Climate Change Policy Networks II: Policy Discourses

Abstract

This panel focuses on national policy and/or media discourse networks on climate change. Policy discourses are often highly consequential for political outcomes, as they can determine what reaches the political agenda, influences public opinion, or alters policy perceptions. In particular, open ‘policy windows’, ‘focusing events’, and ‘external and internal shocks’ to a policy subsystem can feed into policymaking via policy debates and media discourses, leading to policy learning and change. Despite countries facing the same international conditions (the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the release of the newest IPCC report in 2018) they continue to respond to climate change very differently. The diversity of the discourses among countries indicates the high plasticity of the discursive process, which a network approach can be used to understand. How are climate discourses structured in different cases? How and to what extent do institutional settings determine discourse? How are different discursive forums permeated? This panel includes papers that contributes to the discussion on the dynamics of climate policy debates or media discourses from the substantive, theoretical, empirical, and methodological point of view.