Publications

N. Nasiritousi and J. Grimm

Environmental Policy and Governance, Forthcoming

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eet.1979

Today, the world faces grand challenges that are both daunting and urgent to address. The decarbonization challenge in particular requires states to mobilize a range of actors to achieve structural changes. In this context, there has been a proliferation of orchestration attempts by states, whereby they use soft or indirect forms of steering to coordinate and engage intermediaries to achieve policy objectives. This type of steering raises a number of questions: How can such forms of steering gain legitimacy among the targeted actors and how can this legitimacy be maintained in the face of competing interests? This paper uses the case of the Fossil Free Sweden Initiative to highlight key factors and considerations in establishing and maintaining legitimacy in the orchestration of a varied set of non-state actors with differing interests. Specifically, the paper makes two core contributions to existing literature. Theoretically, it highlights how institutional legitimacy is obtained through a balancing act of stakeholder demands at different levels. Empirically, it examines how Sweden, considered a climate leader, governs toward decarbonization through national orchestration as an important tool. The paper thereby offers new insights into the legitimacy of orchestration with significant implications for how to understand rule-making and governance with the use of intermediaries. It particularly highlights how power and agency can create a governance dilemma for the orchestrator that may undermine legitimacy in the long term.

J. Marquardt and K. Bäckstrand (2022)

In Bornemann, H. Kappe and P. Nanz (eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Democracy and Sustainability. London: Routledge

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429024085-21

In this chapter, we explore how non-state and sub-state actors, such as civil society organizations, cities, indigenous groups, or the business sector, shape the democratic legitimacy of intergovernmental climate politics. The Paris Agreement revolves around states’ voluntary climate plans expressed in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Analyzing the NDC’s various entry points for non-state engagement, this chapter asks if and how non-state actors can enhance the democratic legitimacy of climate politics in a multi-level governance setting. To do so, we first revisit the post-Paris climate governance landscape and the different roles associated with non-state actors. Based on earlier work dealing with the legitimacy of non-state actors in climate governance, we conceptualize democratic legitimacy through the five values of participation, representation, accountability, transparency, and deliberation. We examine how non-state actors succeed or fail to secure these democratic norms. In conclusion, climate governance in the post-Paris era holds the potential to enhance but also undermine the democratic legitimacy of political decisions through involvement of non-state actors which can be cooperative, confrontational, or co-opted by state-driven agendas.

A. Mert and J. Marquardt (2022)

In Bornemann, H. Kappe and P. Nanz (eds.) The Routledge Handbook on Democracy and Sustainability. London: Routledge

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429024085-39

This chapter outlines how different narratives and framings of the Anthropocene shape the democratic underpinning of sustainability discourses and thus transformative action towards sustainability. We synthesize the debates around democracy-related challenges of the Anthropocene, which allows us to develop implications for the field of sustainability. As the Anthropocene blurs the lines between human activity and environmental degradation on a global scale, the concept has become an indispensable source of legitimacy for action towards green transformations and decarbonization, while hiding the term’s inherently contested nature. Taking a social constructivist perspective, we argue that the democratic implications of the Anthropocene largely depend on how we frame the concept and which meanings we attach to it. While a science-driven, eco-modernist and techno-deterministic perception is likely to narrow down the room for democratic interventions, a more open, inclusive and reflexive use of the concept holds the chance to enhance democratic debates around the means and ends of sustainability. While we sketch out how opposing Anthropocene narratives frame these critical elements of democratic decision-making fundamentally differently, we also offer a deconstructivist frame of the Anthropocene which holds the potential to reclaim sustainability discourses, re-politicize sustainability action, and rethink the democratic underpinning of sustainability governance.

M. Jernäs and E. Lövbrand (2022)

Global Environmental Politics, forthcoming

J. Pickering, T. Hickmann, K. Bäckstrand, A. Kalfagianni, M. Bloomfield, A. Mert, H. Ransan-Cooper and A.Y. Lo (2022)

Earth System Governance, 11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100131

Many democracies find it difficult to act swiftly on problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. This is reflected in long-standing debates in research and policy about whether democratic practices are capable of fostering timely, large-scale transformations towards sustainability. Drawing on an integrative review of scholarly literature from 2011 to early 2021 on sustainability transformations and the democracy-environment nexus, this article synthesises existing research on prospects and pitfalls for democratising sustainability transformations. We advance a new typology for understanding various combinations of democratic/authoritarian practices and of transformations towards/away from sustainability. We then explore the role of democratic practices in accelerating or obstructing five key dimensions of sustainability transformations: institutional, social, economic, technological, and epistemic. Across all dimensions we find substantial evidence that democratic practices can foster transformations towards sustainability, and we conclude by outlining a set of associated policy recommendations.

J. Marquardt, L. Delina, M. Smits (2022)

Routledge, London

http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429324680

This volume showcases the diversity of climate change politics and practices across Southeast Asia. Through a series of country-level case studies and regional perspectives, the authors in this volume explore the complexities and contested nature of climate governance in what can be considered as one of the most dynamic and multi-faceted regions of the world. They reflect upon the tensions between authoritarian and democratic climate change governance, the multiple roles of civil society and non-state interventions, and the conflicts between state planning and market-driven climate change governance. Shedding light on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in Southeast Asia, this book presents the various formal and informal institutions of climate change governance, their relevant actors, procedures, and policies. Empirical findings from a diverse set of environments are merged into a cross-country comparison that allows for elaborating on similar patterns whilst at the same time highlighting the distinct features of climate change governance in Southeast Asia. Drawing on case studies from all Southeast Asian countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners dealing with climate change and environmental governance.

S. Weiland, T. Hickmann, M. Lederer, J. Marquardt, S. Schwindenhammer (2021)

Politics and Governance, Vol. 9, No. 1

http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/pag.v9i1.4191

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-targets which serve as a global reference point for the transition to sustainability. The agenda acknowledges that different issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, environmental degradation, among others, are intertwined and can therefore only be addressed together. Implementing the SDGs as an ‘indivisible whole’ represents the actual litmus test for the success of the 2030 Agenda. The main challenge is accomplishing a more integrated approach to sustainable development that encompasses new governance frameworks for enabling and managing systemic transformations. This thematic issue addresses the question whether and how the SDGs set off processes of societal transformation, for which cooperation between state and non-state actors at all political levels (global, regional, national, sub-national), in different societal spheres (politics, society, and economy), and across various sectors (energy, transportation, food, etc.) are indispensable. In this editorial, we first introduce the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs by providing an overview of the architecture of the agenda and the key challenges of the current implementation phase. In a second step, we present the eleven contributions that make up the thematic issue clustering them around three themes: integration, governance challenges, and implementation.

Jens Marquardt & Naghmeh Nasiritousi

Environmental Politics

https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1951479

K. Bäckstrand, J. Kuyper and N. Nasiritousi (2021)

Earth System Governance, 9

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100115

How do governance arrangements affect perceptions of legitimacy and effectiveness amongst non-state actors? This is a pertinent question as the roles of non-state actors have been strengthened in global climate governance. In this paper, we focus on how actors involved in climate governance processes perceive trade-offs and specific factors that risk undermining legitimacy and potential effectiveness of those arrangements. We argue that different rules of procedural legitimacy generate sociological views about whether an institution or its policies will be effective and, in turn, are ‘worthy of support’. To establish this, we engage in an analysis of how nonstate actors have been engaged in the UNFCCC, pre- and post-Paris. We find that efforts to deepen engagement is generating contestation between actors, not fostering collaboration. Focusing on how actors view procedural rules and their potentialities for effective outcomes sheds light on support for those institutions and the development of effective policies.

K. Bäckstrand (2021)

In A. Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, A. Michalski and L. Oxelheim (eds.) Vägar till ett uthålligt EU. Europaperspektiv 2021, Stockholm: Santérus Förlag.

J. Marquardt (2020)

Frontiers in Comminucation

https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00048

In December 2015, political leaders celebrated the Paris Agreement as a milestone in the global fight against climate change. Three years later, Greta Thunberg’s school strike outside the Swedish parliament inspired thousands of students around the world to protest against their political leaders’ inability to adequately respond to climate change. Envisioning livable climate futures for generations to come, the emerging “Fridays for Future” (FFF) movement urges governments to take more radical action on climate change. While FFF has sparked discussions about climate change around the world, the movement’s effects on broader societal change remain unclear. We, therefore, explore how FFF has triggered debates beyond the necessity to tackle climate change and offer a framework to reflect upon the broader socio-political implications of the school strikes. We illustrate the contestation between different ideas of social life and political order encapsulated within and attached to FFF by analyzing the movement’s self-understanding and the media discourse around these protests in Germany. Although the German government portrays the country as a pioneer in moving an industry-based economy toward decarbonization, the school strikes have quickly emerged and stabilized. We explore if and how the FFF protestors express not only the need for climate action but also call for deeper societal transformation. To do so, our study draws upon a discourse analysis based on news articles, official documents, and speeches, complemented by qualitative interviews with youth representatives and experts involved in the movement to identify competing imaginaries and themes of contestation. We study the tensions between competing student-led visions of the future through the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, which allows us to illuminate and juxtapose moderate and radical approaches. In conclusion, current school protests are not only about climate action but reflect more fundamental political struggles about competing visions of a future society in times of climate change. Yet, the protestors’ strong focus on science-driven politics risks to overshadow these broader societal debates, potentially stabilizing the techno-centric, apolitical and market-driven rationale behind climate action.

J. Pickering, K. Bäckstrand and D. Schlossberg (2020)

Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 22(1):1-15

https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2020.1703276

Concepts of ecological and environmental democracy seek to reconcile two normative ideals: ensuring environmental sustainability while safeguarding democracy. These ideals are frequently conceived as being in conflict, as democracy is perceived as too slow and cumbersome to deliver the urgent large-scale collective action needed to tackle environmental problems. Theories addressing the democracy-environment nexus can be situated on a spectrum from theories of ecological democracy that are more critical of existing liberal democratic institutions to theories of environmental democracy that call for reforming rather than radically transforming or dismantling those institutions. This article reviews theoretical and empirical scholarship on the democracy-environment nexus. We find continued theoretical and empirical diversity in the field, as well as vibrant debates on democratising global environmental politics, local material practices, and non-human representation. We argue for stronger dialogue between environmental political theory and empirical, policy-oriented research on democracy and sustainability, as well as further exploration of complementarities between ecological and environmental democracy. We identify four main areas of challenge and opportunity for theory and practice: public participation and populism; technocracy and expertise; governance across scales; and ecological rights and limits.