Global climate change poses an unprecedented challenge for governments across the world. Small wonder that many experts question whether democracies have the ability to cope with the causes and long-term consequences of a changing climate. Some even argue that authoritarian regimes are better equipped to make the tough choices required to tackle the climate crisis. In this incisive book, Daniel Fiorino challenges the assumptions and evidence offered by sceptics of democracy and its capacity to handle climate change. Democracies, he explains, typically enjoy higher levels of environmental performance and produce greater innovation in technology, policy, and climate governance than autocracies. Rather than less democracy, Fiorino calls for a more accountable and responsive politics that will provide democratically-elected governments with the enhanced capacity for collective action on climate and other environmental issues.
World leaders have agreed to limit rises in global temperatures, yet climate issues scarcely trouble domestic policies. Implementing climate solutions successfully through the democratic process requires a radical political shift and an overhaul of the laws and systems that govern our society. Drawing on interviews with politicians and activists, this book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of international climate policies to examine how we can build impactful democratic solutions to climate change. The author confronts the difficulties of fitting the climate change agenda into the current political system, including how to make it a voter priority, whilst proposing practical ways forward for climate change politics.
Our democracies repeatedly fail to safeguard the future. From pensions to pandemics, health and social care through to climate, biodiversity and emerging technologies, democracies have been unable to deliver robust policies for the long term. In this book, Graham Smith asks why. Exploring the drivers of short-termism, he considers ways of reshaping legislatures and constitutions and proposes strengthening independent offices whose overarching goals do not change at every election. More radically, Smith argues that forms of participatory and deliberative politics offer the most effective democratic response to the current political myopia, as well as a powerful means of protecting the interests of generations to come.
This book summarises and critiques Extinction Rebellion (XR) as a social movement organisation, engaging with key issues surrounding its analysis, strategy and tactics. The authors suggest that XR have an underdeveloped and apolitical view of the kind of change necessary to address climate change, and that while this enables the building of broad movements, it is also an obstacle to achieving the systemic change that they are aiming for. The book analyses different forms of protest and the role of civil disobedience in their respective success or failure; democratic demands and practices; and activist engagement with the political economy of climate change. It engages with a range of theoretical perspectives that address law-breaking in protest and participatory forms of democracy including liberal political theory; anarchism and forms of historical materialism, and will be of interest to students and scholars across politics, international relations, sociology, policy studies and geography, as well as those interested in climate change politics and activism.
How Democracy Survives explores how liberal democracy can better adapt to the planetary challenges of our time by evolving beyond the Westphalian paradigm of the nation state. The authors bring perspectives from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America, their chapters engaging with the concept of transnational democracy by tracing its development in the past, assessing its performance in the present, and considering its potential for survival in this century and beyond. Coming from a wide array of intellectual disciplines and policymaking backgrounds, the authors share a common conviction that our global institutions—both governments and international organizations—must become more resilient, transparent, and democratically accountable in order to address the cascading political, economic, and social crises of this new epoch, such as climate change, mass migration, more frequent and severe natural disasters, and resurgent authoritarianism. This book will be relevant for courses in international relations and political science, environmental politics, and the preservation of democracy and federalism around the world. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched www.knowledgeunlatched.org
Contemporary Climate Change Debates is an innovative new textbook which tackles some of the difficult questions raised by climate change. For the complex policy challenges surrounding climate migration, adaptation and resilience, structured debates become effective learning devices for students. This book is organised around 15 important questions, and is split into four parts: What do we need to know? What should we do? On what grounds should we base our actions? Who should be the agents of change? Each debate is addressed by pairs of one or two leading or emerging academics who present opposing viewpoints. Through this format the book is designed to introduce students of climate change to different arguments prompted by these questions, and also provides a unique opportunity for them to engage in critical thinking and debate amongst themselves. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for further reading and with discussion questions for use in student classes. Drawing upon the sciences, social sciences and humanities to debate these ethical, cultural, legal, social, economic, technological and political roadblocks, Contemporary Debates on Climate Change is essential reading for all students of climate change, as well as those studying environmental policy and politics and sustainable development more broadly.
Combining theory, comparative politics, and international relations ntroduction to Politics 5e, provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject for first year undergraduate students. As the only introductory text to cover both comparative politics and international relations, it is themost authoritative and global introductory politics textbook on the market.Written by three experts in the field, this book takes a balanced approach to the subject, serving as a strong foundation for further study. Assuming no prior knowledge, the authors use an accessible yet analytical approach which encourages critical analysis and debate, helping students to developthe skills that will be vital to their future studies and employment.The new edition has been fully updated with additional up-to-date case studies and examples to help students relate their studies to real-world events. The fifth edition includes coverage of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on global politics; provides an overview of Russia's imperial history,and the political economy of sanctions; a new section on decolonising political thinking; and additional examples from Non-Western settings throughout the text. This ensures that ntroduction to Politics 5e is the most comprehensive, global, and essential guide for students new to the study ofPolitics.The fifth edition includes a wealth of embedded digital resources, which are accessible through the enhanced e-book. These include:- Multiple-choice questions for every section, designed to reinforce your understanding of key points through frequent and cumulative revision, and to assist with independent self-study- Political scenarios which encourage you to apply your learning to a practical case to see how the content of the text can be reflected in real life.- A library of web links to relevant blogs, debates, and videos, to help explore your research interests and take your learning further- Videos of news reports, speeches, analysis, and key events help bring theories and concepts to life, exploring issues such as 'are Western values still relevant?' and 'Will China Become the Centre of the World Economy?'- An interactive flashcard glossary to test your knowledge and understanding of each chapter's key termsTeaching resources for adopting lecturers include:- Customisable PowerPoint slides that can be adapted for use in lectures- Discussion questions that lecturers can use to engage their students, based on the content of each chapter- A bank of questions for lecturers to use to test students' understanding of key concepts covered in the chapters
This handbook provides comprehensive and critical coverage of the dynamic and complex relationship between democracy and sustainability in contemporary theory, discourse, and practice. Distinguished scholars from different disciplines, such as political science, sociology, philosophy, international relations, look at the present state of this relationship, asking how it has evolved and where it is likely to go in the future. They examine compatibilities and tensions, continuities and changes, as well as challenges and potentials across theoretical, empirical and practical contexts. This wide-spanning collection brings together multiple established and emerging viewpoints on the debate between democracy and sustainability which have, until now, been fragmented and diffuse. It comprises diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives discussing democracy’s role in, and potential for, coping with environmental issues at the local and global scales. This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of arguments, claims, questions, and insights that are put forward regarding the relationship between democracy and sustainability. In the process, it not only consolidates and condenses, but also broadens and captures the many nuances of the debate. By showing how theoretical, empirical and practical accounts are interrelated, focusing on diverse problem areas and spheres of action, it serves as a knowledge source for professionals who seek to develop action strategies that do justice to both sustainability and democracy, as well as providing a valuable reference for academic researchers, lecturers and students.
This book charts the course and causes of UN, G7 and G20 governance of climate change through the crucial period of 2015–2021. It provides a careful, comprehensive and reliable description of the individual and interactive contributions of the G7, G20 and UN summits and analyses their results. The authors explain these contributions and results by considering the impacts of causal candidates, such as a changing physical ecosystem and international political system and the actions of individual leaders of the world’s most systemically significant countries. They apply and improve an established, compact causal model, grounded in international relations theory, to guide these tasks. By developing, prescribing and implementing immediate, realistic actionable policy solutions to cope with the urgent, existential challenge of controlling climate change, this volume will appeal to scholars of international relations, global governance and global environmental governance.
How far did the European Union (EU) referendum result of 23 June 2016 really justify and necessitate the policies executed in response to it? What are the implications of that vote and its prolonged aftermath for the United Kingdom (UK) constitution? What other challenges does our political system face? This book seeks to answer these questions. It considers from a constitutional perspective the way in which the decision to leave the EU was taken and then implemented, discussing in particular the role of Parliament. It includes a close analysis of the referendum legislation, and relevant Commons debates. Adapting methods from applied history, the author considers the wider implications of Brexit by assessing a series of proposals for constitutional reform produced in the UK since 1900. He addresses features of the UK system including referendums, representative democracy, Parliament, devolution, and the executive, from both an historic and contemporary point of view. The book assesses other issues that do not arise directly from Brexit but that have constitutional implications and a global aspect to them. They include political applications of the Internet and climate change. Finally, the author makes a series of proposals for reforms that will help the democratic system of the UK to adapt to its changing environment.
Whereas most scholars study alternative energy policy in developed, Western nations, Oksan Bayulgen wonders why renewable energy has not advanced in countries that do not have deep fossil fuel resources. This book focuses on the political determinants of clean energy transitions, especially in developing country settings, which most of the literature has overlooked. Using an in-depth case study of energy policymaking in Turkey, Bayulgen constructs a dynamic, multidimensional theoretical model to explain the political feasibility of energy solutions to climate change in much of the world. By using Turkey as a case study, she clearly shows the role of the state and elites in energy policies that have failed to make the transition to renewables. This timely topic will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, energy investors, and anyone interested in environmental studies.
Scholars have often claimed that democracies, whatever their virtues, are functionally short-sighted. The evidence is clear: we have been unable to manage many long-term issues including climate change, nuclear waste disposal, natural disaster preparedness, infrastructure maintenance, and budget deficits. If voters and influential actors, such as interest groups and corporations, have dominant short-term interests, it may be difficult for elected politicians to act in the long-term interests of society, even if they think that it would be the right thing to do. To solve long-term problems, do we need political systems that are less democratic, or even authoritarian? This idea, which Michael K. MacKenzie calls the "democratic myopia thesis," is a sort of conventional wisdom; it is an idea that scholars and pundits take for granted as a truth about democracy without subjecting it to adequate critical scrutiny. In Future Publics, MacKenzie challenges this conventional wisdom and articulates a deliberative, democratic theory of future-regarding collective action. Specifically, MacKenzie argues that each part of the democratic myopia problem can be addressed through democratic--rather than authoritarian--means. At a more fundamental level, once we recognize that democratic practices are world-making activities that empower us to make our shared worlds together, they should also be understood as future-making activities. Despite the short-term dynamics associated with electoral democracy, MacKenzie asserts that we need more inclusive and deliberative democracies if we are going to make shared futures that will work for us all.
