Suchergebnisse

Degrowth and ecosocialism are two of the most important movements—and proposals—on the radical side of the ecological spectrum.

The coronavirus outbreak has come in the aftermath of other concerning and disastrous events, from the rainforest fires in the Amazon to the wildfires of Australia. So far, the political response worldwide has been limited to identifying the villain and the hero who will first invent the life-saving vaccine. However, in a time of crisis, it is becoming obvious that the problem is not external but rather embedded and systemic. We argue that a political economy based on compound economic growth is unsustainable. While the pandemic is no proof of the unsustainability of economic growth as such, the speed and scope of this disease are driven by the interconnectivities of accelerated globalization. Through three ongoing cases, which we have been studying following a participatory action research approach, we discuss an alternative trajectory of a post-capitalist future based on the convergence of localized manufacturing with the digitally shared knowledge commons.

We explore the idea of public policy from the perspective of evolutionary thinking. This involves paying attention to concepts like diversity, population, selection, innovation, coevolution, group selection, path-dependence and lock-in. We critically discuss the notion of evolutionary progress. The relevance of evolutionary dynamics is illustrated for policy and political change, technical change, sustainability transitions and regulation of consumer behaviour. A lack of attention for the development of evolutionary policy criteria and goals is identified and alternative choices are critically evaluated. Finally, evolutionary policy advice is compared with policy advice coming from neoclassical economics, public choice theory and theories of resilience and adaptive management. We argue that evolutionary thinking offers a distinct and useful perspective on public policy design and change. -- Adaptive management ; coevolution ; escaping lock-in ; evolutionary politics ; evolutionary progress ; innovation policy ; optimal diversity ; resilience ; social-technical transition

This article investigates the history of land and water transformations in Matadepera, a wealthy suburb of metropolitan Barcelona. Analysis is informed by theories of political ecology and methods of environmental history; although very relevant, these have received relatively little attention within ecological economics. Empirical material includes communications from the City Archives of Matadepera (1919-1979), 17 interviews with locals born between 1913 and 1958, and an exhaustive review of grey historical literature. Existing water histories of Barcelona and its outskirts portray a battle against natural water scarcity, hard won by heroic engineers and politicians acting for the good of the community. Our research in Matadepera tells a very different story. We reveal the production of a highly uneven landscape and waterscape through fierce political and power struggles. The evolution of Matadepera from a small rural village to an elite suburb was anything but spontaneous or peaceful. It was a socio-environmental project well intended by landowning elites and heavily fought by others. The struggle for the control of water went hand in hand with the land and political struggles that culminated - and were violently resolved - in the Spanish Civil War. The displacement of the economic and environmental costs of water use from few to many continues to this day and is constitutive of Matadepera's uneven and unsustainable landscape. By unravelling the relations of power that are inscribed in the urbanization of nature (Swyngedouw, 2004), we question the perceived wisdoms of contemporary water policy debates, particularly the notion of a natural scarcity that merits a technical or economic response. We argue that the water question is fundamentally a political question of environmental justice; it is about negotiating alternative visions of the future and deciding whose visions will be produced.

There is a growing policy interest in participatory processes that combine deliberation with futures visioning. The EU Water Framework Directive, with its mandate for participatory long-term river basin plans, contributes to this "futures turn" in European governance. In this paper we investigate what Deliberative Visioning can do well and what not in the context of resource planning. Our laboratory is a Scenario Workshop for sustainable water management in a Greek island. We conclude that Deliberative Visioning is useful for preparatory and complementary planning activities such as education, community motivation, communication and consultation but it is not well suited for action planning per se. Visions are not substantive decision outputs or bases for a participatory policy options assessment, but effective devices for communication and mutual learning between participants. Our study touches also some broader issues concerning the interface of participation/deliberation, science and decision-making.