Dear colleagues,
I kindly would like to remind you about the 5 November deadline for submission
of abstracts to the "Lund Conference on Earth System Governance - Towards a
Just and Legitimate Earth System Governance: Addressing Inequalities" (18-20
April 2012, Lund, Sweden).
Please find the call for papers below and at
www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org.
With best regards,
Ruben Zondervan
Executive Director
Earth System Governance Project
International Project Office
Lund University
www.earthsystemgovernance.org
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Lund Conference on Earth System Governance:
Towards Just and Legitimate Earth System Governance - Addressing Inequalities
Lund University, 18-20 April 2012
www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org
We invite you to the Lund Conference on Earth System Governance to be held
18-20 April 2012 in Lund, Sweden. This conference is part of a global series
organized by the Earth System Governance Project. The first Earth System
Governance conference was held in Amsterdam in December 2009 and the second in
Fort Collins in May 2011. The 2012 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance
is hosted by Lund University and jointly organized by the Lund University
Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) and the Department of Political
Science at Lund University, on behalf of the Earth System Governance Project.
Confirmed speakers include:
John Dryzek, Australian National University,
Robyn Eckersley, University of Melbourne (TBC),
Frank Fischer, Rutgers University,
Tim Forsyth, London School of Economics and Political Science,
Maarten Hajer, University of Amsterdam,
Margaret C. Lee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Rolf Lidskog, Örebro University,
Morten Ougaard, Copenhagen Business School,
Timmons Roberts, Brown University,
Jan Aart Scholte, Warwick University,
Joni Seager, Bentley University,
Jens Steffek, Technische Universität Darmstadt,
Hayley Stevenson, Sheffield University,
* Key Dates
- Deadline for paper abstracts: 5 November 2011
- Notification of acceptance: 5 December 2011
- Full papers due: 15 March 2012
* Background
The Earth System Governance Project, a ten-year research programme under the
auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environmental Change (IHDP), was launched in 2009 to address the problems of
environmental governance. In this project earth system governance is defined as
the interrelated system of formal and informal rules, rule-making mechanisms,
and actor-networks at all levels of human society (from local to global) that
are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to
global and local environmental change and earth system transformation, within
the normative context of sustainable development.
The Earth System Governance Project's Science Plan (available at
www.earthsystemgovernance.org) is organized around five analytical problems.
Architecture relates to the emergence, design and effectiveness of governance
arrangements. Agency addresses questions of who governs the earth system and
how. Adaptiveness explores the ability of governance systems to change in the
face of new knowledge and challenges as well as to enhance adaptiveness of
social-ecological systems in the face of major disturbances. Accountability
refers to the democratic quality of environmental governance arrangements.
Finally, the theme of Allocation & Access addresses questions of justice,
equity, and fairness. The Lund Conference on Earth System Governance will
address all of these five analytical problems. The conference will particularly
focus on research on accountability and legitimacy, and on allocation and
access and will critically examine questions of justice, democracy, legitimacy
and accountability in research and practice.
The 2012 Lund Conference will be organised in four thematic streams:
1. TOWARD JUST, FAIR AND EQUITABLE EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:
First, we invite paper submissions that analyse questions of justice and
fairness in earth system governance. These papers may address various
dimensions of justice and fairness, such as justice between nation states (e.g.
North/South); between present and future generations; between groups in society
such as the ones based on gender, religion, ethnicity, rural/urban; and even
between human and non-human species.
Justice and fairness are key components of a legitimate governance system.
Conflicts on these issues abound, for example when it comes to international
and national burden-sharing, the historical responsibility for past emissions,
or the access to, and ownership of, resources and knowledge. The principle of
"common but differentiated responsibilities", reiterated in many global
environmental agreements, is one compromise reached in international
negotiations, yet its very meaning in concrete cases remains often unresolved.
A major challenge is the gross inequality in access to material and immaterial
resources as well as the unequal distribution of vulnerability and adaptive
capacity between groups and sectors of society and between nation-states.
Importantly, poor people are often more susceptible and vulnerable to the
impacts of environmental change and pollution. Policies are rarely made by poor
and marginalised people, yet usually for poor people by others who believe they
understand and/or represent poor people's preferences and aspirations. This is
particularly problematic, because both reasons and remedies of poverty are
highly contested in the social sciences, as is the role of power in this
context.
2. TOWARDS LEGITIMATE, DEMOCRATIC AND ACCOUNTABLE EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:
Secondly, we invite paper submissions that analyse questions of accountability,
legitimacy, and the democratic quality of earth system governance. This can be,
for example, about input legitimacy that relates to the participatory quality
of decision-making in terms of deliberative quality, participation and
accountability. The representation of UN major groups and multi-stakeholder
approaches has become increasingly common practice and signifies efforts to
shape more legitimate governance.
Papers under this conference stream may also address questions of
accountability, like the emergence and effects of rules and procedures that
identify who takes part in decision-making, who holds whom responsible for what
action, and what the consequences are when standards are breached, or on how to
decrease the 'democratic deficit'. A precondition for holding actors
responsible and accountable is here transparency, access to information, and
the availability of monitoring mechanisms.
The transparency and accountability of various public, private, and hybrid
governance mechanisms have increasingly been brought to the fore. Examples
include legitimacy, transparency, access and information disclosure of
state-led environmental multilateral agreements and private agreements as well
the accountability of transnational governance and of public-private
partnerships.
3. LINKING THE 5 "A" OF EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE:
Third, we invite papers that study the interconnections among the five
analytical problems identified in the Earth System Governance Project's Science
and Implementation Plan
(www.earthsystemgovernance.org/publications/science-plan). We invite papers
that explore these linkages and interactions, and in particular those that are
relevant for the questions of allocation and access, and accountability.
4. TRANSFORMING THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Fourth, we invite papers that provide policy-relevant information and analysis
on the reform, or transformation, of the institutional framework for
sustainable development. The 2012 Lund Conference will be held just two months
before the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development ("Rio+20"). For this
reason, the Lund Conference will provide ample opportunities for dialogue with
the policy-making community on key issues of justice and legitimacy. The two
overarching themes of the Rio+20 Conference - green economy in the context of
sustainable development and poverty eradication; and institutional framework
for sustainable development - strongly relate to the analytical themes of
accountability and legitimacy of multilateral institutions as well as
allocation and access in the intersection of multilateral environmental
diplomacy and the global economic system. This conference stream will hence
critically assess how issues of justice and democratic legitimacy have been
incorporated in earth system governance in the forty years since the 1972
Stockholm Conference.
* Abstract Submission:
We invite abstracts on these four conference themes. Abstracts must be
submitted electronically through the conference website
(www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org) by November 5 and may not exceed 250
words. All abstracts will be evaluated in a double-blind peer-review process by
4-5 members of the conference review panel. For additional information on the
Earth System Governance Project, go to www.earthsystemgovernance.org. Proposals
for special sessions are also welcome. Please read the instructions for session
proposals at www.lund2012.earthsystemgovernance.org
We look forward to welcoming you to Lund!
Karin Bäckstrand and Lennart Olsson
Co-Chairs, 2012 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance
