PoliSci & Climate Change

[Stacy VanDeveer]

Gep-ed Colleagues,

With the tireless leadership of Prof. Jessica Green, our co-authored piece on Political Science & Climate Change was published on the MonkeyCage today.

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Stacy D. VanDeveer

Professor & Graduate Program Director

Global Governance and Human Security

McCormack Graduate School of Policy & Global Studies

www.global.umb.edu

[Jessica Green]

Hi Gep-Ed colleagues,

 

Just a minor correction: it’s in the Duck of Minerva!  Thanks to Josh Busby for agreeing to publish it.  It might be a useful overview for grad students (with lots of citations!).

 

Regards,

Jessica

 

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Jessica F. Green

Associate Professor, Political Science

Author, Rethinking Private Authority

jf.g...@utoronto.ca

@greenprofgreen

https://green.faculty.politics.utoronto.ca

416.978.6758

 

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[Stacy VanDeveer]

With a mistake for ALLLLL to see!

The piece is published on the DUCK OF MINERVA and I’m going back to bed.

[Reed M. Kurtz]

Hi everyone,

Jessica and Stacy, first of all, thank you for sharing this.  This is really great to see at Duck of Minerva!

If I may, I would like to briefly add my thoughts - and I will preface this by saying that I just submitted my dissertation to my committee for review, so I've had a lot of this bottled up for a while! :)

The first thing to note is that I absolutely agree with the authors that “Climate change is arguably the most urgent problem facing humankind. It is not a single policy problem, but rather pervades all aspects of state and society – affecting everything from geopolitics to local planning. Yet, one is hard pressed to reach this conclusion given the current landscape of political science… Excellent work appears occasionally in premier journals on the variety of political questions that climate change raises.  But given the centrality of politics in contributing and responding to the climate change problem, there is not enough of this work and — critically — much of it occurs outside the central discourses and journals of our discipline.”

And yet, as someone who is just now finishing my dissertation on the politics of climate change - for a PhD in political science - after spending the better part of 5+ years working on this, I have come to the realization that this is symptomatic of a bigger issues/problems in our discipline - that is, the relative absence and/or marginalization of perspectives that emphasize the critique of capitalist political economy at the heart of our politics. That is, our discipline is failing to grapple with the legacy of Marxism. (For just one recent example of this, I will highlight my colleagues and comrades Kevin Funk and Sebastian Sclofsky’s 2017 piece “The Specter That Haunts Political Science: The Neglect and Misreading of Marx in International Relations and Comparative Politics”).

Now, that is not to say that political scientists and IR scholars have not been aware of this - Peter Newell and Matthew Paterson, for example, as early as the late 1990s were among the most prominent to highlight the central role that capitalism is playing in organizing our international political economy and climate politics. However, to be blunt, at least with the release of their latest book (”Climate Capitalism”) they have all but abandoned Marxist critique: I apologize for the brief/paraphrasing, but IIRC they basically argue that capitalism is here to stay, for the foreseeable future at least, and thus it’s necessary to consider what needs to be done *within* the constraints of the capitalist system to make “progress” on this issue. (Again, please excuse the truncated review!)

Suffice it to say, as someone just beginning to work on this issue, and as a “young person” who will ultimately likely see most of the worst that is yet to come, over the next 40+ years (ie far beyond the point that the IPCC tells us we need a “rapid transition” away from fossil fuels), this is *not* an acceptable response.

If you go to the frontlines of the climate justice movement, or even just read their greatest texts (e.g. “This Changes Everything”), you will see that the frontline communities (especially in the Global South) take capitalism and Marxism very seriously. You don’t have to go very far, reading between the lines to find a critique of capitalism and its politics (including the capitalist nation-state system, UNFCCC, etc.). It’s right there at the core: “System Change, Not Climate Change!” Or to put it another way: “Ecosocialism or barbarism!”

There’s a lot more to say about this, but please excuse my brevity (and I’ll also add that at the authors’ behest, I would be more than happy to write a more extended and detailed response!). But I would encourage us to think deeply and critically and reflexively about our own roles here!

With warmest regards,
-Reed

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/54C10E1F-139C-4BEF-B039-216F28252939%40utoronto.ca.

[Ronnie Lipschutz]

Dear Reed,

As someone who has been engaged in such things for 40 years, I can assure you that there is nothing new in your observations (for political science as well as the larger American academy).  And in the current environment of revived Red-baiting, I cannot imagine this changing in the future.

Yours cynically,

Ronnie Lipschutz

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/CADeiq%3DFchdJDRkDu8Y-MVGhKkS9bBTAgXQqUHCd%3DgYbZiY6psw%40mail.gmail.com.

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Alas!  Sabbatical over.

Ronnie D. Lipschutz, Professor of Politics
UC Santa Cruz,1156 High St. Santa Cruz, CA  95064

e-mail: rli...@ucsc.edu; phone: 831-459-3275; web site: http://tinyurl.com/zeatctr

"I have to die. If it is now, well, then, I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived — and dying I will tend to later.”  --Epictetus--

[Jeffrey Colgan]

Hi all -

I’ve been listening quietly and learning a lot from this group for about a year. Thought I’d finally share a co-authored article of my own, now forthcoming at Global Environmental Politics. It asks “what drives norm success?” and focuses especially on two anti-fossil fuel norms so important for climate change: subsidy reform and divestment. 

Perfect for teaching. Abstract and PDF below.

What drives norm success? Evidence from anti-fossil fuel campaigns

Why do some international norms succeed when others fail? In this article we argue that norm campaigns are more likely to succeed when the actions they prescribe can be framed as a solution to salient problems that potential adopters face, even if these are different from the problem that originally motivated norm entrepreneurs. For instance, the campaign to reduce fossil fuel subsidies has been more effective when linked to fiscal stability, a common problem that policy-makers face. Problem linkages can thus bolster the attractiveness of a proposed new norm and broaden the coalition of actors that support the norm. We probe the plausibility of this argument by studying two campaigns that aim to shift patterns of finance for fossil fuel production and consumption: subsidy reform and divestment. Subsidy reform encourages governments to reduce subsidies for products like gasoline; divestment encourages investors to sell or avoid equity stocks from fossil fuel industries. We look at the variation in their impact over time, and argue that they have achieved institutional acceptance and implementation chiefly when their advocates have been able to link environmental goals with other goals, usually economic ones.

Jeff Colgan
Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science & IR
Web: https://sites.google.com/site/jeffdcolgan/ Twitter: @JeffDColgan

[Reed M. Kurtz]

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you for the responses and feedback to my comments last week. Please note that, then and now, I offer my thoughts in the spirit of this list’s purpose. For that reason, I wish to (try to) remain brief and speak as I see this discussion relating to matters of education and knowledge production on global environmental politics.

Thanks to Dr. Lipschutz and others who responded privately for offering your thoughts and experiences. I appreciate the fact that these discussions - regarding the relationship between climate change politics and the discipline, critical theories of capitalism and climate politics, etc. - have been going on for many decades (since at least the 1970s), and indeed, have been integral to the formation of global environmental politics as a disciplinary subfield of political science and IR. And many (if not most) of you on this list have made important contributions to my own knowledge and understanding about the subject.

I also note that discussions about the relative marginalization of environmental politics within the discipline are nothing new either: in 1993, Steve Smith wrote that “Powerful reasons, essentially political in nature, may keep the environment on the periphery both within the practice of international relations, and within the academic subject of international relations… Environmental scholars, and environmental issues, may be marginalised unless the fundamental relationship between knowledge and power is addressed.”

Certainly, we may take issue with many of Smith’s specific diagnoses, and note that much has changed in both the “practice” and “academic subject” of global environmental politics over the past quarter century. And yet, as someone finishing their PhD in political science in 2019, it is striking to me how much of Smith’s analysis bears out. If anything, the importance and salience of international environmental politics *as* a matter of (global) politics has only become more significant; what hasn’t changed proportionately, it appears, is environmental (and climate) politics status along the “periphery” of our discipline(s) - at least in IR and political science that is.

This question of disciplinarity - that is, to what extent it *is* in fact a problem for knowledge production in general whether political science (or for that matter, any particular discipline in general) ‘leads’ in the production of knowledge on climate change politics - is of course a tricky one. Here all I can do is simply reiterate the rather puzzling, and indeed paradoxical, fact that much of what counts as the cutting edge of research on climate change politics, one of the most pressing political issues of our time, is not coming from the “core” of political science, but rather its peripheries - or even from other fields, including but not limited to (human) geography, sociology, anthropology, history, among others.  

As far as I can tell, this (justifiable) hand-wringing over the marginalization of environmental issues in general and climate change in particular is more or less unique to political science and IR. Elsewhere, you will find environmental politics much closer to the core of the field, as a respective subfield on par with other subfields (as in the case of political ecology within Geography or Anthropology), and/or you will find the top journals of the field with environmental issues front and center (e.g. the journal Environmental History is one of the top journals in all of the discipline).

Again, this is not say that there isn't great work being done on climate change politics from political science and IR, nor that there aren't great efforts being made to change these circumstances (the WPSA conference on climate politics for example) - it's just that we need more! And here I recognize I'm largely preaching to the choir - the problem you could say is that we're the exception, not the norm in our field. This isn't to praise or to condemn, but rather to ask: what can we do to change these circumstances? How can we ensure that (arguably) the greatest political challenge we've ever faced - the crisis of climate change and its related disasters - is no longer relegated to the margins of our field?

There's obviously lots of things that can and perhaps ought to be done, in addition to continuing already great work, but given the purpose of this list, and speaking on behalf of my experience as someone reaching the end of my formal training in this field, I would encourage us to think in terms of the education and training we can provide to young scholars in our field. I recognize and appreciate the contributions that have already been made, including in the original post that sparked this discussion. But I would like to ask also to consider two points that could help address this situation in political science which I observe being done in other fields: 1.) That we (re)consider the role and place of the critique of capitalism and environmental politics; and 2.) That we (re)consider our roles, responsibilities, and relationships with subaltern movements in the field.

Regarding point 1.), if we look at the treatment of climate politics in several of the leading journals of other disciplines, I think on the whole we find that "critical" approaches to political economy are taken more seriously, or at least given a more substantive engagement. Perhaps my proximity to human geography (a field more radical than most) skews my perspective a bit, but it is evident to me that not only have Marxist approaches to the environment had very productive research programs and engagements with what we might consider more 'constructivist' approaches to nature/society relations, but there are active and ongoing debates that political scientists would do well to engage more with. Also consider the ongoing series in New Left Review on "Debating Green Strategy" that has seen productive engagements between advocates for a Green New Deal, degrowth critics of Green Keynesianism, and eco-feminists. Not only do we need more political scientists in these debates, but we also need more of these debates within political science. And this means that we need to be able and willing to teach these approaches to our undergraduates and graduate students, but we also need to be able to facilitate that engagement by reading across disciplines and fostering questions that engage these debates.

Regarding point 2.), the question about our relationship with the subjects of our inquiry, is another long and old one. For which I will just say this: I find it more productive to think of it predominantly as a methodological question, specifically one that turns on the nature of fieldwork. For me, going into the field and actually engaging directly with those participating in climate politics as well as those most directly affected by climate politics (ie frontline communities) was like turning night into day: it's not just merely another way of gathering and producing data but it literally changes how we perceive and engage with the world, including the questions we ask. Again, this is nothing new to us: fieldwork, especially critically engaged work with movements and communities, has a long and rich tradition in our field of environmental politics. But, speaking as a political scientist, I'd say that relative to our colleagues in geography, anthropology, and sociology, the training and expectations we receive with regards to fieldwork - or how to relate to our subjects in the field - pales in comparison. (It was the geographer on my committee, not the political scientists, who pushed me to go into the field.) And the normative and practical questions of fieldwork methodology - including with respect to the legacies of colonialism and empire in our fields - are not as present or central in the leading journals, and by extension, coursework and training in methods.

This is not to say that fieldwork is the end all be all methodological solution - but rather, to try and think about where our questions come from and "to what end" are they oriented. I would ask us to consider whether or to what extent the types of questions we ask might have real and practical implications for not just other academics or even "policymakers" but frontline communities struggling for climate justice. These should be at the forefront of our minds as we not only engage in this research, but as we train graduate students and future scholars on these issues.

I also say this to illustrate how the marginalization of environmental politics in political science goes hand in hand with the marginalization of critical approaches in political science more generally. Accordingly it is also to suggest how we might think about addressing this: a good place to start would be to look at our colleagues in Race, Gender, and Identity Politics, many of whom are also Environmental Politics scholars. There has been a long and hard-fought battle to ensure that Race, Gender, and Identity Politics is taken seriously as a subfield in the leading departments; that students have opportunities to take courses and specialize in these fields (from faculty members who are specialists too); that the top journals have editors and reviewers capable of evaluating the quality of work in that field, etc. Rather than fighting to assimilate to the mainstream, these scholars have fought to bend the mainstream towards them. And so, we ought to benefit not only from more engagement between Environmental Politics and Race, Gender, and Identity Politics perspectives, but that we might also learn a thing or two about how to adapt the mainstream to us, rather than adapt to the mainstream.

To conclude, I will again quote Smith's (1993) essay: "My contention is that environmental specialists should never underestimate how much entrenched power is behind the organs of state power that they are implicitly or explicitly attacking. The academic community of environmental scholars is very aware of this situation... but even then there is a tendency to work within a pluralist framework which... assumes exactly what needs to be confronted... In short, there is little in the way of critical analysis in the environmental literature."

Warmest regards,
-Reed

[Samuel Barkin]

Dear GEP-ED colleagues,

 

With apologies for the self-promotion, Betul Gokkir and I just published an article in JESS entitled “Are Liberal States Greener? Political Ideology and CO2 Emissions in American States, 1980-2012,” available here (alas in read-only format unless one has a subscription).  The abstract is pasted below.

Cheers,

Sammy

Samuel Barkin

Professor of Global Governance

University of Massachusetts Boston

Abstract

Are liberal states in the USA greener? Based on an analysis of panel data from American states from 1980 to 2012, this paper investigates the particular impact of citizen ideology on per-capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This study contributes to the existing literature through a focus on the role of citizen ideology as a frame shaping pro-environmental behavior at the individual level when the effect of structural factors, like per-capita economic output, fossil-fuel production, and population density, are controlled for. The findings suggest not only that states with more liberal citizen ideology emit less CO2, but also that this effect both precedes and exceeds the influence of policies directly targeting climate change. Finally, this paper suggests that a change in popular perception of the environment and climate change as an American matter, as opposed to an ideological alignment issue, can lead to further decreases in CO2 emissions due to changes in citizens’ preferences and behaviors. 

 

[Linda Shi]

Professor Barkin, I am troubled by this study. The way we measure and attribute carbon emissions has long been critically challenged. For instance, it is easy for eco modernist countries and cities to look green when they have globalized the production of the resources they consume. China produces a great deal of emissions producing goods that others, like the U.S. consume, but the CO2 falls on the producer countries. Quantification and attribution can play easily into narratives about sustainability that mask actual realities of consumption and responsibility. 

Similarly, your study quantifies only fossil fuel consumption. There is merit to weighing fossil fuel consumption on its own, and you account for GDP. However, the takeaway from your study claims something much broader - that residents of conservative states emit much more, which encompasses their entire carbon footprint. The study does not account for air travel emissions, levels of consumption that have implications for CO2 far beyond fossil fuel consumption within the state, and levels of carbon absorption. Wealthier, urban residents are far more likely to travel and to consume more goods that also have major carbon implications. Many farming, logging, indigenous communities are stewarding land or managing resources that either benefit urban communities or absorb carbon. (or worsen emissions through land use change). In New York State like much of New England, land use has changed from mostly farmland to mostly forest over the last fifty years. While this is largely due to structural economic shifts, farmers here now produce something like 2.5 times as much milk and beef on much less land than they have in the past. Nor does the study account for population density - there is an immediate disadvantage in such accounting practices against more dispersed, rural settlements.  

I fear that these statements, if the media runs away with the headline and abstract, are likely to fan the flames of partisanship rather than contribute to a deeper understanding of interdependencies and responsibilities among urban and rural communities, and opportunities for rural and conservative states to contribute to carbon emissions reduction. 

Respectfully,

Linda

-------------------

Linda Shi

Assistant Professor

Department of City and Regional Planning

Cornell University 

213 Sibley Hall

lind...@cornell.edu

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From: gep...@googlegroups.com <gep...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Samuel Barkin <Samuel...@umb.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2019 5:11 PM
To: Gep-Ed <gep...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [gep-ed] Carbon emissions and ideology in the US

 

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