Environmental Politics

This section aims to run eight panels focusing on current issues in and approaches to environmental politics and policy. Environmental themes are of immense societal relevance and gaining increased public attention and priority. Likewise, environmental themes are relevant to an increasing number of political research clusters, including (but not limited to) those specialising in public policy, parties and elections, global and EU governance, citizen participation, and political theory. Against this backdrop, we have attracted a diverse range of panels from scholars across the academic political science community. The overarching aim of the section is for all panels to draw together conceptual expertise and rigorous empirical analysis on the wide range of research fields and subjects of study under the umbrella of environmental politics. The section shall provide a stage for discussion within and across the various research fields and subjects, in order to explore, challenge and re-configure theories surrounding environmental problems, both new and old. For Innsbruck 2020, we especially aim at combining panels that cast light on the diversity and breadth of the research that is being conducted with a view on environmental problems. Combining paper presentations, roundtables and meet-ups, we want to facilitate a both broad and deep discussion on the state and the future of environmental politics research. In line with our ambitions, we called for panel proposals prior to this submission and received an excellent response. To date, we have already eight expressions of interest with regard to panel proposals. The research areas they relate to include political theory; political parties and public opinion; environmental policy and regulation; global governance; private governance and corporate power in environmental politics; and citizen action. Some of the topics include the governance of natural resources and climate change, ecofeminist politics, environmental politics in everyday life, and the adaptation and diffusion of environmental policies at various political levels. The panels include the following: Title: Political parties and sustainability policies Chairs: Lars Berker (University of Magdeburg), Aron Buzogány (BOKU Vienna/Free University Berlin) Description: The goal of this panel is to bridging the party politics scholarship with the literature on the politics of sustainability. It is interested in papers answering, e.g., how specific party families address the challenges of sustainable development - on an ideological as well as a policy instrumental basis; how party systems change in the face of debates around sustainable development; and if sustainability policies are creating new cleavages. Title: Ecofeminism in/and the Anthropocene Chairs: Robert Booth, Andy Holland (both University of Liverpool) Description: This panel shall address the criticisms that continue to haunt ecofeminism by bringing together political theorists, philosophers, and activists who share the intuition that ecofeminism is important in the context of the so-called Anthropocene and global flourishing more broadly, and who wish to further explore that hunch. Title: Private Governance, Corporate Power and Environmental Politics in Europe Chairs: Sandra Eckert (Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies/Goethe University Frankfurt), Andrea Lenschow (University of Osnabruck), Jan Pollex (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) Description: This panel aims to address the present-day developments and implications of private governance and business power for environmental politics in the European Union. Its focus is on the role of private actors in the field of European environmental policy in light of multiple contrasting contexts. Title: The politics of low carbon transformations: Exploring state and non-state relations in the post-Paris climate policy landscape Chairs: Naghmeh Nasiritousi (Stockholm University), Jens Marquardt (Stockholm University) Description: This panel seeks to explore opportunities for critical social science interventions examining the interplay between domestic and transnational climate initiatives in the quest for de-carbonization. It invites contributions conceptualizing the relationship between state and non-state climate action involving public and private actors; assessing the effectiveness and legitimacy of non-state climate action, and critically appraising the political impacts and transformative potential of transnational climate action. Title: Climate Change Adaptation and the Diffusion of Innovative Policies Chairs: Jonas Schoenefeld, Kai Schulz (both Technische Universität Darmstadt & Institute for Housing and Environment) Description: This panel will consider the conceptual and empirical nature of innovative adaptation policies, as well as the specific motivations and mechanisms of their diffusion and the context dependency of relevant drivers. It specifically focuses on actors and institutions, including their embeddedness in multi-level contexts (national, local, regional levels). Title: ‘Green’ public = ‘green’ policies or vice versa? Chairs: Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen (University of Berne), Christina Eder (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) Description: This panel aims at better understanding the link between policies and public opinion. It welcomes comparative as well as one-country analyses on the congruence between and the change of public opinion and public policy on environmental issues, e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, recycling, energy, infrastructure, or transport. It particularly welcomes papers that contribute to the methodological challenges related to the endogenous relationship between public policies and public opinion. Title: Illegal use of natural resources: conflicts, governance settings and policy response Chairs: Daniela Kleinschmit, Sylvia Kruse (both University of Freiburg) Description: This panel aims to provide an analysis of conflicts, governance settings and policy responses related to diverse forms of illegal use of natural resources, including illegal logging, fishing, mining or use of water. Presentations may take an international relations, public policy or environmental governance perspective covering diverse theoretical and conceptual schools of thoughts and methods. Title: The Scope of and Limits to Social-Ecological Change through Grassroots Participation Chairs: Mundo Yang (University of Siegen), Margaret Haderer (Vienna University of Economics & Business) Description: The panel asks for theoretically and/or empirically grounded analyses of expected and unexpected outcomes of various forms of grassroots participation. The goal 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. The Standing Group has over 260 members and its sections have been vibrant and over-subscribed over the past. We aim to continue this path and expect with that diversity of panels to attract a large number of excellent papers.