IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v107y2014icp457-468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?

Author

Listed:
  • Plumecocq, Gaël

Abstract

This paper examines the discourse produced in the academic journal Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989, and compares this discourse with that of the field of environmental economics. I used methods for discourse analysis (Alceste and Iramuteq) on 6308 abstracts of papers published in four journals — namely Ecological Economics, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental Values, and Environmental and Resource Economics, published between 1989 and 2013. The results suggest that the discourses of ecological economics and environmental economics have grown closer over time. The semantic classification of co-occurrent terms used in Ecological Economics indicates increasing significance of the notions of ecosystem services and of monetary valuation. I argue that this trend is parallel to Costanza's career-path, which suggests the rise of a tacit recognition of the New Environmental Pragmatic scientific approach. I conclude with some of the implications for EE of promoting this kind of discourse to such an extent.

Suggested Citation

  • Plumecocq, Gaël, 2014. "The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 457-468.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:107:y:2014:i:c:p:457-468
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.09.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914002900
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.09.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gowdy, John & Erickson, Jon, 2005. "Ecological economics at a crossroads," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 17-20, April.
    2. Vatn, Arild, 2010. "An institutional analysis of payments for environmental services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1245-1252, April.
    3. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    4. Hoepner, Andreas G.F. & Kant, Benjamin & Scholtens, Bert & Yu, Pei-Shan, 2012. "Environmental and ecological economics in the 21st century: An age adjusted citation analysis of the influential articles, journals, authors and institutions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 193-206.
    5. Norgaard, Richard B., 1989. "The case for methodological pluralism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 37-57, February.
    6. Joan Martínez Alier, 2001. "Ecological Economics," UHE Working papers 2001_05, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    7. Costanza, Robert, 1989. "What is ecological economics?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, February.
    8. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    9. Shi, Tian, 2004. "Ecological economics as a policy science: rhetoric or commitment towards an improved decision-making process on sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 23-36, January.
    10. Ma, Chunbo & Stern, David I., 2006. "Environmental and ecological economics: A citation analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 491-506, June.
    11. Norgaard, Richard B., 2010. "Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1219-1227, April.
    12. Luks, Fred, 1998. "The rhetorics of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 139-149, August.
    13. Clive L. Spash, 2011. "Social Ecological Economics: Understanding the Past to See the Future," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 340-375, April.
    14. John Gowdy & Jon D. Erickson, 2005. "The approach of ecological economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(2), pages 207-222, March.
    15. Hanley, Nick & Czajkowski, Mikolaj & Hanley-Nickolls, Rose & Redpath, Steve, 2010. "Economic values of species management options in human-wildlife conflicts: Hen Harriers in Scotland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 107-113, November.
    16. Funtowicz, Silvio O. & Ravetz, Jerome R., 1994. "The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 197-207, August.
    17. Ali Douai & Vivien Franck-Dominique, 2009. "Economie écologique et économie hétérodoxe : pour une socio-économie politique de l'environnement et du développement durable," Post-Print hal-00721179, HAL.
    18. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    19. Clive L. Spash & Anthony Ryan, 2012. "Economic Schools of Thought on the Environment: Investigating Unity and Division," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 36(5), pages 1091-1121.
    20. Joan Martínez Alier, 2001. "Environmental Conflicts, Environmental Justice, and Valuation," UHE Working papers 2001_03, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    21. Illge, Lydia & Schwarze, Reimund, 2009. "A matter of opinion--How ecological and neoclassical environmental economists and think about sustainability and economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 594-604, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    2. Teixeira, Aurora A. C. & Castro e Silva, Manuela, 2015. "Relational environment and intellectual roots of 'ecological economics': An orthodox or heterodox field of research?," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-52, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Spash, Clive L., 2020. "A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. Remig, Moritz C., 2015. "Unraveling the veil of fuzziness: A thick description of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 194-202.
    5. Lundgren, Jakob, 2022. "Unity through disunity: Strengths, values, and tensions in the disciplinary discourse of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    6. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.
    7. Dube, Benjamin, 2021. "Why cross and mix disciplines and methodologies?: Multiple meanings of Interdisciplinarity and pluralism in ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    8. Clive L. Spash, 2019. "Time for a Paradigm Shift: From Economic Growth and Price-Making Markets to Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2019_07, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Franco, Marco P.V., 2018. "Searching for a Scientific Paradigm in Ecological Economics: The History of Ecological Economic Thought, 1880s–1930s," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 195-203.
    10. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    11. Pirgmaier, Elke, 2017. "The Neoclassical Trojan Horse of Steady-State Economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 52-61.
    12. Farrell, Katharine N. & Silva-Macher, Jose Carlos, 2017. "Exploring Futures for Amazonia's Sierra del Divisor: An Environmental Valuation Triadics Approach to Analyzing Ecological Economic Decision Choices in the Context of Major Shifts in Boundary Condition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 166-179.
    13. Lo, Alex, 2014. "The Problem of Methodological Pluralism in Ecological Economics," MPRA Paper 49543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Buchs, Arnaud & Petit, Olivier & Roman, Philippe, 2020. "Can social ecological economics of water reinforce the “big tent”?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    15. Strunz, Sebastian & Klauer, Bernd & Ring, Irene & Schiller, Johannes, 2014. "Between Scylla and Charybdis: On the place of economic methods and concepts within ecological economics," UFZ Discussion Papers 26/2014, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    16. Kaitlin Kish & Joshua Farley, 2021. "A Research Agenda for the Future of Ecological Economics by Emerging Scholars," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    17. Sarah-Louise Ruder & Sophia Rose Sanniti, 2019. "Transcending the Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological Economics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-29, March.
    18. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    19. Melgar-Melgar, Rigo E. & Hall, Charles A.S., 2020. "Why ecological economics needs to return to its roots: The biophysical foundation of socio-economic systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    20. Spash, Clive L., 2017. "The Need for and Meaning of Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Discussion Papers 2017/02, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:107:y:2014:i:c:p:457-468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.