IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sru/ssewps/149.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Environmentalism and Technology

Author

Abstract

The environment movement often targets technology. It switches between enthusiasm for some technologies (like wind energy) and resistance to others (like nuclear power). And yet theory regarding the way social movements engage with technology is little developed. Environment groups are simply assumed to contribute to the 'selection pressures' under which technologies evolve. This paper seeks to develop theory by bridging a gap between social movement research and the sociology of technology. It will move between the two literatures and use examples to illustrate how the environment movement's enthusiasm and resistance to technologies penetrate their networks of development.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian Smith, 2006. "Environmentalism and Technology," SPRU Working Paper Series 149, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sru:ssewps:149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/documents/sewp149.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Smith, Adrian & Stirling, Andy & Berkhout, Frans, 2005. "The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1491-1510, December.
    2. Bas Arts, 2004. "THE GLOBAL‐LOCAL NEXUS: NGOs AND THE ARTICULATION OF SCALE," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 95(5), pages 498-510, December.
    3. Virginie Mamadouh, 2004. "Internet, Scale And The Global Grassroots: Geographies Of The Indymedia Network Of Independent Media Centres," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 95(5), pages 482-497, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. René Kemp & Luc Soete & Rifka Weehuizen, 2012. "Towards an Effective Eco-Innovation Policy in a Globalised Setting," Chapters, in: Frank Wijen & Kees Zoeteman & Jan Pieters & Paul van Seters (ed.), A Handbook of Globalisation and Environmental Policy, Second Edition, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    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. Süsser, Diana & Döring, Martin & Ratter, Beate M.W., 2017. "Harvesting energy: Place and local entrepreneurship in community-based renewable energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 332-341.
    2. Capellán-Pérez, Iñigo & Campos-Celador, Álvaro & Terés-Zubiaga, Jon, 2018. "Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 215-229.
    3. Funcke, Simon & Bauknecht, Dierk, 2016. "Typology of centralised and decentralised visions for electricity infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-74.
    4. Åkerman, Maria & Kilpiö, Aino & Peltola, Taru, 2010. "Institutional change from the margins of natural resource use: The emergence of small-scale bioenergy production within industrial forestry in Finland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 181-188, March.
    5. Hellsmark, Hans & Hansen, Teis, 2020. "A new dawn for (oil) incumbents within the bioeconomy? Trade-offs and lessons for policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    6. Okereke, Chukwumerije & Coke, Alexia & Geebreyesus, Mulu & Ginbo, Tsegaye & Wakeford, Jeremy J. & Mulugetta, Yacob, 2019. "Governing green industrialisation in Africa: Assessing key parameters for a sustainable socio-technical transition in the context of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 279-290.
    7. Ciarli, Tommaso & Ràfols, Ismael, 2019. "The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 949-967.
    8. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.
    9. Arman Avadikyan & Patrick Llerena, 2009. "Socio-technical transition processes: A real option based reasoning," Working Papers of BETA 2009-21, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    10. Eleftheriadis, Iordanis M. & Anagnostopoulou, Evgenia G., 2015. "Identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 153-164.
    11. Faridah Djellal & Faïz Gallouj, 2009. "Innovation dans les services et entrepreneuriaT : au-delà des conceptions industrialistes et technologistes du développement durable," Innovations, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 59-86.
    12. Alessandro Grimaldi & Antonio Lopolito & Massimo Monteleone & Piergiuseppe Morone & Maurizio Prosperi, 2009. "Wp 6: Modelling Stakeholder Interplay And Policy Scenarios For Biorefinery And Biodiesel Production," Quaderni DSEMS 02-2009, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.
    13. Vincent-Paul Sanon & Raymond Ouedraogo & Patrice Toé & Hamid El Bilali & Erwin Lautsch & Stefan Vogel & Andreas H. Melcher, 2021. "Socio-Economic Perspectives of Transition in Inland Fisheries and Fish Farming in a Least Developed Country," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-34, March.
    14. Schäffler, Alexis & Swilling, Mark, 2013. "Valuing green infrastructure in an urban environment under pressure — The Johannesburg case," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 246-257.
    15. Geels, Frank W., 2006. "The hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems (1840-1930): The dynamics of regime transformation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 1069-1082, September.
    16. Jin Li & Lulu Zhou & Xufan Zhang & Zhihong Chen & Feng Tian, 2018. "Technological Configuration Capability, Strategic Flexibility, and Organizational Performance in Chinese High-Tech Organizations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.
    17. Junmin Lee & Keungoui Kim & Hyunha Shin & Junseok Hwang, 2018. "Acceptance Factors of Appropriate Technology: Case of Water Purification Systems in Binh Dinh, Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, June.
    18. Mock, Mirijam & Omann, Ines & Polzin, Christine & Spekkink, Wouter & Schuler, Julia & Pandur, Vlad & Brizi, Ambra & Panno, Angelo, 2019. "“Something inside me has been set in motion”: Exploring the psychological wellbeing of people engaged in sustainability initiatives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1-11.
    19. Geels, Frank W., 2012. "A socio-technical analysis of low-carbon transitions: introducing the multi-level perspective into transport studies," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 471-482.
    20. Anthony McLean & Harriet Bulkeley & Mike Crang, 2016. "Negotiating the urban smart grid: Socio-technical experimentation in the city of Austin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(15), pages 3246-3263, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    environment movement; resistance to technologies; sociology of technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sru:ssewps:149. 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: University of Sussex Business School Communications Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spessuk.html .

    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.