Sociology of Transition: Which Post-Ecological Society?
Ecological transition, which has emerged from the ecological modernization current, is the most recent phase in the integration of environmental issues in human society. We propose that transition studies can be fruitfully interfaced with economics schools that have worked on economic reforms driven by environmental imperatives. More specifically, institutionalist ecological economy offers tools to understand economic transformations as more than technical adjustments but as a social process. In its applied aspects, transition builds on sustainable development debates but has gone a step further in making the economics-environment issues more explicit, even if the path to a green economy is still unclear. The transition field is driven by both progressive reforms and radical proposals that will feed the construction process of the post-ecological society.