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In this chapter, I want to take some stock of the subdiscipline of environmental sociology. I believe that a productive approach to restoring some of the coherence of environmental sociology is to conceive of mainstream environmental sociology as reflecting several paradoxes. The bulk of this chapter will be devoted to a brief explication of environmental sociology's theoretical and empirical paradoxes. I will begin with three paradoxes that have played a major role in environmental sociology since the 1970s. However, many of the theoretical and empirical paradoxes of the subfield are relatively new ones – and some have not even been thought of as paradoxes. The thrust of the present chapter consists of something of a research agenda for environmental sociology for the next decade or so.

Spirituality and leadership, both have an intrinsic goal where they incorporate clarity of understanding, vision and collective action and both have the potential to empower an individual or a team, with commitment and productivity. It is one of the rapidly growing areas of leadership. It takes responsible policymakers and leaders to build a nation that benefits multiple stakeholders and all citizens. The aim of the chapter is to explore the concept of spirituality and show how applied spirituality can provide moral and practical guidance for leaders of public policy to take bold and enlightened steps towards achieving sustainable development (SD) goals. We define spirituality as a way of understanding, inner awareness, personal integration, and a source of values that give ultimate meaning or purpose beyond the egoic self. As such the chapter will go beyond existing discussions of ethical, moral, or values-based leadership and raise issues of how a deeper spiritual understanding of human nature can guide leaders. Some helpful practices like mindfulness are also covered in this chapter. There are various relevant leadership styles including transformational leadership, servant leadership, moral leadership and participatory leadership. Although each of these has some positive characteristics, this chapter with the help of those characteristics would try to get a deeper insight and understanding of how spirituality can stimulate and add more value, and bring integrity, motivation and strong leadership qualities. This chapter covers the existing gap in the literature on applied spirituality and leadership and concludes that leadership when incorporated with spirituality plays a vital role in honing the skills of the leaders and changing their perspective towards the team. The chapter will conclude with ideas for discussion among faculty and students and suggestions for further research into the use of applied spirituality for leadership in sustainable development policy.

This paper presents the first estimates of Spanish infrastructure stock and investment for the period 1845–1935. Several sources and techniques have been used in the estimation, and the new series are reasonably reliable to the standards of historical statistics. Two distinct periods may be distinguished in the series: the years before 1895 (characterized by the prominence of railroads) and the period 1895–1935 (when most investment was addressed to other assets). The new series allow a preliminary comparison of the Spanish infrastructure endowment with that of the most advanced countries, showing a gradual process of convergence before 1936.

Global/national policy planning is guided by economic methods and predictions of growth, where indicators of success are measured according to a dominant view of progress and sustainable development. Yet, despite widespread ratification of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Peoples remain unrepresented in this dominant view. The structural and historical forces informing global policy thus inadvertently produce a pathway of development that is characterized by political, economic, and social exclusion where Indigenous Peoples’ agency, heritage, and culture remain marginalized. I argue that socio-cultural nuance (“the complete story”) is critical to policy planning if we are to honor the principal aim of the Sustainable Development Goals – “leave no-one behind”. This and other policy frameworks need an approach that is neither framed by Eurocentric objectives nor bound by measurable indicators. This requires consideration of Indigenous Worldviews in a way that mediates diverse social, economic, and political factors. In this chapter, I examine the limitations in current policy consultation practice, with a specific focus on the extractive industries sector, and examine the ways in which engagement with Indigenous Peoples’ “complete story” might inform policy in the pursuit of a sustainable development that leaves no-one behind and creates a bridge between dominant and marginalized forms of knowledge.

Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women’s leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing to society as global leaders? Why at this moment in history is there such a marked increase in the number of women leaders? Are we entering an era in which both male and female leaders will shape history, both symbolically and in reality? And if so, will we discover that women, on average, lead in different ways than men, or will we learn that role (global leader) explains more than gender? This chapter reveals the accelerating trends of women joining men in senior leadership positions, establishes the relationship of women leaders to our overall understanding of global leadership, and sets forth an agenda to accomplish much needed research and understanding.