The Growth of Chinese Environmental Sociology ∗ by Dayong Hong and

This paper examines the characteristics and growth of Chinese environmental sociology and then predicts future developments. The authors argue that the development of environmental sociology in China can be divided into two phases: its spontaneous introduction and research without a clear disciplinary consciousness prior to the mid 1990s, and then intentional research and its construction with an increasingly clear disciplinary consciousness after the mid 1990s. At present, Chinese environmental sociology has shown its latest trends towards advancing academic research, communicating with foreign and domestic colleagues, organizing domestic colleagues, and internationalizing its research perspective. The authors believe that future developments of Chinese environmental sociology will largely depend on whether scholars in this area can effectively analyze the partial failure of environmental governance in China by looking further, digging deeper, and utilizing multi-angle perspectives in their sociological research of environmental issues.