Dear colleagues, I'm getting in touch about a proposed panel that Karin Bäckstrand, Thomas Hickmann and I are organising on democratic transformations for the upcoming Earth System Governance conference<https://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/mexico2019/call-for-papers/> in Oaxaca, Mexico (6-8 November 2019).
If you're interested in presenting on the panel, please send me an abstract (max 400 words) by Monday 25 February 2019 so that we can coordinate the panel line-up before the conference deadline of 1 March (apologies for the short notice). If you've already submitted an abstract to the conference and think yours would fit well on the panel, please get in touch and we can arrange for it to be linked to the panel proposal. Feel free to circulate to any other colleagues who you think may be interested. Best wishes, Jonathan. Democratic transformations in earth system governance Panel convenors: Jonathan Pickering (University of Canberra), Karin Bäckstrand (Stockholm University), Thomas Hickmann (University of Potsdam) The urgency of transforming economic and social practices that are destabilising the earth system raises fraught questions for governance: are democratic processes up to the task of making timely decisions and mobilising the collective action needed for transformation on issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation? If so, how should those processes be designed to achieve legitimate and equitable transformations, and who should be involved in decision-making? If democracy is not up to the task, should we concede that more ambitious visions of transformation are unattainable, or should some democratic safeguards be overridden to avoid catastrophe? Confidence in the ability of democracies to respond to environmental problems has been shaken by the rise of anti-environmental populism across a range of countries, not least the United States and Brazil. Even some relatively stable democracies are struggling to make sufficient progress on ambitious decarbonisation targets. Yet many scholars argue that democratic processes are essential for ensuring input legitimacy, and there is substantial (although contested) evidence that they also lead to increased output legitimacy, i.e. democracies perform better on environmental issues than non-democratic countries. This panel aims to grapple with the democratic prospects and limitations of transformations in earth system governance. Papers are encouraged that address questions such as: · What threats and opportunities do transformations towards sustainability pose for democracy? · What examples of democratic transformations towards sustainability can be found in practice? · How is populism affecting the prospects of transformation, and what can be done in response? · Does the involvement of non-state actors diminish or enlarge the democratic deficit of global institutions aiming to foster sustainable transformations? Theoretical papers are welcomed as well as empirical papers on earth system governance at all scales (from local to global), particularly from Latin America but also from other regions, and across industrialised and developing countries. Papers should engage with relevant literature and debates outlined in the new ESG Science and Implementation Plan<https://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/research-agenda/>. Jonathan Pickering Postdoctoral Research Fellow Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis Building 23 Level B |University of Canberra | ACT 2601, Australia +61 2 6201 2463| +61 400 626 201 | deldem.canberra.edu.au<http://www.governanceinstitute.edu.au/centres/centre-for-critical-governance-studies> | @jrpickering Recently published: John S. Dryzek and Jonathan Pickering (2019). The Politics of the Anthropocene<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-the-anthropocene-9780198809623?cc=au&lang=en&;>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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