Description:

Please join Comparative Historical Social Sciences as they host Ben Bradlow, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Abstract: An agenda for “solving” the problem of human-induced climate change is one that escapes mainstream comparative social scientific logics of analysis for a simple reason. There is only one historical case of switching the energy basis of the global economy: the turn to carbon emissions-based economic growth on the basis of coal, oil, and gas. For modern sociology, this is not even a case, but rather a foundational process in the emergence of modernity that has shaped the discipline. A comparative sociological approach to the problem of mitigating climate change therefore requires reaching for historical analogy of comparison cases that highlight the social basis for switching points in large scale development trajectories. 

I argue that late industrializing developmental “catch-up” is such an analogy that can help illustrate the sociological foundations of when and why these switching points yield dramatic shifts in developmental outcomes. I proceed to analyze what carbon-based economic growth in the largely authoritarian East Asian “tigers” (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China) and democratic cases in Brazil and South Africa over the past half century tell us about the possibilities for a transition away from carbon-based economic growth. Finally, I explore implications for further investigation within this comparative agenda, through an analysis of contemporary rich world financing support for transitioning coal-based economies in middle income countries to new energy sources.

Benjamin H. Bradlow is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, jointly appointed in the School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Sociology. He is also associate faculty at Princeton's High Meadows Environmental Institute. Before arriving at Princeton, he was a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Bradlow's research makes connections between urbanization, climate change, industrial change, and the political challenges for democracy that confront societies across the globe. His first book, Urban Power: How To Build A More Equal City, is under contract with Princeton University Press. Bradlow compares the divergent politics of distributing urban public goods — housing, sanitation, and transportation — in two mega-cities after transitions to democracy: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently researching a new comparative book project that examines industrial transitions from carbon in the Global South. This work explores how middle-income countries with export-oriented, internal combustion engine automobile manufacturing sectors are navigating a rich world transition to electric vehicles.