IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwedp/201552.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Relational environment and intellectual roots of 'ecological economics': An orthodox or heterodox field of research?

Author

Listed:
  • Teixeira, Aurora A. C.
  • Castro e Silva, Manuela

Abstract

The way the fields are delineated has been the Achilles' heel of studies analyzing the status and evolution of given scientific areas. Based on van den Besselaar and Leydesdorff's (Mapping change in scientific specialities; a scientometric reconstruction of the development of artificial intelligence, 1996) contribution, the authors propose a systematic and objective method for delineating the field of ecological economics assuming that aggregated journal-journal citation relations is an appropriate indicator for the disciplinary organization of the sciences. They found that the relational scientific backbone of ecological economics comprises 7 main journals: American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Ecological Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental and Resources Economics, Land Economics, Land Use Policy, and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. From the 3727 articles published between 2005 and 2010 in the ecological economics field, and the corresponding 142 thousand citations two main outcomes emerged: 1) the intellectual frame of reference is overwhelmed by economists and environmental and resources economists with (renowned) ecological economists relatively underrepresented; 2) the building of an integrative knowledge domain is not apparent: on the one hand, ecological economics is seen to be an 'unbound' heterodox and multidisciplinary field, but on the other hand, and somewhat awkwardly, it is (still) heavily 'bound' by quantitative mainstream/ orthodox methodologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Teixeira, Aurora A. C. & Castro e Silva, Manuela, 2015. "Relational environment and intellectual roots of 'ecological economics': An orthodox or heterodox field of research?," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-52, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2015-52
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/112536/1/830176896.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin, 2008. "Relating the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: The role of concepts, models, and case studies in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 384-393, October.
    2. Fernanda Morillo & María Bordons & Isabel Gómez, 2003. "Interdisciplinarity in science: A tentative typology of disciplines and research areas," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 54(13), pages 1237-1249, November.
    3. Venkatachalam, L., 2007. "Environmental economics and ecological economics: Where they can converge?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 550-558, March.
    4. M.H. MacRoberts & B.R. MacRoberts, 2010. "Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom-cited influences," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 1-12, January.
    5. Pedro Albarrán & Javier Ruiz‐Castillo, 2011. "References made and citations received by scientific articles," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(1), pages 40-49, January.
    6. Ma, Chunbo & Stern, David I., 2006. "Environmental and ecological economics: A citation analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 491-506, June.
    7. Clive L. Spash, 2011. "Social Ecological Economics: Understanding the Past to See the Future," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 340-375, April.
    8. Peter van den Besselaar & Loet Leydesdorff, 1996. "Mapping change in scientific specialties: A scientometric reconstruction of the development of artificial intelligence," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 47(6), pages 415-436, June.
    9. Funtowicz, Silvio O. & Ravetz, Jerome R., 1994. "The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 197-207, August.
    10. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    11. Faber, Malte, 2008. "How to be an ecological economist," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-7, May.
    12. Illge, Lydia & Schwarze, Reimund, 2009. "A matter of opinion--How ecological and neoclassical environmental economists and think about sustainability and economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 594-604, January.
    13. Spash, Clive L. & Hanley, Nick, 1995. "Preferences, information and biodiversity preservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 191-208, March.
    14. Hoepner, Andreas G.F. & Kant, Benjamin & Scholtens, Bert & Yu, Pei-Shan, 2012. "Environmental and ecological economics in the 21st century: An age adjusted citation analysis of the influential articles, journals, authors and institutions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 193-206.
    15. Costanza, Robert, 1989. "What is ecological economics?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, February.
    16. Norton, Bryan G. & Noonan, Douglas, 2007. "Ecology and valuation: Big changes needed," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 664-675, September.
    17. Christensen, Paul P., 1989. "Historical roots for ecological economics -- Biophysical versus allocative approaches," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 17-36, February.
    18. Faber, Malte & Petersen, Thomas & Schiller, Johannes, 2002. "Homo oeconomicus and homo politicus in Ecological Economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 323-333, March.
    19. Per O. Seglen, 1992. "The skewness of science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 43(9), pages 628-638, October.
    20. W Glänzel & E J Rinia & M G M Brocken, 1995. "A bibliometric study of highly cited European physics papers in the 80s," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 113-122, August.
    21. Berger, Sebastian, 2008. "K. William Kapp's theory of social costs and environmental policy: Towards political ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 244-252, September.
    22. Norgaard, Richard B., 1989. "The case for methodological pluralism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 37-57, February.
    23. Shi, Tian, 2004. "Ecological economics as a policy science: rhetoric or commitment towards an improved decision-making process on sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 23-36, January.
    24. John Gowdy & Jon D. Erickson, 2005. "The approach of ecological economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(2), pages 207-222, March.
    25. Pedro Cosme Vieira & Aurora A. C. Teixeira, 2010. "Are finance, management, and marketing autonomous fields of scientific research? An analysis based on journal citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(3), pages 627-646, December.
    26. Carole L. Palmer, 1999. "Structures and strategies of interdisciplinary science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 50(3), pages 242-253.
    27. Faber, Malte & Manstetten, Reiner & Proops, John L. R., 1995. "On the conceptual foundations of ecological economics: A teleological approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 41-54, January.
    28. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    29. Sheila C. Dow, 2008. "Plurality in Orthodox and Heterodox Economics," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 1(2), pages 73-96, March.
    30. Dag W Aksnes, 2003. "Characteristics of highly cited papers," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 159-170, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diana Barros (a) Aurora A.C. Teixeira (b), 2021. "A Portrait of Development Economics in the Last Sixty Years," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 46(2), pages 69-118, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    2. Plumecocq, Gaël, 2014. "The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 457-468.
    3. Lo, Alex, 2014. "The Problem of Methodological Pluralism in Ecological Economics," MPRA Paper 49543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.
    5. Remig, Moritz C., 2015. "Unraveling the veil of fuzziness: A thick description of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 194-202.
    6. Dube, Benjamin, 2021. "Why cross and mix disciplines and methodologies?: Multiple meanings of Interdisciplinarity and pluralism in ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    7. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "Ecological Economics and Philosophy of Science: Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology and Ideology," SRE-Discussion Papers 2012/03, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    8. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    9. Spash, Clive L., 2020. "A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    10. Franco, Marco P.V., 2018. "Searching for a Scientific Paradigm in Ecological Economics: The History of Ecological Economic Thought, 1880s–1930s," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 195-203.
    11. Spash, Clive L., 2012. "New foundations for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 36-47.
    12. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    13. Spash, Clive L., 2019. "Time for a Paradigm Shift: From Economic Growth andPrice-Making Markets to Social Ecological Economics," SRE-Discussion Papers 2019/07, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    14. Clive L. Spash, 2012. "Towards the Integration of Social, Economic and Ecological Knowledge," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Julien-François Gerber & Rolf Steppacher (ed.), Towards an Integrated Paradigm in Heterodox Economics, chapter 1, pages 26-46, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Lundgren, Jakob, 2022. "Unity through disunity: Strengths, values, and tensions in the disciplinary discourse of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    16. Sarah-Louise Ruder & Sophia Rose Sanniti, 2019. "Transcending the Learned Ignorance of Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological Economics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-29, March.
    17. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin, 2008. "Relating the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: The role of concepts, models, and case studies in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 384-393, October.
    18. Farrell, Katharine N. & Silva-Macher, Jose Carlos, 2017. "Exploring Futures for Amazonia's Sierra del Divisor: An Environmental Valuation Triadics Approach to Analyzing Ecological Economic Decision Choices in the Context of Major Shifts in Boundary Condition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 166-179.
    19. Óscar Carpintero, 2013. "When Heterodoxy Becomes Orthodoxy: Ecological Economics in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(5), pages 1287-1314, November.
    20. Olivier Petit & Franck-Dominique Vivien, 2015. "When economists and ecologists meet on Ecological Economics: two science paths around two interdisciplinary concepts," Post-Print halshs-01249774, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ecological economics; philosophy of science; bibliometrics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • Y10 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Data: Tables and Charts - - - Data: Tables and Charts
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201552. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.