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We propose four ways that the urban growth machine theoretical perspective can be expanded for social scientists whose focus is not necessarily urban. First, we believe the thesis is useful for analysis at larger and smaller geographic scales than the city. Second, once focused on a goal and set in motion the growth machines have inertia. This leads to continuity over time and also leaves records which are useful in analyzing how particular outcomes occur. Third, the processes growth machines set in motion can lead us to practices that are on the edge of our ability to control, potentially resulting in unanticipated and even disastrous consequences, having relevance for the study of disasters. Finally, the very success of the growth machine, particularly when growth is centered on the exploitation of land based resources can lead to the exhaustion of the very basis of its success and thus to collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While 'economic development' projects have long been proposed and supported by local growth machine elites, technological change has affected the social desirability of large projects in three ways. First, large development projects-we examine water transportation-have grown in size, meaning that backers often seek public funding. With increased size and the need for external funding, many years or decades can elapse by the time a project can be conceived, politically supported, funded, and built. Second, during that time, the technology of the industrial sector in question may have changed radically-to the point that the project can be obsolete, or rapidly nearing obsolescence, by the time it is actually completed. Third, the massive size of the project may also mean that even if the project is obsolete as well as environmentally harmful, we may find ourselves unable to undo it or the environmental damage that it has caused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic debates can be entertaining and even useful, but they can also have drawbacks. The present debate has at least three of them. First, despite our ability to discern differing central tendencies between ''environmental'' and ''resource'' sociology, the excitement of a debate can cause such modest differences to be exaggerated, potentially being reified into a ''divide.'' Second, only a limited number of social scientists are studying resource/environmental issues, even today, so any researcher attention that is focused on navel gazing or worse, navel warfare is being diverted away from the research topics themselves. Third and most disturbingly, as human impacts on the environment grow more pervasive, we are likely to see an increasing number of cases where problems involve both ''resource'' and ''environmental'' issues, simultaneously. The true need is thus not to argue about differences or to create them but instead to develop synergies across differing points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of ecological modernization has received growing attention over the past decade, but in the process, it has been interpreted in conflicting and sometimes contradictory ways. In this article, we attempt to bring greater clarity to the discussion. Reviewing the works both by the theory's best-known proponents and by its most outspoken critics, we note that difficulties are created not just by the combining of theoretical predictions and policy prescriptions - a point that has already been noted in the literature - but also by the stark and highly significant differences in expectations between ecological modernization and most prevailing theories of society-environment relationships. Perhaps in part because of these differences, disagreements have often been expressed in stark, black-and-white terms. If the problems are to be resolved, there will be a need for greater theoretical precision, developed in conjunction with empirical research that is more focused, more finely differentiated, and more rigorous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most serious challenges lacing "advanced' industrial societies is the management of technological risks. Recently. a number of sociologists have called attention to the topics noting the significant contributions sociologists can offer to the ongoing risk debate. This article takes a complementary approach. suggesting that it is important to ask not just what sociology can do tor the study of risk, but what the study of risk can do for sociology. Particular promise is evident in studies that go beyond a focus on individuals' risk perceptions, dealing with the behaviors and interests of societal institutions entrusted with the management of risks. Still lacking, however. is a more explicit and coherent conceptual framework. one that can help guide future research toward the testing of sociologically important questions, not just what questions and issues that technologists and policymakers define as important. Working from an explicitly sociological orientation, ibis article outlines a couceptual perspective that focuses on the "framing" of risk debates by institutional actors. This approach suggests that, given the profound growth of technological efficacy, in the face at modest if any growth in the efficacy of social control mechanisms, the management of technological risk is likely to become increasingly problematic for sociology as well as for society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that applied settings offer opportunities for analysis as well as employment. The theme is discussed in the context of a recent Congressional Fellowship. The first half of the article is a relatively straightforward report on Congressional staffers and their activities: it presents background information and identifies three areas of dynamic tension that seem to deserve greater attention in future research. Building on this information. the second half of the article provides examples of three types of substantive conclusions that deserve to be encouraged in future applied work. The first is the application, in a new context, of previously familiar concepts. An example in the present case is that. despite the mans ways in which Congress is unique, it is also very much like a "typicaI" small town. The second is the questioning of common assumptions: despite the frequent criticisms of the so-called "rational model of decision making," for example, information and analysis play a significant role in policy outcomes, and knowledge is indeed power in many Congressional deliberations. The third is the recognition of broader challenges to the discipline: an example in the Congressional context is that social scientists, and sociologists in particular, have been extraordinarily ineffective in educating policy- makers on the nature of their work. Individually, each of these conclusions has implications for sociologists: collectively, they are meant to illustrate the importance of looking to applied settings as a source of insights, not just income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]