The Scope of and Limits to Social-Ecological Change Through Grassroots Participation

Abstract

It has now become commonplace that the active engagement of citizens at the grassroots level is a vital precondition for tackling current global ecological crises. So far, political sociology has mainly focused on how to conceptualize given forms of bottom-up participation with regards to distinctions such as radical or reformatory, politicizing or depoliticizing, contentious or co-operative. Prominent framings include lifestyle politics, political consumerism, real utopias (Wright), prefiguration, and social innovations. Yet the question of the social and political boundaries for grassroots participation and the scope as well as the limits in effecting change remains largely unaddressed. Against this backdrop, the panel asks for theoretically and/or empirically grounded analyses of expected as well as unexpected outcomes of various forms of grassroots participation. What are discrepancies between its different forms? Which predicaments can be identified systematically against the backdrop of larger social and political conditions and developments? Contributions may identify: - unintended consequences, such as the absorption and instrumentalization by dominant socio-economic structures; but also, on the contrary, the unexpected politicization of a given environmental issue and related processes of radicalization; - simulated change (Blühdorn), i.e., forms of activism that allow for the experience of radical change while leaving the unsustainable status quo firmly in place; - strategic dilemmas resulting from the mismatch between intended and actual consequences due to a lacking resonance within wider audiences (Meyer’s “resonance dilemma”) The goal of this panel is to identify larger societal contexts and mechanisms that make, unmake, reconfigure, and block socio-ecological change pursued through grassroots participation. We also welcome reflections on which switch of gears in conception and strategy may help overcoming identified limits and barriers.

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