Library

Towards Degrowth? Making Peace with Mortality to Reconnect with (One's) Nature: An Ecopsychological Proposition for a Paradigm Shift

By: Sarah Koller

This article explores the existential conditions for a transition towards socioeconomic degrowth through an analysis of a paradigm shift between two extreme polarities of socio-ecological positioning: the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) and the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). It is suggested that the transition from one to the other – understood as the first collective step towards degrowth –...

Provincialising Degrowth and Situating Buen Vivir: A Decolonial Framework for the Politics of Degrowth

By: Katharina Richter

This thesis presents an inter-epistemic dialogue between degrowth and Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay (BV/sk), a Latin American postdevelopment paradigm. It contributes to nascent, yet rapidly growing debates around decolonising degrowth. As field of study and social movement, degrowth responds to two pressing crises: one, the accelerated destruction of the natural world; two, inequality in resource...

Steps Towards a Legal Ontological Turn: Proposals for Law's Place beyond the Human

By: Emille Boulot, Joshua Sterlin

Environmental law remains grounded in a ‘one-world world’ paradigm. This ontological structure asserts that, regardless of variation in world-construing, all beings occupy one ‘real’ world of discrete entities. The resulting legal system is viewed as an independent set of norms and procedures regulating the ‘human’ use of the ‘environment’ by specifying allowable harm rather than adjudicating...

Fostering critical pluralism with systems theory, methods, and heuristics

By: Matthew Burke, Kaitlin Kish, Sophia R. Sanniti, Dave Mallery, Gabriel Yahya Haage, Rigo Melgar-Melgar, Christopher Orr, Nina L. Smolyar, Jolyon Larson

Ecological economics and systems theory have a long-standing history. As a foregrounding metatheoretical framework, systems thinking deepens socio-ecological acuity through comprehensive models of complex relationships between social and biophysical systems. However, critical and soft systems are often overlooked, necessitating a framework for “critical pluralism,” similar to that used by...

Beyond the growth imperative and neoliberal doxa: Expanding alternative societal spaces through deliberative citizen forums on needs satisfaction

By: Max Koch, Jayeon Lindellee, Johanna Alkan Olsson

Are there indications for the neoliberal hegemony in economy and society to come to an end? Are people already imagining a future within environmental limits and beyond the growth imperative? Theoretically, building upon Marx and Bourdieu, we reconstruct the ideological impact that capitalism, in general, and neoliberalism, in particular, has on the ways we think, feel and make sense of our...

Towards a science of deep transformations: Initiating a dialogue between degrowth and critical realism

By: Hubert Buch-Hansen, Iana Nesterova

Degrowth scholarship has enjoyed considerable momentum in recent times, resulting in a growing, diverse and vibrant field of research. Against this background, it becomes pertinent to reflect on the nature of degrowth science and on the philosophical assumptions underpinning it. Advocates of the degrowth perspective have so far largely abstained from engaging in such reflections and have yet to...

Urgencies and imperatives for revolutionary (environmental) transitions: from degrowth and postdevelopment towards the pluriverse?

By: Jorge Garcia-Arias, Julia Schöneberg

Scientific paper • 2020

De-growth: Some suggestions from the Simpler Way perspective

By: Ted Trainer

It is argued that there are some important issues which the current de growth literature neglects. The first is the sheer magnitude of the global predicament, which determines not just the insufficiently recognized difficulty of the transition task but also that the goals and means must take particular and largely unrecognized forms. The goal cannot be reform of the existing society; it must...

Misc • 2020

2020: the year of the snail

By: Constanza Hepp

We are starting 2020 full of enthusiasm for all that is to come! If you want to be involved in the degrowth movement you just need to roll up your sleeves because in this new year, there will be plenty to do. Here is a list of the activities that planned for 2020 so you

Misc • 2020

The urban drivers of economic growth

By: Federico Savini

In the 1980s, cities were defined as the ‘growth machines’ of the economy (Molotch, 1976). Today, urban economists epitomize them as economic ‘triumphs’ (Glaeser, 2011). Cities, intended as dense and mixed forms of urban living organized in agglomerations of economic activities, are presented as the solution to many of contemporary socio-ecological problems. They are viewed

Scientific paper • 2020

Closing the green finance gap - A systems perspective

By: Sarah Hafner, Aled Jones, Annela Anger-Kraavi, Jan Pohl

Meeting its climate policy objectives requires the UK to rapidly decarbonise its energy sector. This demands high levels of investments into low carbon energy infrastructure, which are currently not undertaken at required scale, leading to a green finance gap. We explore (1) key investment barriers, (2) a theoretical framework for investigation and (3) possible solutions, drawing on a review of...

Scientific paper • 2020

Eco-social divides in Europe: public attitudes towards welfare and climate change policies

By: Adeline Otto, Dimitri Gugushvili

In the face of accelerating global warming and attendant natural disasters, it is clear that governments all over the world eventually have to take measures to mitigate the most adverse consequences of climate change. However, the costs of these measures are likely to force governments to reconsider some of their tax and spending priorities, of which social spending is the largest expenditure...

Scientific paper • 2020

Looking for the inverted pyramid: an application using input-output networks

By: Louison Cahen-Fourot, Emanuele Campiglio, Elena Dawkins, Antoine Godin, Eric Kemp-Benedict

Herman Daly's view of the economy as an “inverted pyramid” sitting on top of essential raw material inputs is compelling, but not readily visible in monetary data, as the contribution of primary sectors to value added is typically low. This article argues that “forward linkages”, a classical development theory concept capturing the relevance of a sector for downstream activities, is an...

Misc • 2020

Strategies for Cultural Change: Degrowth and the Use of Space

By: Francesca Van Daele

Degrowth addresses the negative consequences of consumerism (psychological stress, long working hours and positional competition) and discusses the benefits of frugal lifestyles. Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher from the 20th century, argues that if ideas or values are not physically implemented in space, they become mere fantasies. As such, if degrowth wishes to prevail, it

Scientific paper • 2020

Frame Disputes or Frame Consensus? “Environment” or “Welfare” First Amongst Climate Strike Protesters

By: Kaja Emilsson, Håkan Johansson, Magnus Wennerhag

Present debates suppose a close linkage between economic, social, and environmental sustainability and suggest that individual wellbeing and living standards need to be understood as directly linked to environmental concerns. Because social movements are often seen as an avant-garde in pushing for change, this article analyzes climate protesters’ support for three key frames in current periods...

Scientific paper • 2020

Reviewing the Smart City Vienna Framework Strategy’s Potential as an Eco-Social Policy in the Context of Quality of Work and Socio-Ecological Transformation

By: Jana Brandl, Irina Zielinska

In the face of an increasing awareness of environmental issues and the urgent need to tackle them without shifting the burden onto the most vulnerable social groups, calls for a socio-economic transformation are growing louder. However, there is no consensus on what transformative strategies should look like. Within the German-language literature one can broadly distinguish two transformative...

Scientific paper • 2020

Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits

By: Katharina Bohnenberger

While the social consequences of environmental policies are extensively evaluated in sustainability research, few studies exist on the ecological impact of social benefits and the welfare state. Sustainable welfare is a novel research field that seeks to close this knowledge gap and develop integrated eco-social policies. Within this, researchers are starting to ask how citizen’s needs can be...

Scientific paper • 2020

The Virtuous Circle of Sustainable Welfare as a Transformative Policy Idea

By: Tuuli Hirvilammi

Welfare states are highly dependent on the economic growth paradigm. Especially in social democratic welfare states, growth dependence has historically been accompanied by the notion of a virtuous circle, which ensures that social policy measures do not conflict with economic growth. However, this policy idea ignores the environmental impacts that are now challenging human wellbeing and welfare...

Scientific paper • 2020

Sustainable Welfare in Swedish Cities: Challenges of Eco-Social Integration in Urban Sustainability Governance

By: Jamil Khan, Roger Hildingsson, Lisa Garting

In this paper, we study the integration of ecological sustainability and social welfare concerns in cities. Efforts to handle ecological challenges risk having negative impacts on equality and social welfare. While current levels of consumption and material welfare are unsustainable, there is a need for more sustainable approaches to welfare and wellbeing. Still, ecological and social concerns...

Misc • 2020

Beyond the growth gospel

By: Aaron Timms

Aaron Timms shares his impressions of the Degrowth Summer school, and life at Can Decreix in Cerbère. This article appeared in The New Republic, on January 27th 2020