Publications

  • Auerbach, Daniel & Brett Clark; Lazarus Adua (2023). The Jevons Paradox. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Accepted, 12/01/2023.
  • Krow Ampofo & Evan G. Heller, Lazarus Adua, Abbey Lovebridge, Kaleb Miller, Katherine L. Werdan, Per H. Gesteland, Madelyn Ruggieri, Lyn Finelli, and Yoonyoung Choi (2023). Comprehensive cost assessment among families with children younger than 2 years-of-age hospitalized with RSV infection. Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Vol. 10. Published, 12/01/2023.
  • Adua, Lazarus (2022). Sustainable Cities in American Democracy: From Postwar Urbanism to a Civic Green New Deal. Contemporary Sociology. Published, 10/29/2022.
  • Adua, Lazarus, Ruan De Lange & Anontise Isaac Aboyom (2022). Differentiated Disadvantage! Class, Race, Gender, and Residential Energy-Efficiency Inequality in the United States. Energy Efficiency. Published, 09/13/2022.
  • Chen, Chien-fei, Xiaojing Xu, Lazarus Adua, Morgan Briggs & Hannah Nelson (2022). Exploring Factors that Influence Energy Use Intensity Across Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Households in the United States. Energy Policy. Published, 09/01/2022.
  • York, Richard, Lazarus Adua & Brett Clark (2022). The Rebound Effect and the Challenge of Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels: A Review of Empirical and Theoretical Research. Wires Climate Change. Published, 05/01/2022.
  • Lazarus Adua (2022). Super Polluters and Carbon Emissions: Spotlighting How Higher-Income and Wealthier Households Disproportionately Despoil Our Atmospheric Commons. Energy Policy. Published, 03/01/2022.
  • Lazarus Adua, Brett Clark & Andrew Jorgenson (2022). State Policy and Environmental Management: Examining the Intermediate Mechanisms of Ecological Modernization. Environmental Research Communication. Published, 02/18/2022.
  • Ruan De Lange & Lazarus Adua (2022). An Independent Assessment of Potential Social Impacts of the Newly Initiated Inland Port in Salt Lake City, United States. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal. Published, 02/18/2022.
  • Lazarus Adua, Karen Xuan Zhang & Brett Clark (2021). Seeking a Handle on Climate Change: Examining the Comparative Effectiveness of Energy Efficiency Improvement and Renewable Energy Production in the United States. Global Environmental Change. Accepted, 08/05/2021.
  • Lazarus Adua & Brett Clark (2021). Politics and Corporate-Sector Environmentally Significant Actions: The Effects of Political Partisanship on U.S. Utilities Energy Efficiency Policies. Review of Policy Research. Vol. 38, 31-48. Published, 01/01/2021.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12409
  • Krow Ampofo & Yoonyoung Choi, Evan G. Heller, Alexander G. Platt-Koch, Per H. Gesteland, Lazarus Adua, and Lyn Finelli (2020). Population-based Incidence, Health Care Resource Utilization and Cost among Children < 5 Years of Age Hospitalized with RSV, Utah. Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Vol. 7, S752-S752. Published, 12/31/2020.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofaa439.1681
  • Krow Ampofo & Yoonyoung Choi, Evan G. Heller, Alexander G. Platt-Koch, Per H. Gesteland, Lazarus Adua, Lyn Finelli (2020). Psychological Stress and Anxiety among Parents of Children Younger than 5 Years Hospitalized with RSV. Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Vol. 7, S753-S754. Published, 12/31/2020.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofaa439.1683
  • Lazarus Adua (2020). U.S. States Initiation of Energy Efficiency Policies in the Era of Climate Change: Throwing a Searchlight on the Influence of Political Partisanship. Environmental Science and Policy. Accepted, 09/22/2020.
  • Lazarus Adua, Brett Clark & Richard York (2020). The Ineffectiveness of Efficiency: The Paradoxical Effects of State Policy on Energy Consumption in the United States. Energy Research and Social Science. Accepted, 09/09/2020.
  • Lazarus Adua & Linda Lobao (2020). The Political-Economy of Local Land-Use Policy: Place-Making and the Relative Power of Business, Civil Society, and Government. The Sociological Quarterly. Accepted, 02/29/2020.
  • Chien-fei Chen & Yu Wang, Lazarus Adua, Hua Bai (2019). Reducing Household Fossil Fuel Consumption by Enabling Technology and Behavior. Energy Research and Social Science. Accepted, 12/06/2019.
  • Lazarus Adua, Brett Clark, Richard York & Chien-fei Chen (2019). Modernizing Our Way Out or Digging Ourselves In? Reconsidering the Impacts of Efficiency Innovations and Affluence on Residential Energy Consumption, 2005-2015. Journal of Environmental Managment. Accepted, 09/29/2019.
  • Lazarus Adua (2019). Reviewing the complexity of energy behavior: Technologies, analytical traditions, and household energy consumption data in the United States. Energy Research and Social Science. Accepted, 09/05/2019.
  • Adua, Lazarus & Lobao, Linda (2019). The Growth Machine across the United States: Business Actors’ Influence on Communities’ Economic Development and Limited-Government Austerity Policies. City & Community Journal. Vol. 18(2), 20. Published, 06/19/2019.
  • Lazarus Adua & Brett Clark (2019). Even for the Environment, Context Matters! States, Households, and Residential Energy Consumption. Environmental Research Letter. Vol. 14. Published, 05/31/2019.
    https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-93...
  • Adua, Lazarus & Ashley Beaird (2018). Place-based Inequality in “Energetic” Pain: The Price of Residence in Rural America. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. Published, 10/22/2018.
    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/23780...
  • Adua, Lazarus & Richard York; Beth-Anne Schuelke-Leech (2016). The Human Dimensions of Climate Change: A Micro-Level Assessment of Views from the Ecological Modernization, Political Economy and Human Ecology Perspectives. Social Science Research. Vol. 56, 18. Published, 01/01/2016.
  • Adua, Lazarus & Lobao, Linda (2015). Business Attraction and Redistribution by U.S. Local Governments: To What Extent is there a Zero-Sum Relationship between Business and Citizens’ Interests. State and Local Government Review. 17. Published, 12/31/2015.
  • Lobao, Linda & Lazarus Adua and Gregory Hooks (2014). Privatization, Business Attraction, and Social Services across the United States: Local Governments’ Use of Market-Oriented, Neoliberal Policies in the Post 2000 Period. Social Problems. Published, 11/30/2014.
  • Adua, Lazarus (2011). The Ecological Modernization Reader: Environmental Reform in Theory and Practice. Rural Sociology. Published, 12/30/2011.
  • Lobao, Linda & Lazarus Adua (2011). State-Rescaling and Local Governments' Austerity Policies across the United States, 2001-2008. Cambridge Journal Regions, Economy and Society. Published, 07/31/2011.
  • Adua, Lazarus & Jeff S. Sharp (2011). Explaining Residential Energy Consumption: A Focus on Location and Race Differences in Natural Gas Use. Journal of Rural Social Sciences. Published, 01/31/2011.
  • Adua, Lazarus (2010). Adua, Lazarus. 2010. “To Cool a Sweltering Earth: Does Energy Efficiency Improvement Offset the Climate Impacts of Lifestyle?. Energy Policy. Published, 10/31/2010.
  • Adua, Lazarus & Jeff S. Sharp (2010). Examining Survey Participation and Response Quality: The Significance of Topic Salience and Incentives. Survey Methodology. Published, 06/30/2010.
  • Sharp, Jeff S. & Lazarus Adua (2009). The Social Basis of Agro-Environmental Concern: Physical versus Social Proximity. Rural Sociology. Published, 01/30/2009.
  • Adua, Lazarus (2008). Alternative Energy: Political, Economic, and Social Feasibility. Rural Sociology. Published, 12/31/2008.
  • Adua, Lazarus (2007). Equatorial Guinea. Berkshire Publishing Group. Published, 06/30/2007.

Research Statement

Research Statement

Lazarus Adua, PhD.

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Introduction

My research interest and focus spans several areas in environmental sociology and political economy/development sociology.  In the field of environmental sociology, my current work focuses on: 1) factors influencing energy consumption, a major driver of CO2 emissions, at the household and state levels; 2) energy access and inequality in the United States; and 3) the environmental consequences of political-ideological views as well as other general environmental views.  In relation to the area of political economy/development sociology, my work currently focuses on U.S. localities’ social and developmental policies, including environmentally significant policy decisions.

Environmental Sociology

In relation to my first area of focus in environmental sociology, I have examined the comparative impacts of lifestyles, behavior, and efficiency technologies on residential energy consumption, a major driver of CO2 emissions. As an illustration, one of my recent projects, “Reviewing the Complexity of Energy Behavior: Technologies, Analytical Traditions, and Household Energy Consumption Data in the United States,” examined the comparative impacts of energy-related behavioral actions and various residential energy efficiency technologies on energy consumption. It was published in a high impact social science journal (IF=5.525), Energy Research and Social Science, (Volume 59, January 2020, 101289). A second example is my 2019 paper titled, “Even for the Environment, Context Matters! States, Households, and Residential Energy Consumption,” which was also published in a high impact journal, Environmental Research Letters (Volume 14, 2019, 064008). I have other research projects related to CO2 emissions that have either been published or are currently under review. I am particularly excited about one of these papers, which is under review by the journal Global Environmental Change. The paper provides a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvement and development of renewable energy sources as antidotes to CO2 emissions.

Related to this area of research, I am also currently developing a book proposal on a project titled, Climate Change and the Search for a Silver Bullet: The Necessity of a Pluralistic Approach.  In this proposed book project, I will be seeking to critically and empirically examine some of the policies proposed as remedies for climate change, starting with the assumption that there is no one silver bullet for dealing with the climate conundrum. 

As already broached above, I also conduct research on the environmental consequences of political-ideological views and other attitudes more generally. One of my research papers in this area, published in Environmental Science and Policy (4-Year IF=5.786), is titled, “U.S. States Initiation of Energy Efficiency Policies in the Era of Climate Change: Throwing a Searchlight on the Influence of Political Partisanship and Ideology.” It examines how political partisanship influences state governments adoption of energy efficiency policies. I have previously published on how familial connections to agriculture and the physical landscape influences attitudes about the environment. A second similar paper, titled, “Politics and Corporate-Sector Environmentally Significant Actions: The Effects of Political Partisanship on U.S. Utilities Energy Efficiency Policies” has also been published in Review of Policy Research. The paper assesses the direct, indirect, and total impacts of political partisanship on state-level utilities’ investment in energy efficiency, using structural equation modeling. 

I have also had ongoing research interest in the area of energy access and inequality in the United States. As an example, I recently published a paper titled, “Place-based Inequality in ‘Energetic’ Pain: The Price of Residence in Rural America” in Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World (Volume 4, 2018). The paper investigated rural-urban differences in energy burdens (as measured by energy expenditures in the residential sector). My most recent work in this area, titled “Differentiated Disadvantage! The Intersectionality of Class, Race, Gender, and Residential Energy-Efficiency Inequality in the United States,” is currently under review by Energy Efficiency. I have also commenced work using panel data to examine energy burden and insecurity in the United States as well as another project focusing on how energy utility disconnections and threats of such disconnections are shaped by race and residence (location along the rural urban continuum).

Political Economy/Development Sociology

I also conduct research germane to the area of political economy/development sociology. My research in this area has focused on local governments’ social, developmental, and environmental policies. I have published several papers in this area, with one of my most recent ones published in the journal of City and Community. It is titled, “The Growth Machine across the United States: Business Actors’ Influence on Communities’ Economic Development and Limited-Government Austerity Policies.” One of my older publications in this area is titled. “Business Attraction and Redistribution by U.S. Local Governments: To What Extent is there a Zero-Sum Relationship between Business and Citizens’ Interests,” and was published in State and Local Government Review, 2015. As the title suggests, it examined the extent to which local government are apt to prioritize the interest of business over citizens’ interest in social services, drawing on the neoliberal governance literature. 

While my past work in this area has focused mostly on social and developmental policies, I have started looking at local governments’ environmentally significant decisions, using the empirical case of U.S. counties. As an example, I recently published in The Sociological Quarterly a paper  titled, “The Political-Economy of Local Land-Use Policy: Place-Making and the Relative Power of Business, Civil Society, and Government.” It draws on sociology’s growth machine theory to examine the relative impacts of business actors, civil society, and local governments’ attributes on local land-use policy. Another example is a manuscript examining the causal links between the growth machine (i.e., a coalition of local power actors, such as landowners, builders, real estate developers, and local businesses and utilities) and county governments’ land-use policies and decisions. This paper, titled, “Place-making across the U.S.: Local development, land-use policies, and the effects of the growth machine” will be submitted to the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society for review. I have several other projects in this area planned for the coming months and years.  

Conclusion

As demonstrated above, my academic research agenda is very much consistent with part of the Department of Sociology’s core strengths in environmental and development sociology. It focuses on the social drivers of environmental problems, energy-related inequality, and the impacts of political economic factors, including neoliberal development, on local social and developmental policy. My work has been published in good peer-reviewed journals and presented at professional conferences, locally and abroad.      


 

Research Keywords

  • The growth machine
  • Social Policy/ Welfare States
  • Local Government
  • Environmental attitudes and concerns
  • Energy Efficiency
  • Energy
  • Development policies
  • Climate Change

Presentations

  • “The Downside of the Gaps: Class Inequality, Political-Ideological Polarity, and Environmental Views in the United States” Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 17-21, 2023. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 08/19/2023.
  • "The Socio-Environmental Conundrums of the Dominant Energy Policy Paths and the Case for Mainstreaming Ambient Energy." DOE/NSF Ambient Energy for Buildings: Beyond Energy Efficiency Workshop, Washington, DC, July 12-13. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 07/13/2023.
  • Another Elephant in the Room? How Structured Lifestyles Undermine the Fight Against Climate Change. Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles, CA, August 05-90, 2022. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/06/2022.
  • The Downside of the Gap! Examining the Impacts of Inequality on Environmental Views and Outcomes in the United States. GCSC Seminar Series, University of Utah. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/15/2022.
  • Invited Speaker, Duck Family Colloquium Series, University of Washington, "The paradoxical Consequences of Energy Efficiency Improvement. March 5, 2021. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/05/2021.
  • Rural-Urban Continuum and Neoliberal Governance: Do Factors Influencing Use of Austerity Policies Differ Across U.S. Communities? Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Virtual Presentation, August 08-11, 2020. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/08/2020.
  • University of Utah Geography Colloquium on the topic, “The Economy and Environmental Management across U.S. States: Examining the Connections between Modernization and Environmental Consciousness and Policy.” February 14, 2020. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/20/2020.
  • Inconvenient Truth about Green Consumption: Explaining Environmental Multi-Purposes by Social Stratification. 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August 10-13, 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/11/2019.
  • Even for the Environment, Context Matters! States, Households, and Residential Energy Consumption. 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August 10-13, 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/10/2019.
  • Political-Economy of Local Land-Use Policy: Place-Making, Development, and Relative Power of Business, Civil Society, and Government. 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August 10-13, 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/10/2019.
  • Context Matters! States, Households, and Residential Energy Consumption.” NSF-Funded International Workshop on Putting Sustainability into Convergence: Connecting Data, People, and Systems, Singapore, January 28-29, 2019. Other, Presented, 01/28/2019.
  • Place-Making across the U.S. Local Development, Land-Use Policies, the Effects of the Growth Machine. 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 11-14, 2018. Conference Paper, Presented, 08/13/2018.
  • Place-based Inequality in ‘Energetic’ Pain: The Energy Costs Price of Residence in Rural America. 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, PA, August 11-14, 2018. Conference Paper, Presented, 03/13/2018.
  • University of Northern Iowa, Department of Geography Colloquium on the topic, “U.S. Communities Social Services and Economic Development Policies: Prioritizing Business Versus Citizens Interests.” September 16, 2016. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/16/2016.