Academic Biography
Beginning Influences:
Hailing from the great state of Michigan, Steve is emotionally tied to the Great Lakes and Canadian sensibilities. His frequent visits as a child and teenager to see his numerous relatives in the wilds of Northern Ontario’s North Channel nurtured Steve’s love of nature. Coming from a working-class family, he eventually found his way to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he earned his PhD. He is a third-generation comparative environmental/ natural resources sociologist out of Yale University’s natural resources/environmental sociology lineage network (see tab on the original environmental sociology networks). Influential members of this network who helped him most along the way include the late Bill Burch, Jr., the Late Fred Buttel, the late Bill Freudenberg, the late Pat West, Tom Rudel, and Dorceta Taylor. Steve is extremely thankful to each of them.
General Research Interests:
His interests include organizations, values, and politics, and he becomes most excited when research questions combine these topics with environmental concerns. Over his long career, he pioneered several lines of scholarship in environmental/natural resources sociology and organizational studies. In environmental/natural resources sociology, Steve is best known for his work in four areas: comparative and global environmentalisms, the sociology of international organizations, the sociology of biodiversity conservation, and climate change.
Comparative and Global Environmentalisms: As an early explorer of comparative and global environmentalism, Steve challenged Ronald Inglehart’s well-established Postmaterialist Values Thesis. Steve found Inglehart’s use of the public’s concern and action to protect the environment, as a key example of a cultural shift, to be problematic. This was especially true in the context of the Materialist-Postmaterialist divide in a comparative global context.
Sociology of International Organizations: With his Michigan mentor, the late Gayl D. Ness, Steve promoted the sociology of international organizations. Together, they helped to introduce organizational sociology to international relations and international organization (IO) scholars, emphasizing greater organizational agency in shaping international events. Steve also provided an earlier organizational work on addressing natural resources and environmental concerns, especially through tree planting as an economic development scheme in developing nations.
The sociology of biodiversity conservation: which was often clalled “people and parks”, with his Michigan mentor, the late Patrick C. West, and with former Michigan graduate students, particularly regarding the political, social impacts, justice, and management concerns that arose with the global expansion of the US national park ideal, especially those located in the populated tropics, i.e. preserving land without human occupation. Later work focused on community-based conservation efforts, particularly in Belize, Central America.
Climate Change: Most of Steve’s current work is related to climate change. He produced some of the earliest comparative/cross-national reviews of public opinion on climate change, and more recently, he has engaged with graduate students on geoengineering, private climate finance, and what sustainability might entail. Is it even possible without major sacrifices?
See the research tab for more detailed descriptions of his current research and writing projects, as well as deeper dives into his older areas of scholarship.
Publications
Awards & Distinctions
- See CV
Courses
- See Course Schedule