Ecologically Unequal Exchange

Summary

Ecologically unequal exchange theory arose out of critical traditions in global political economy, especially world-systems analysis. Generally, the theory holds that wealthier, more powerful countries will take advantage of their position in the global economic structure to accumulate economic benefits and externalize their environmental costs onto relatively poorer and less powerful countries. In the theoretical literature, a central debate concerns how to properly measure an ecologically unequal trade relationship. While some scholars argue that abstract use values that involve all social and ecological inputs into commodity production should be used, others contend that the materiality of the theory is best preserved by using only biophysical resource flows in analyses. For the most part, quantitative research in sociology addresses the environmental consequences (emissions; deforestation) of lower-income countries trading a significant amount of their goods to high-income nations. Emerging trends in quantitative research include attention to the role of the semi-periphery in ecologically unequal exchange, the use of social network analysis to better align methodologies with the relational assumption of the theory, and a focus on the environmental health consequences of uneven international trade. In our changing geopolitical and economic climate, research on ecologically unequal exchange is as important as ever to unpack the moral, political, and economic questions surrounding sustainable development.