Current struggles, future visions: (De)politicization in governing climate change

This paper discusses the concept of (de-)politicization in governing climate change and its implications for democracy. Drawing from various disciplines, including governance research, social movement studies, and science and technology studies, the paper proposes a three-layered conceptual framework to capture politicization as a combination of public controversies, societal antagonisms, and imaginary struggles. Modes of (de-)politicization have shaped domestic and international climate governance since its inception. Attempts to depoliticize the field have sought to render climate change manageable, focus on technological innovations, and put forward the idea of a facilitative governance setting that is based on voluntary commitments and incremental reforms. However, disruptive action at climate change conferences, social movement protests worldwide, and emerging calls for systemic change point to the political struggles around governing climate change. Politicization and “post-truth” politics can be seen as a threat to democracy that rests upon collective norms, rationality, and truth. Yet, post-structuralist perspectives stress the need for political contestation and warn against technocratic policymaking and a depoliticized reference to factual truth that precludes debate as the essence of political life. Taking climate politics in the United States as an illustrative case, the paper demonstrates how, why, and with what consequences climate change governance gets politicized in a polarized, yet democratic context. The three-layered concept of politicization provides a framework to capture the ways in which climate change governance becomes a contested political issue, highlighting public controversies, societal cleavages and conflicts, and the tensions between competing collective visions of the future. Democracies are often perceived to be ill-equipped to tackle long-term crises like climate change, leading some to argue in favor of eco-authoritarianism and put “democracy on hold”. However, the critical question is not whether democracy and decarbonization can coexist, but which visions of a future society emerge when dealing with the climate crisis. Disagreement, contestation, and confrontation are essential to address the socio-politics entangled with climate change, and the paper calls for further empirical research to explore politicization pathways and their implications for political institutions and societal conflicts. Disagreement, contestation, and confrontation are substantial to deal with the socio-politics entangled with climate change. Yet, these prepositions need to be empirically tested and politicization pathways should be explored. This book provides a concise and illustrative attempt to explore politicization in terms of conflicts and imaginary struggles around climate change. Any judgment requires a deep understanding of how politicization pathways unfold, which societal conflicts they trigger, and how they shape political institutions.