LIST OF WORKSHOPS

This workshop deals with the capacity of democracies to tackle climate change. In genral, contemporary governments are facing a number of extremely complex and interrelated challenges–climate change, immigration, and artificial intelligence to name but a few. While all governments have difficulty with these “wicked problems”, democratic governments have particular problems because of the pressures of electoral cycles, and the dangers to stability if public discontent grows over policies that impose costs on citizens. Climate change is a physical change that could be amplified by inadapted governance and democracy confronted to the 'tragedy' is that of 'super wicked problems', notably because 'time is running out' (Levin & al., 2012) because of the complexity of climate governance and to make collective ‘tragic choices’.

This workshop wants thus :

i)              Establishing an empirical inventory about two crucial, but relatively uninformed, questions :

·               To what extend democratic quality of policy processes (transparency of action and information, accountability and arbitration capacity of elected officials are irremovable principles of good democratic functioning, strengthens the capacity to face the climate challenge to ensure trust in democracy ?

·               To what extent are the political responses made to tackle climate challenge the result of processes that are procedurally organized to be pluralist, competitive, polyarchic and enable polycentric governance in networks that include the diversity of individuals, ideas and social interests involved? What institutional innovations could amplify this democratic openness of climate policies?

ii)            Describing examples of democratic innovations. The issue here is therefore to identify innovative procedural instruments for improving the democratic governance of climate policies. provide democratic solutions to the climate challenge. 

Contemporary governments are facing a number of extremely complex and interrelated challenges–climate change, immigration, and artificial intelligence to name but a few.  Governments face difficulties in coping with problems of this sort for several reasons.  One if the scale of the problems and the interconnection of a number of conventional policy domains.  Another is that these types of problems require “credible commitments” by government for maintaining long-term actions to ameliorate the problems.  While all governments have difficulty with these “wicked problems”, democratic governments have particular problems because of the pressures of electoral cycles, and the dangers to stability if public discontent grows over policies that impose costs on citizens.

This workshop is at the junction of two potential 'tragedies': climate change is a physical change that could be amplified by inadapted governance and democracy (Povitkina, 2018). First, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the urgency of tackling climate change and mitigate, relayed by the 'Take urgent action' injunction of the 13th goal of United Nations. The second potential tragedy is that of 'super wicked problems' : the more policy failures are proven, the more the 'climate super wicked problem' becomes a 'tragedy', notably because 'time is running out' (Levin & al., 2012) because of the complexity of climate governance and to make collective ‘tragic choices’ (Calabresi, Bobbitt, 1978) : i) the implementation of climate plans is very incremental (Mushtaq, 2018): policies are path dependent (Levin & al., 2012) on bureaucratic traditions, democratic and policy styles (Peters, 2021 ; 2011), locking in older policy choices and change perspectives (Groen & al. 2022; Rosenbloom, 2018) ii) the integration of long term in today's public policies is difficult as their benefits will only accrue much later (Jacobs, 2016) iii) literature notes barriers to adaptation policy (Lee & al., 2022 ; Dupuis, Knoeffel, 2014) with the same effect.

In this context, opening up the debate about climate democracy and rapidly strengthening it becomes crucial: i) democracy is considered to be in decline (Rosavallon, 2006) and ill-adapted to the challenge of the climate emergency (Povitkina, 2018), notably because of its ‘myopia’ in front long term problems (Lindvall, 2021). Some studies conclude that 'authoritarian environmentalism' is more efficient (Gilley 2012; Mittiga, 2021). The literature treats this issue of authority in a binary way. Authoritarian environmentalism is declared more efficient than democracy as it produces outcomes more easily (China case), because it is less short-termist and exposes its leaders to less blame (Gilley, 2012). Democratic legitimacy would decrease and authoritarianism would have more secure legitimacy (Mittiga, 2021) facing long term climate issues  ii) Let's not forget that Linz explained the downfall of democracies in the 1930s by their illegitimacy to solve problems quickly, and by the inability to avoid the rise of oppositions disloyal to democracy (Linz, 1978) iii) building climate democracy is then part of the response to the 'tragedy' of poor governance: by rebuilding trust in the 'reason' of public debate; by enabling a 'framing' of the climate issue, and its public policies, that is as pluralist as it is temperate and 'evidence-based', in order to counteract the misdeeds of the democracy of opinion (uncertainty in knowledge that oscillates between scientific knowledge and the so called 'fake news') ; by reconciling democratic instruments and procedures with knowledge and expertise; by reinforcing 'communicative action' to share common reasons for action, particularly in emergency situations (Wilson, 2011) ; by rebuilding trust in the institutions of representative democracy and in elected representatives' control over the complex processes of climate governance (Hulbert & al., 2016; Bednar and al., 2019; Ojha and al., 2016); by reintroducing pluralism and transparency into the latter.

However, the political variables are little studied within literature concerning climate change. In particular, the variables of political regimes, notably democracy, are relatively absent from the climate literature. Knowledge about the democratic governance processes remains too scarce to be able to think about them with the discernment their reform requires for maintaining long-term actions and tackle climate change urgently.

This workshop wants thus :

i)              Establishing an empirical inventory about two crucial, but relatively uninformed, questions :

·               To what extend democratic quality of policy processes (transparency of action and information, accountability and arbitration capacity of elected officials are irremovable principles of good democratic functioning, Lindvall, 2021; Mees, Driessen, 2019) strengthens the capacity to face the climate challenge to ensure trust in democracy ?

·               To what extent are the political responses made to tackle climate challenge the result of processes that are procedurally organized to be pluralist, competitive, polyarchic and enable polycentric governance in networks that include the diversity of individuals, ideas and social interests involved? What institutional innovations could amplify this democratic openness of climate policies?

ii)            Describing examples of democratic innovations. The issue here is therefore to identify innovative procedural instruments for improving the democratic governance of climate policies, provide democratic solutions to the climate challenge. 

This workshop deals with the capacity of democracies to tackle climate change. While all governments have difficulty with these “wicked problems”, democratic governments have particular problems because of the pressures of electoral cycles, and the dangers to stability if public discontent grows over policies that impose costs on citizens. Climate change is a 'super wicked problems', notably because 'time is running out' (Levin & al., 2012) because of the complexity of climate governance and to make collective ‘tragic choices’.

This workshop wants :

i)              Establishing an empirical inventory about two crucial, but relatively uninformed, questions :

·               To what extend democratic quality of policy processes strengthens the capacity to face the climate challenge to ensure trust in democracy ?

·               To what extent are the political responses made to tackle climate challenge innovate to open climate process ?

ii)            Describing examples of democratic innovations for improving the democratic governance of climate policies.

Bednar D., Henstra D., McBean G. (2019). The governance of climate change adaptation: are networks to blame for the implementation deficit? Journal Of Environmental Policy & Planning. Vol. 21/6, pp. 702-717

Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Robert J. Brulle, Andrew Szasz (2015). Civil Society, Social Movements, and Climate Change. In Riley E. Dunlap, Robert J. Brulle (ed.). Civil Society and Climate Change: Sociological Perspectives , Oxford University Press, pp. 235-268

Calabresi, G., Bobbitt, P. C. (1978). Tragic Choices. W.W. Norton & Company. Faculty Books. 83

Camau M., Massardier G. (dir.) (2009), Democracies and authoritarianisms. Hybridation et fragmention des régimes, Kathala

Campbell, B. (2022). Climate change impacts and adaptation options in the agrifood system - A summary of recent IPCC Sixth Assessment Report findings. Rome, FAO.

Dahl R. 1989. Democracy and its critics. Yale University Press

Dahl R.1973. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. Yale University Press

Dryzek J. (1987). Rational ecology: environment and political economy. Blackwell

Gilley B. (2012) Authoritarian environmentalism and China's response to climate change, Environmental Politics, 21:2, 287-307

Habermas J. (reed. 1997 and 2001). Theory of communicative action. Fayard, volumes 1 and 2

Hulbert M., Gupta J. (2016). Adaptive Governance, Uncertainty, and Risk: Policy Framing and Responses to Climate Change, Drought, and Flood. Risk Analysis. 36(2), p. 339-56

Jacobs A. (2016). Policy Making for the Long Term in Advanced Democracies. Annual Review of Political Science. Vol.19, p.433-54

Linz J. (1978). The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilibration. Johns Hopkins University Press

Lesnikowski A., Biesbroek R., Ford J.D, Berrag-Ford L. (2021). Policy implementation styles and local governments: the case of climate change adaptation. Environmental Politics. Vol. 30: 5. p. 753-770

Lindvall D., Vowles K., Hultman M. (2020). Upphettning: Demokratin i klimatkrisens tid. Fri Tanke förlag. 348 p.

Lindvall D. (2021). Democracy and the challenge of climate change. International IDEA Discussion Paper 3, 78 p.

MacKenzie, M. K. (2021). Future Publics: Democracy, Deliberation and Future-Oriented Collective Action. Oxford University Press

Massardier G. (2009). Authoritarian Islands in Pluralist Democracies. In Kienle, E. (ed.). Democracy Building and Democracy Erosion. SAQI. pp. 187-213

Mees H., Driessen P.P.J. (2019). A framework for assessing the accountability of local governance arrangements for adaptation to climate change. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 62(1), p. 1-21

Mittiga, R. (2022). Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change. American Political Science Review, 116(3), 998-1011

Peters G. (2011). Bureaucracy and Democracy. In Pierre J. and Eymeri-Douzanes J.M (eds.) (2011). Bureaucracy and Accountability in Modern Democracies. Routledge, 2011. 

Peters G. (2021). Administrative Traditions: Understanding the Roots of Contemporary Administrative Behavior. Oxford University Press

Ojha H. R., Ghimire S., Pain A., Nightingale A., Khatri D. B., Dhungana H. (2016). Policy without politics: technocratic control of climate change adaptation policy making in Nepal. Climate Policy. Vol. 16/4, pp. 415-433

Povitkina, M. (2018). The limits of democracy in tackling climate change. Environmental Politics, 27/3. pp. 411-432

Rosanvallon P. (2006). La Contre-Démocratie. La politique à l'âge de la défiance. Seuil.

Runciman D. (2014) . The confidence trap: a history of democracy in crisis from World War I to the present. Princeton University Press.

Schroeder A. (2019). Democratic Values: A Better Foundation for Public Trust in Science. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 72, 2

Tilly, Charles. 2007. Democracy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

Tosun J., Peter G. (2021). The politics of climate change: Domestic and international responses to a global challenge. International Political Science Review. vol 42/1, p. 3-15

Wilson, J.L. (2011). Deliberation, Democracy, and the Rule of Reason in Aristotle's Politics. American Political Science Review 105: 259-74.