Dear GEP-eders, Please see below - another last minute call for abstracts for ISA 2018 and let me know if you have something you’d like to present by Wednesday next week.
All the best, Hannah Comparison in Global Environmental Politics: Knowing the future from the past Panel discussant: Paul Steinberg This panel seeks to explore how comparison is being used as a method in Global Environmental Politics (GEP). It aims to identify different approaches to comparing international environmental issue areas, policies, organisations and countries. In particular, it aims to examine how we might use established and emerging comparative methodologies to explore the future from experiences of the past. The one thing we surely know within the study of GEP is that the future cannot follow the same pathway as the past and that unless we transform our understanding and social and political relationship to the Earth, there will be nothing to sustain the future. As recent contributions demonstrate, comparison is a central methodological resource within the study of GEP for achieving this (Steinberg and VanDeever 2012; Purdon 2015). This panel aims to identify and bring together what is being learned and developed through these approaches in order to share what is relevant for understanding future directions and supporting the necessary transitions to an environmentally sound future. Researching Decarbonization in Future Time: Connecting Political Processes and System Trajectories Steven Bernstein and Matthew Hoffmann A fundamental problem with researching the politics and possibilities of decarbonization is that classic social science research designs are rendered problematic (if not useless) because of three key characteristics. First, there are no significant cases of decarbonization to compare to negative cases where decarbonization is pursued but is not successful. Second, even defining ‘cases’ of decarbonization is profoundly difficult because the carbon lock in that decarbonization efforts are designed to disrupt exists simultaneously at many levels and realms of action (political jurisdictions, markets and practices)—it is both a diffuse global phenomenon and a discrete local phenomenon. Finally, decarbonization can potentially flow from both intentional actions and unintended effects of actions taken for other reasons. Methodological innovation is thus necessary and in this paper we explore a way to empirically study decarbonization politics by defining and describing intervention trajectories and potentials. Unlike approaches that focus on hypothetical scenarios or backcast from desired outcomes, we begin by empirically examining the political effects of conscious decarbonization interventions. This empirical research, which can be done with classic social science methods, then becomes the foundation for forward theorizing and conceptualization of intervention trajectories—a way to assess the potential for decarbonization in specific places and for more widespread impact. We illustrate this method with examples of diverse decarbonization interventions. Comparing organisational histories: learning from IPCC and IPBES Hannah Hughes and Alice Vadrot This article seeks to compare the historical establishment of two organisations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity (IPBES). However, rather than using comparison to identify the similarities and differences or determine the relative effectiveness of these bodies, the purpose of our comparison is to draw out some of the difficulties that IPBES is likely to face in positioning itself centrally to global biodiversity politics. While the IPCC is now firmly positioned as the central knowledge producer within the climate field, it has undergone considerable struggle and competition with member governments, intergovernmental organisations, academic actors and contesters of climate science. These forces and the organisation’s response have structured its organisational form and assessment practice. The aim of this study is to explore what these experiences can offer in terms of understanding IPBES now and what the future may hold for this organisation as a central knowledge producer in and to global biodiversity politics. Y Dr Hannah Hughes Darlithydd mewn Cysylltiadau Rhyngwladol Ysgol y Gyfraith a Gwleidyddiaeth Prifysgol Caerdydd CF10 3AX E-bost: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Ffôn: +44 (0)29 2088 8820 Dr Hannah Hughes Lecturer in International Relations School of Law and Politics Cardiff University CF10 3AX Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Phone: +44 (0)29 2088 8820 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
