This book analyzes how governance and climate change adaptation - both integral to sustainable development - operate outside the bureaucratic apparatus of the state. It examines 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches to sustainable development and looks at a possible 'middle-out' approach to resolving the challenges to sustainable development.
The book also includes case studies from India and Bangladesh, which show that community-level factors such as social and cultural capital are key to the success of sustainable development efforts.
Pattnaik, Binay Kumar: - Binay Kumar Pattnaik is Professor of Sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, and former Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India. He has contributed handsomely to the areas of sociology of science and technology, social movements, and development studies. More particularly, he has contributed to the studies on technology transfer and R&D in the Indian industry, scientific productivity, effects of globalization and liberalization on science and technology regimes in developing countries, science technology and social stratification, etc. His recent contributions include papers in People's Science Movement in India, Appropriate Technology Movement in India (journal titled Sociology of Science and Technology), and ICT Revolution in India (Polish Sociological Review). His latest contribution pertaining to sustainable technologies from the developing societies based on grassroots-level innovations featured in the Technology in Society (2014). In addition to a good number of papers/articles, he has contributed nine books (both written and edited, including guestedited volumes of international journals) of which the latest one is entitled Sociology of Science and Technology in India (2013, SAGE).
Swarnakar, Pradip: - Pradip Swarnakar is Associate Professor of Sociology at the ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior, India. Dr Swarnakar's research areas include environmental sociology, climate change, social networks, and sustainability transition. He has completed projects funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the National Science Foundation. He was a visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology, the University of San Francisco, USA; the Department of Social Research, the University of Helsinki, Finland; and the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH-UFZ, Germany. He was a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award, the Kone Foundation Senior Researcher grant, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) grant. His work on climate change has been published in the British Journal of Sociology
Zavestoski, Stephen: - Stephen Zavestoski is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco, USA. Dr Zavestoski's research areas include environmental sociology, social movements, sociology of health and illness, and urban sustainability. He is co-editor of Social Movements in Health (2005) and Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements (2012). Dr Zavestoski's current work explores strategies to address both sustainability and public health through urban and transportation planning. This work has culminated in Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices and Possibilities (2014), co-edited with Julian Agyeman. Dr Zavestoski is co-editor of the book series Equity, Justice, and the Sustainable City.
