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In addressing the challenges posed by the conceptualization of the environment & the posture toward globalization & the national state, discussion begins with a look at how an environmental flows perspective can help. Three key imperatives for an environmental flow research agenda are then laid out. Attention turns to the role of the US in the international power relations governing environmental politics, arguing that understanding the dynamics of contemporary global society requires understanding US sociopolitical tendencies. It is argued that the US will have an adverse impact on environmental governance given a deeply entrenched right-wing agenda. With some light shed on contemporary US hegemony, attention is given to the US-based criticism of ecological modernization theory. It is contended that environmental flow research must resist the implication of some flow analyses that indicate the irrelevance of notions of social structure, nation-states, & modernity to understanding global socioeconomic & environmental changes. Further, any perspective that views the US as essentially epiphenomenal will not advance the environmental social sciences. References. D. Edelman

In addressing the challenges posed by the conceptualization of the environment & the posture toward globalization & the national state, discussion begins with a look at how an environmental flows perspective can help. Three key imperatives for an environmental flow research agenda are then laid out. Attention turns to the role of the US in the international power relations governing environmental politics, arguing that understanding the dynamics of contemporary global society requires understanding US sociopolitical tendencies. It is argued that the US will have an adverse impact on environmental governance given a deeply entrenched right-wing agenda. With some light shed on contemporary US hegemony, attention is given to the US-based criticism of ecological modernization theory. It is contended that environmental flow research must resist the implication of some flow analyses that indicate the irrelevance of notions of social structure, nation-states, & modernity to understanding global socioeconomic & environmental changes. Further, any perspective that views the US as essentially epiphenomenal will not advance the environmental social sciences. References. D. Edelman

The 'new rural sociology' arguably represented the most significant watershed in the development of rural sociology during the 1970s and 1980s. I argue, however, that the new rural sociology, especially its dominant traditions of Chayanovian and neo‐Leninist Marxism, has now been almost entirely superseded as a theoretical position in agrarian political economy by the international food regimes, commodity chains/systems analysis, regulationist, and actor‐network traditions. In addition, Wageningen School research on 'farming styles' and the 'cultural‐turn' within rural sociology and rural studies have arisen, in part, as challenges to the more structuralist styles of reasoning within agrarian political economy. Parallel trends in the sociology of development are also discussed. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of these new late twentieth century traditions in agrarian political economy, particularly in comparison with the new rural sociology.

There is no evidence that the public is becoming anti-science or anti-biotechnology. There have been no major changes in public trust in science over the past two decades. Agriculture has significant issues to address if it is to build on this trust. Many agricultural groups are active politically (in pursuit of "right to farm" legislation) in ways that many in the public find to be narrowly self-interested. Agriculture needs to reestablish itself as a public (rather than primarily a private) goods-generating set of institutions.