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Erik Johnson Lab Site Home

Lauren Scott and I recently published an article inĀ Environmental Sociology that traces the emergence and ascendance of the sub-discipline. We document the rapid increase in environmental sociology publications after 1990, the rise in cross-national research, and the important role attending to core disciplinary issues of stratification and inequality played in gaining acceptance for the study of ecological problems in mainstream sociology. A copy of the paper can be found here. A list of the publications we used in our study can be found here.

To read more about my research follow the links below or on the spine to the left.

Environmental movements

My primary research interest is the emergence, development and (especially political outcomes) of environmental movements in the United States and other nations. Learn more about my research on environmental movements

Comparative National Associations Project

The Comparative National Associations Project assembles and organizes data from directories of national associations in Britain, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. The goal of this project is to make information on a broad range of national associations over time more readily accessible to scholars through the creation of a series of comparable over-time databases on the broad range of national non-profit civic associations in these countries that can facilitate comparative research by a wide range of social science scholars. Learn more about CNAP

Environmental Crime Project

Environmental crime, virtually unheard of before 1970 when it was regularly accepted practice to dump (toxic) wastes directly into air, water and/or unlined pits as part of routine industrial activity, is now the focus of an Environmental Crimes Section at the US Department of Justice that employs some 40 full-time prosecutors (DOJ 2012). Yet scholars know surprisingly little about environmental crimes, with sociological research in the nascent field of green criminology dominated by epistemological debates and calls for more research (e.g., White 2008; Lynch & Stretsky 2003; 2012). Learn more about the Environmental Crime Project

Additional research interests

In addition to my primary research projects I have interests in environmental public opinion and content analysis research methods. Learn more about this research here.