LIST OF WORKSHOPS

Climate change governance has evolved into a complex, polycentric process that cuts across multiple levels and temporalities, relying on both formal and informal networks. Climate governance has undergone a dramatic evolution, particularly since the Paris Agreement, which shifted the focus towards a bottom-up approach. Framework climate laws represent a crucial attempt to address climate change strategically. The workshop is proposed in the context of the rapid changes in public policies provoked by complex intergovernmental problems. Climate change is a profound governance and policy challenge that transcends sectors, scales, and borders. Public policy responses actively shape how climate vulnerabilities evolve. Consequently, climate change and policy responses must be understood as interdependent phenomena.

The global perspective and the challenge of policy systems: The workshop argues that climate dynamics must be viewed as an intrinsic component of contemporary public policy, one that demands innovation in institutions, coordination, and multi-level governance. Climate change is considered a stress test of policy systems. Cutting across these issues, fundamental dimensions of multi-level governance (considering the rapport between global, national, and subnational governments, including specific local governmental responses at the city metro level) have become relevant due to the coordination imperatives of climate-based policies. We aim to contribute to the theoretical development of "climate governance capacity" as an analytical category.

Focus on Latin American legislation and policy: The workshop departs from a strong body of research on the Latin American region, highlighting its "outstanding enthusiasm" in adopting national framework climate laws. We seek to understand how different countries are integrating climate concerns into their laws. Specific attention will be paid to the institutional architectures embedded in Latin American climate acts (e.g., Chile, Colombia, Mexico). We investigate how these institutional mixes (regulatory, coordination, advisory, financial tools) vary across jurisdictions and whether the structures reflect particularities, such as excessive powers concentrated in the national executive branch, limiting the influence of subnational authorities and social actors. Analyzing implementation challenges is central, focusing on the political and organizational barriers that explain the "implementation gap", including the impact of political instability.

Primary objectives and theoretical focus (Integrated): The workshop seeks to achieve seven main objectives:

1. To map how different countries are integrating climate concerns into policy design and laws.

2. To systematically compare the institutional architectures embedded in climate legislation of selected jurisdictions.

3. To analyze how climate change impacts themselves can reshape public policy agendas, intergovernmental relations, and administrative structures.

4. To examine and deconstruct policy learning and diffusion mechanisms across countries or territories.

5. To contribute to the theoretical development of "climate governance capacity".

6. To analyze implementation challenges, focusing on the gap between legislative ambition and concrete achievements.

7. To identify country convergences and particularities through shared features among national climate policies.

Core research questions (blended approach):

• Institutional design (Legislation Focus): How do the institutional mixes established by climate acts vary across the countries, and which combinations appear most conducive to effective climate governance? Do the institutional structures reflect regional particularities, such as excessive powers concentrated in the national executive branch?

• Diffusion and origins: How has climate governance influenced the adoption of domestic policies, particularly climate acts? How have international commitments facilitated the horizontal and vertical diffusion and learning of policies and legislative models within the countries?

• Multi-level dynamics (Global Focus): What patterns of intergovernmental cooperation, mandate coordination mechanisms, and conflict emerge in different regional contexts and institutional structures to overcome the pervasive fragmentation of the state in climate action?

• Implementation gaps: What are the primary political and organizational barriers that explain the "implementation gap" or the limited results produced by national climate acts? In federal systems (like Argentina and Mexico), how do the dynamics of subnational governments affect the successful adoption and implementation of national climate acts?

Initial guiding hypotheses:

The workshop will invite participants to test and refine hypotheses derived from comparative public policy, policy process research theories and multi-level governance literature:

1. Regions and countries with higher administrative and coordination capacities have more coherent and adaptive climate policy responses than fragmented or under-resourced governance systems.

2. The more climate objectives are embedded in intersectoral policies, the more likely a country or region is to achieve systemic adaptation rather than fragmented, short-term interventions.

3. Severe climate events act as catalysts for institutional learning and innovation, but only where feedback mechanisms and accountability structures exist.

4. Regions with greater social inequality and weaker participation mechanisms tend to produce climate policies that exacerbate vulnerability, while inclusive governance correlates with greater resilience.

5. Policy learning and diffusion across regions depend on the existence of national and international networks, epistemic communities, and funding mechanisms that facilitate policy adaptation rather than mere replication.

Contributions and book projects:

The workshop will advance theoretical debates on the interaction between climate change and public policy, seeking to reframe climate governance as a policy systems challenge. It will introduce climate governance capacity as a comparative analytical framework. Methodologically, it will encourage comparative analyses that connect global, national, and subnational governance levels. For practitioners, it aims to identify best practices and innovative governance mechanisms that enhance institutional resilience.

This workshop is based on two related book projects. The one focusing on Climate Legislation in Latin America is already approved by Palgrave and serves as the regional foundation for this workshop. The second edited volume “Climate Governance and Public Policy Systems: Comparative Lessons across Regions,” with Palgrave Macmillan will welcome new contributions to be considered as additional chapters extending the original regional scope beyond the Americas.

This workshop explores the intersection of public policy and climate governance, raising multiple theoretical, methodological, and empirical challenges. It explores the rapid transformations in public policies driven by the emergence of complex intergovernmental problems. It seeks to address these complexities through a comparative and cross-disciplinary perspective that bridges public policy analysis and environmental governance research.

Climate change represents not only a global environmental crisis but also a profound governance and policy challenge that transcends sectors, scales, and borders. Its impacts vary widely across regions, depending on institutional capacities, socio-economic inequalities, and the maturity of policy systems. The workshop views climate change as a “stress test” for policy systems—revealing both their resilience and their institutional limits. Moreover, public policy responses are not merely reactive—they actively shape how vulnerabilities evolve. Thus, climate change and policy response must be understood as interdependent phenomena: two sides of the same theoretical and practical challenge.

The main objective of the workshop is to bridge comparative public policy research and climate governance studies through cross-regional analysis. We seek studies that analyze policy responses, diffusion, and implementation within regions, aiming at a cross-comparative understanding of emerging forms of global climate governance.

Emphasis on Global and Latin American Perspectives

We particularly welcome papers that address climate governance challenges from a Global perspective, on the one hand, and from a regional, Latin American Perspective, on the other hand, examining the traveling of climate legislation around the continent and their effective implementation. The workshop seeks to compare these regional trajectories with those of other regions to strengthen the understanding of institutional capacity across diverse policy systems.

Specific thematic areas

Specifically, the workshop seeks to:

1. Institutional Architecture and Design: Comparative analysis of the structure of climate policies, focusing on the configuration and effectiveness of regulatory, coordination, advisory, and financial mechanisms in achieving policy outcomes in policy design.
2. Institutional Arrangements: Identify how institutional arrangements, governance models, and political contexts influence the effectiveness of climate-related policies.
3. Climate Impacts and Political Agendas: Examine how climate impacts reshape public policy agendas, intergovernmental relations, and administrative structures.
4. Policy Diffusion Mechanisms: Studies analyzing the transnational transfer of climate policy ideas, instruments, and institutional models, including the role of international organizations and regional peer networks in policy adoption.
5. Theoretical Development: Advance the theoretical development of climate governance capacity as an analytical category in comparative policy studies.
6. Implementation Gaps and Barriers: Research assessing the political, organizational, financial, or political-economic obstacles that limit the effectiveness of climate acts, including the influence of vested interests.

The workshop aims to advance theoretical debates on the interaction between climate change and public policy, reframing climate governance as a policy systems challenge rather than an external environmental issue. It introduces the concept of climate governance capacity to bridge environmental policy with broader theories of state capacity and policy learning. In methodological terms, it encourages comparative analyses linking global, national, and subnational governance levels. For practitioners and policymakers, it aims to identify best practices and innovative governance mechanisms that enhance institutional resilience and promote the integration of climate considerations into broader governance and development agendas.

The workshop invites participants to test and refine hypotheses derived from comparative and institutional theories of public policy, including policy learning, multi-level governance, and resilience theory, focused on the interplay between policy responses and climate change issues.

This workshop is open to receiving papers focused on and developing theoretical, methodological, and analytical models that address the interaction between climate change and public policy. We welcome both quantitative or qualitative papers—comparative or on national cases—that explore different dimensions and theoretical and empirical avenues to explore this topic.

This workshop is built on the recognition that complex intergovernmental problems challenge traditional frameworks of policy formulation and coordination across all regions. Climate change is not only a global environmental crisis but also a profound governance and policy challenge that cuts across sectors, scales, and borders. Its impacts vary widely according to institutional capacities, socio-economic inequalities, and the maturity of policy systems. Public policy responses are not merely reactive but actively shape how climate vulnerabilities evolve. The workshop argues that climate change should be understood as an intrinsic component of contemporary public policy, one that demands institutional innovation, coordination, and multilevel governance, rather than being viewed as an "external shock" to the policymaking system. As such, the climate crisis functions as a "stress test" for policy systems, exposing both their resilience and their institutional limits. Its main objective is to bridge comparative public policy research and climate governance studies through a cross-regional analysis. Our workshop emphasizes two main perspectives: 1) Global and cross-regional perspective: The workshop seeks to advance theoretical debates by reframing climate governance as a policy systems challenge, and not merely the result of an environmental issue. Departing from a strong body of research in the Latin American region, it reaches out to similar trajectories in Asia and Europe, aiming for a cross-comparative understanding of emerging forms of global climate governance. And 2) Focus on Latin America: The Latin American region is highly exposed to climate change impacts, yet it has shown an "outstanding enthusiasm" in adopting national framework climate laws (climate acts). Despite this legislative wave, the effectiveness of these laws often remains limited, perpetuating a gap between international promises and domestic policy achievements. The workshop addresses the existing academic bias toward the Global North by providing the first region-specific, comprehensive analysis of climate acts in Latin America. Specific objectives: 1. Analyze climate acts (Latin American legislation and policy focus): Systematically compare the institutional architectures—regulatory, coordination, advisory, and financial mechanisms—embedded in selected climate legislations. 2. Examine multi-level governance (Global Focus): Identify how institutional arrangements and political contexts influence policy implementation possibilities, particularly concerning the challenges of multi-level governance and the role of subnational governments. 3. Implementation challenges: identify the political, economic, and organizational barriers that translate innovative laws into limited results. 4. Policy learning and diffusion: examine processes of policy learning and diffusion across countries. 5. Advance theory: contribute to the theoretical development of "climate governance capacity" as an analytical category in comparative policy process research. Ultimately, the workshop aims to generate contributions to strengthen institutional capacity and promote the integration of climate considerations into broader governance and development agendas, comparing multi-level experiences to identify country convergences and challenges that enhance the theoretical and empirical understanding of public policy processes.

Eduardo José Grin has a PhD in Public Administration and Government (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brazil). He was a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at UC Berkeley. He teaches in the fields of federalism, intergovernmental relations, decentralization, state capacity, and local government at Fundação Getulio Vargas/São Paulo. He also teaches at the Ibero-American School of Public Policy (CLAD), National School of Public Administration (ENAP), and University Del Valle (Colombia).  He is the Director of Institutional Relations of the Brazilian Society of Public Administration and a member of the board of directors of the Local Government Research Committee (IPSA). Institutional Relations Coordinator at the National Institute of Science and Technology Qualigov, 2023-2028. He is the executive secretary of the Latin American Network of Public Policy. Member of the Council for Transparency, Integrity and Combating Corruption, Office of the Comptroller General of the Union, 2023-2026. He was a consultant of many international organizations (World Bank, CLAD, UNESCO, Institute Climate and Society, and Inter-American Development Bank). He has published many books and articles in top-ranked journals addressing comparative federalism, local government, and public policies.

Dr. Álvaro Artigas holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science and Comparative Political Economy from Sciences Po in Paris.  He is a Research Associate of Sciences Po Paris, at the Centre d'Études Européennes et de Politique Comparée as well as faculty of the Paris School of International Affairs PSIA. He is a member of Sciences Po’s urban research programme “Cities are Back in Town”. Currently affiliated with the Institute of Environmental Studies at the NUS LKY School of Public Policy, his research lies at the crossroads of public policy and political economy. He has extensive international research experience on environmental issues related to water, energy governance and is currently a member of the CAPinGHG consortium between SciencesPo’s LIEPP and NUS LKY Singapore and one of the beneficiaries of the MERLION grant together with NERI. He was a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung in Berlin, the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo and the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals His most recent work questions the governance of low-carbon economy transitions (GHG inventories, UHI), interrogating the concept of complexity and innovation from an inter-regional comparative perspective (Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America) looking at interactions of technological platforms and their specific environmental and territorial consequences in the governance of cities.

Israel Solorio (PhD). Full-time associate professor at the Centre for Public Administration Studies, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). He holds a PhD in International Relations and European Integration from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI), Level I. His work focuses on energy and climate policy, environmental governance in Mexico, and public policy integration.

Juan Guillermo Vieira (PhD). Professor at Universidad EAFIT. Interested in research on public policy processes, political institutions, comparative public policy, and subnational politics in Latin America. Part of his current work focuses on developing the Colombian Political Agendas Project, the national chapter of the Comparative Agendas Project.

Luz Fernando Bessa is a Professor in the Department of Public Policy Management at the University of Brasília/UnB. He was a consultant for international organizations (United Nations Development Program/UNDP and Inter-American Development Bank/IDB) on environmental and urban development programs. He holds a degree in Public Administration (EAESP/FGV) and a master’s and doctorate in Human Geography and Space Organization, both from the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He was a professor in the Graduate Program in Environmental Planning and Management at the Catholic University of Brasília, a member of the international research group Green Governance, and a visiting researcher (2005/6) at the University of California, Berkeley.