| I investigate the extent to which sociological theories of global integration help explain variation in countries' carbon intensity of well-begin (CIWB) over time. The CIWB approach provides a way to simultaneously measure a country's sustainability in terms of both environmental and human well-being. This is a burgeoning area of inquiry with much focus on the role of economic development; yet, looking at the effects of other aspects of global integration is relatively unexplored for the CIWB. I evaluate complementary theoretical propositions drawn from neoinstitutional world society / world polity theory and from the political economic theory of ecologically unequal exchange. I utilize statistically rigorous longitudinal modeling techniques to analyze data from 81 countries for the period from 1990 to 2011. I also look at subsets of more and less developed countries and compare production and consumption based measures of the CIWB when applicable. With this project I address core sociological issues of inequality, human well-being, and development, I explore areas of inquiry in environmental sociology related to sustainability and the production of carbon dioxide emissions, and I test theoretically derived hypotheses from comparative international sociology. I find world society / world polity integration is only associated with a reduction in the CIWB in more developed nations, and only when using the production measure for CO2 emissions. In less developed countries this form of integration is associated with an increasing CIWB. I find that while the main effect of economic integration is to reduce the CIWB of nations over time, this relationship is becoming less negative with time, especially for less developed countries, even becoming positive in the later years of the analysis indicating economic integration is beginning to increase the CIWB in some less developed countries. In terms of ecologically unequal relations of exchange I find evidence to support this theoretical perspective, especially at certain points in time, for less developed countries as the theory suggests. This research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of global sustainability in an unequal global system. |
