Dr. James Rice International Political-Economy, Environmental Sociology, and Technology and Society

Education:
Ph.D., Washington State University, 2006

Areas of Research Interest:
International Political-Economy, Environmental Sociology, and Technology and Society.

Current Research Interests:
I am currently conducting quantitative research on the socio-economic and environmental consequences of international trade integration among less developed countries. This research examines the patterns of environmental degradation and socio-economic underdevelopment among less developed countries linked to the global economy primarily through export of natural resources to more developed and higher consuming countries.

In particular, I am examining ecological unequal exchange dynamics enacted at a cross-national scale through trade relations, drawing on previous theorization from dependency and world systems analysis. The theory of ecological unequal exchange suggests industrialized countries are advantageously situated within the global economy and are more likely to secure favorable terms of trade. This advantage arguably facilitates disproportionate access to global natural resources and the sink-capacity services of ecological systems. Further, such disproportionate access potentially contributes to processes of environmental cost shifting wherein industrialized countries displace many of the negative ecological consequences of their natural resource consumption demands onto resource exporting less developed countries.

Ecological unequal exchange dynamics are theorized to underlie a seemingly paradoxical situation: countries characterized by the highest levels of natural resource consumption, principally the most industrialized countries, typically exhibit the lowest domestic levels of natural resource degradation. Conversely, the most intense natural resource degradation processes frequently beset the poorest countries within the global economy, those typically exhibiting minimal natural resource consumption demands.

Recent Publications:

Rice, James. "North-South Relations and the Ecological Debt: Asserting a Counter-Hegemonic Discourse." Forthcoming in Critical Sociology.
Rice, James. 2007 "Ecological Unequal Exchange: International Trade and Uneven Utilization of Environmental Space in the World System." Social Forces, 85(3):1369-1392.

Rice, James. 2007 "Ecological Unequal Exchange: Consumption, Equity and Unsustainable Structural Relationships within the Global Economy." International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 48(1):43-72.

Jorgenson, Andrew K. and James Rice. 2006 "Uneven Ecological Exchange and Consumption-Based Environmental Impacts: A Cross-National Investigation." In Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change edited by Alf Hornborg, John McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier. Alta Mira Press.

Jorgenson, Andrew K. and James Rice. 2005 "Structural Dynamics of International Trade and Material Consumption: A Cross-National Study of the Ecological Footprints of Less Developed Countries." Journal of World-Systems Research, 11(1): 57-77.

Jorgenson, Andrew K., James Rice and Jessica Crowe. 2005 "Unpacking the Ecological Footprint of Nations." International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 46(3): 241-260