Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene

The term anthropocene denotes a new geological epoch in planetary history, one that is characterized by the unprecedented impact of human activities on the Earth’s ecosystems. Scientists today see mounting evidence that the entire earth system now operates well outside safe boundaries. Human societies must therefore change course and steer away from critical tipping points that might lead to rapid and irreversible change, while ensuring sustainable livelihoods for all. But while the natural sciences have advanced their understanding of the drivers and processes of global change considerably over the last two decades, the social sciences lag behind in developing and implementing a coherent research paradigm to address this fundamental challenge of politics and governance in the anthropocene. The key question from a social science perspective is how to organize the co-evolution of societies and their surrounding environment, in other words, how to develop effective and equita-ble governance solutions for today’s global transformations. This section invites panels to close this crucial research gap, in particular with regards to the following 5 overarching research themes: (i) the role and relevance of institutions, both formal and informal as well as international and transnational, for governing in the anthropocene; (ii) the question of agency and actorness in addressing planetary challenges; (iii) the relevance of normative concerns in governing in the anthropocene, including questions about fairness, equity, justice and allocation; (iv) the role and relevance of accountability and other democratic principles for governing in the anthropocene; (v) the challenge of adapting societies at different scales to global change. The section is endorsed by the international Earth System Governance Project, the largest social science research network in the area of governance and global environmental change. The International Project Office is hosted by the University of Lund, Sweden. http://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/ Philipp Pattberg is Associate Professor for Transnational Environmental Governance at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of the VU University Amsterdam and a research leader at the Amsterdam Global Change Institute (AGCI). He specializes in the study of global environmental governance, in particular the recent trend towards transnational governance. Pattberg has published more than 120 scholarly articles, book chapters and reports. His work has appeared, among others, in Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Global Environmental Politics, Governance, European Journal of International Relations, and Science. Pattberg is series editor of the Routledge Research in Global Environmental Governance. Fariborz Zelli is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. He is also employed on the inter-disciplinary strategic research area BECC (Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate), hosted by Lund University's Faculty of Science. Within BECC, he serves as board member and as leader of the research cluster on 'Governance and Economics of Natural Resources'. He is also a board member of the graduate research school ClimBEco (‘Climate, Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a changing world’). He has been elected to the Executive Committee of the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA). He is also a chair of the board of the Global Environmental Change Section of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) and research fellow of the Earth System Governance Project. Fariborz received the outstanding Ph.D. thesis award of the University of Tübingen and the award for outstanding teaching performance of the state of Baden-Württemberg. He has published widely on institutional fragmentation and interlinkages in, among others, Global Environmental Politics, Global Governance and WIREs’ Climate Change. Most recently, he has guest-edited a special issue of Global Environmental Politics on ‘The Institutional Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance” (2013, together with Harro van Asselt).