, 20, 22 Portuguese, first settled the Amazon, 203 postcolonial nation-building, 174, 175 pottery: declining styles, 283; Geometric style period, 283; Protogeometric style, 283; Submycenaean style, 283 pottery wheel, 283 power-dependency linkages, 6 Prebisch-Singer theorem, 28 prestige goods exchange network (PGN), 234 primary (pristine) states, 239 principle of least effort, 237 private property, 249 production: and environmental degradation, 237–39; globalization of, 66–68, 75; low cost of in non-core countries, 88–89, 137; new technologies of, 238; progressive spatial dispersion of, 195; treadmill of, 10, 213, 218–19 Protogeometric period, 284, 285 public discourse, faith in technology and economic growth, 24 purchasing power parity (PPP), 122, 127n7 Radetski, Marian, 30–33 railway systems, engendered deforestation, 216 rationality, 4; formal, 13; generational, 19; substantive, 13, 19 recursive exploitation, 5, 42 Rees, William, 147 Reforestation Fund, 184 reform movements, 241, 242 refugee migration, 41 reparations, for environmental damage, 17 repression, and poverty, 102n20 reproductive time lag, 46, 52 resources, generational claimants, 19 resource use: and lower levels of deforestation, 51; in urban vs. rural areas, 45. See also natural resources restructuring, economic, 1, 79, 86, 249–50 revolutions, 241, 242 Rice, Condoleezza, 81 Rice, James, 9, 227 Rice, Julie, 9 “risk discrimination,” 143

“risk-society” hypothesis, 143 Roberts, Timmons, 6, 71, 147 Roman Empire, 247, 288 Rosa, Eugene, 7, 44n3, 80, 81n3, 147, 221, 223 Rostow, Walt, 26 Rothman, Dale S., 136 rubber: economies, 201; labor and transport needs, 207; natural constraints on supply, 208; synthetic fabrication, 210; traders, 208; transformed from a wild plant to a plantation crop in Asia, 208, 210 rubber-dependent technologies, 208 rubber tree, biology of and their distribution in space, 206 Rubinson, Richard, 68 rural encroachment, 41, 226, 271–76 Russian revolution, 252 San Diego-Tijuana, 134 Santos, Roberto, 201–2 Sarasvati, 270, 274 Sauer, Carl, 17 scarcities, 241, 281, 284 Schnaiberg, Allan, 9, 83, 103n21, 213, 218 Schneider, Jane, 234 Scudder, Thayer, 157 Sea Peoples, 282 secondary state-formation, 236 second contradiction of capitalism, 15, 15n4, 213, 254 second industrial revolution, and demand for rubber, 204–6 sedentary world-systems, 232, 233 semiperipheral countries: deforestation, 41; development in, 235–36, 238, 240, 251; diversity, 85; economies dependent on extractive industries, 120; environmental degradation, 40; growth of industrial capacity, 88; likely growth in carbon emissions, 108; marcher states, 240; substantial variation within, 89; urbanization, 41; urbanizing, 54 Senqu River, 163 Seoul, 180 service sector development, 103n21, 120; association with lower SO2, 129; and lower NOx emissions, 131 Sesotho, 160 Seymour, F., 184 shipbuilding, 198 Sierra de Juaven, 135 Sierra Madre Occidental, 135 Sierra Madre Oriental, 135

Index • 351 Silk Roads, 245 Sindh region, 274 Singapore, CO2 emissions among lowest in world, 90 Sioli, Harold, 202 Sklair, Leslie, 145, 194 slash-and-burn/slash-and-mulch activities, 44n2, 226 small-stone construction, 282 Smith, Chad, 146, 219 Smith, Neil, 197 Smith, Nigel, 211 Snodgrass, A. M., 257, 282, 283 social factors: and global warming, 62; in predicting CO2 intensity, 98–104 socialism: democratic, 250, 251; Eastern bloc-style, 1; world, 252 socialist parties, 252 social sciences: analytical tools of, 62; material effects of space on economy, 197 soil erosion, 261, 280 soils, in the Third World, 58 Soja, E., 197 Sonora Desert, 135 Sood, R. K., 270 Soros, George, 27 South Africa: Gauteng industrial region, 154; increasing water needs, 153n2 South African Ministry of Water Affairs, 156 Southern Mesopotamia, 11 South Korea, CO2 emissions among lowest in world, 90 Southwest Network for Economic and Environmental Justice, 148 Soviet Union, 27, 251 Spaargaren, G., 222 space: in the geopolitics of colonization, 203–4; means and condition of production, 195; set the parameters for transport systems, 195, 199; studies of the material and economic effects of, 201 Spatially Bounding World-Systems with Interaction Networks, 234 “spatio-temporal fix,” 243n2 St. Lawrence River, 199, 200 Stanislawski, D., 286 state socialist regimes, environmental devastation under, 89 state spending, and reduced carbon intensity, 103 Staudt, Kathleen A., 158n9 steel: mass production of, 206; processing, 206, 209

steppe pollen, 270 steppification, 270 Stern, D. I., 147 Stiglitz, Joseph, 188 STIRPAT model, 43, 124n5 Stoddard, Ellwyn R., 146 structural adjustment programs (SAPs), 178 structuration theory, 222 Submycenaean Athens, 284 substantive rationality, 13, 19 Suharto, Mohamed, 9, 176, 177, 178, 183, 184, 188, 190 sulfur dioxide (SO2), 119; principal cause of acid deposition in industrial societies, 120; and structural characteristics of national economies, 7 Sumer, 271 Summers, Lawrence, 32n1, 144–45 surface temperature of earth, 63 surplus, 245; not clearly defined in dependency theory, 28; prime driver of world systems, 260–61 surplus value, 1 sustainababble, 26 sustainable consumption, 222 sustainable development, 16, 24, 31 Sweet, David, 211 Syria, 275, 277 Syro-Palestine, 261, 282 system collapse, 241, 242, 258 system crisis. See world system crisis system transformation, as result of Dark Ages, 259–60, 286–88 taconite, 209 “Tadpole Philosophy,” 18 Tainter, Joseph A., 241 Taiwan, 179 Tawney, R. H., 18 technological development, 1; as an expression of capital accumulation, 34; stimulated by population growth, 239; and world system crisis, 259 tectonic shifts: in Dark Ages, 269–70; effecting the reproduction of the Harappan civilization’s urban complexes, 270n18 temperate forests, 39 temperature changes, 63, 268 Terlouw, Cornelius Peter, 98n19 terracing, 280 territoriality, 233 Thailand, 179, 180 Thera, volcanic eruption on, 281 thermodynamics, 2nd law of, 217

352 • Index Thompson, William R., 255, 279n23 Thracian tribes, 281 topography, and extraction of plants and animals, 210–11 trade treaties, 148 trade unions, 86, 252 trading networks: global, 42, 84; loss of, 282; reconfiguration of during Bronze Age crisis, 261, 277–79 transnational corporations (TNCs), 6, 66, 137; International Monetary Fund (IMF) polices favoring, 8; movement of production facilities to EPZs, 69, 75, 133, 137, 143; World Bank policies promoting, 8, 135 transportation: costs for smaller countries, 88; determined the utility of the resources available and the cost of their extraction and export, 199; developmental affected by climate change and geography, 238; space as obstacle to, 195; unit costs of, 196n2 treadmill of destruction, 10, 214, 219–20 treadmill of production, 10, 213, 218–19 tributary modes, evolutionary changes that took place in, 245–48 tropical nations, lower SO2 emissions than non-tropical nations, 124, 129, 132 Troy II to Troy III–IV, 275 Tshabalala, Mavuso, 152 Turkey, deforestation, 267 Turner, Stephen D., 152 Ugarit, 282 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, 108 underdevelopment, 27, 224 United States: decline in hegemony, 174; world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, 80 upper-periphery regions: growth of industrial capacity, 88; likely growth in carbon emissions, 108 urban air pollution, 91n16 urbanization: effect on emissions of pollutants, 7, 132; effect on NOx emissions, 131; effect on SO2 emissions, 126; in less-developed countries, 226; negative effects of differ across world-system positions, 54; overdevelopment of often precipitates encroachment into forested regions, 41; as part of the accumulation of surplus, 215; prime driver of world systems, 260–61;

resource dependent and resource intensive process, 45, 216 Ur III period, 271 Urnfield settlements, 280 value-neutral objectivity, 14 Van Rossem, Ronan, 84 vegetation, changes in, 152–53, 270 Vernon, Raymond, 85 Vietnam, CO2 emissions, 90 vulcanization, 205, 206 Wackernagel, Mathis, 32, 147, 223 Wagar, W. Warren, 250 wage inequity, between core and periphery, 86 WALHI (Indonesian environmental forum), 183, 186 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 4–5, 27, 38, 233, 247n3, 255 Warren, Peter M., 281 “Washington Consensus,” 3, 173 waste disposal, 16 waste flow, from the U.S. to Mexico, 141 water pollution, 141 Watts, M., 173n1 weapons of mass destruction, 219 Weber, Max, 13 Weinstein, Barbara, 201, 202 Welsh, Roy E., 49 West Germany, decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide in 1980s, 80 Whitley, James, 285 Williams, Heather L., 148–49, 201 Williamson, Jeffrey, 173n1 Wittfogel, Karl, 197, 201 wood and wood products: international trade in, 40, 45; scarcity, 280 wood fuel, 90 working-age population, highly predictive of deforestation and the ecological footprint, 52 World Bank, 2, 3; acknowledgment of role of state in success of Asian economies, 179; on deforestation of Indonesia, 189; emphasis on the economic returns of investments, and less so on the social ramifications, 158; funding for Lesotho Highlands Water Project, 8, 153; policies promoting TNC practices and export-oriented industrial policies of peripheral states, 8, 135; Policy Reform Support Loans, 184; redefined poverty as mismanagement, 27;

Index • 353 requirement that any subsidized economic project must also be a development project, 159; structural adjustment strategy and action, 173 World Commission on Dams (2000), 157 World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 24 world culture, 3 World Ecological Degradation (Chew), 261 World Economic Forum, 2 world politics, struggle for hegemony, 20 World Resources Institute, 122, 189 World Social Forum (WSF), 5, 20–21 world socialism, prospects for, 252 world state, 250, 252 world system crisis, 261–62; common understanding of, 254–55; contingent factors, 255; durations, 254–55; and dynamics of world-system evolution and transformation, 253; ecological factors, 256; in the form of Dark Ages, 257; idiographic interpretation of, 255; and need for innovations in social organization and technology, 259; recurring factors, 255; role of nature, 254; thought to have socioeconomic and political roots, 254; as transition points of system adaptation and evolution, 255 “World-System History and Global Environmental Change,” 2, 4 world system position (WSP), 48, 84–85; and actual CO2 emissions, 98; and carbon intensity, 7, 65–66, 96–99, 107; and per capita footprints, 227, 228, 230; by population under age 14 interactions, 55t; by urban population interactions, 53t world systems, 2, 3, 79; barriers to the

reproduction of, 256–57; basic concepts, 232–36; concern with human-caused ecological depletion coincides with the development of, 233; core/periphery relations, 235; defined, 232; and environmental outcomes, 4; iteration model, 236–38, 240–41, 242, 243, 250; literature, 9; as open-ended and path dependent, 236; resources from the natural system utilized for the reproduction of the social systems, 261; rooted in processes of production, 193; semiperipheral development, 235–36; spatial boundaries, 233–35; three major elements, 236; tradition, 4; use of spatial terms as a conceptually central organizing metaphor, 195 world systems theory, 131; and the global environment, 83–91; stable tri-part international stratification system, 84; and world-system position, 120 World Trade Organization (WTO), 2; policies promoting TNC practices and export-oriented industrial policies of peripheral states, 8, 135; Seattle meeting, 24; variety of free trade championed by, 42 Worldwatch Institute, 25 World Wide Fund for Nature, 25 Wright, H. E., 282 Yen revaluation (endaka), 179 York, Richard, 7, 44n3, 147, 221, 223 Zambia, Gwembe project, 168 Zebu cattle, 270 zero-sum game, 5, 24, 27–30, 35 Zipf, George, 237

STUDIES IN CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCES The Studies in Critical Social Science book series, through the publication of original manuscripts and edited volumes, offers insights into the current reality by exploring the content and consequence of power relationships under capitalism, by considering the spaces of opposition and resistance to these changes, and by articulating capitalism with other systems of power and domination – for example race, gender, culture – that have been defining our new age. ISSN 1537-4234 1. Levine, Rhonda F. (ed.) Enriching the Social Imagination. How Radical Sociology Changed the Discipline. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13992 3 2. Coates, Rodney D. (ed.) Race and Ethnicity. Across Time, Space and Discipline. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13991 5 3. Podobnik, B. & T. Reifer (eds.) Transforming Globalization. Challenges and Opportunities in the Post 9/11 Era. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14583 4 4. Pfohl, S., A. van Wagenen, P. Arend, A. Brooks & D. Leckenby (eds.) Culture, Power, and History. Studies in Critical Sociology. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14659 8 5. Jorgenson, Andrew & Edward Kick (eds.) Globalization and the Environment. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15132 X 6. Goldstein, Warren (ed.) Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion. A Critique of Rational Choice. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15238 5

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