ECPR Joint Sessions workshop "Making Europe Green Again: Implementation of the European Green Deal in Turbulent Times"

This workshop aims to evaluate implementation of the European Green Deal (EGD) and the achievement of climate neutrality while strengthening democratic resilience, in a world permeated by turbulence including climate crisis and geo-economic instability. It has the following objectives: (i) to assess EU climate governance amid a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape marked by turbulence; (ii) to examine prospects for delivering on the EU’s climate commitments while strengthening democratic resilience, justice and public legitimacy; (iii) to foster dialogue across disciplines and methods for an interdisciplinary and integrated understanding of how the EU can accelerate decarbonisation and societal transformation in turbulent times.

The guiding questions for this workshop are:
1. How will the EGD be reshaped by the shift in focus to competitiveness, as reflected in the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal?
2. To what extent will the Fit for 55 and updated 2040 framework deliver a just and legitimate climate transition?
3. How does geopolitical turbulence affects EU’s role as a global leader in multilateral climate diplomacy?
4. What democratic governance institutions can best enable and underpin implementation of the EGD?
5. How can implementation of the EGD be used to strengthen and reinvigorate democratic governance?

Papers are particularly invited on the following subjects:
1. Conceptualisations of turbulence and democracy in the context of the EU’s climate and energy policy and legislation
2. The effects of crises and turbulence on the implementation of the EGD in member states
3. The emergence and resolution of political conflicts within and between EU institutions on climate action
4. How institutions of democratic governance at EU and member state level have evolved to respond to the climate crisis
5. The role and impact of democratic innovations in strengthening both climate action and democratic governance
6. How turbulence and crisis impact upon the perceived justice and legitimacy in the EU’s climate transition
7. The EU’s global leadership in climate diplomacy with increased geopolitical rivalry between China and US

Further information about the workshop can be found here: https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/16779.

The deadline to apply is midnight GMT on 3 December 2025. Paper proposals should be submitted via the ECPR website (a myECPR account on the ECPR portal needs to be created and used for submission). 

Participants may attend only one workshop and must fully participate in all of that workshop's sessions. You will be expected to engage in the discussion of all papers in the workshop. There are registration fees. An event participation grant is open to PhD students and early career scholars from ECPR Full Member institutions.

Please circulate this call for papers within relevant networks. If you have any questions about the workshop please get in touch.

With best regards
Diarmuid Torney and Jana Gheuens
Workshop co-directors