How can Newell's book allow us to better understand the role of the state in sustainability transitions? Do we risk that broadening the agenda from specific climate and environmental policies to ample state functions may dilute efforts towards sustainability transitions?
These and other questions will be commented briefly by:
- Elin Lerum Boasson, Department of Political Science
- David Jordhus-Lier, Department of Sociology and Human Geography
- Benedicte Bull, Centre for Global Sustainability
Comments by the professors will be followed by an open discussion led by Bård Lahn, Associate professor at TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture.
About the book
In his new book, States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society, Peter Newell, argues for a deeper, more political, geographical and historical account of the role of the state in in transitions towards sustainable societies. It is not enough to focus on how the state incentivizes energy transitions, limits unsustainable behavior or compensate losers. We need to address how the state conducts foreign relations, its monopoly on the use of violence through war and policing, its industrial, extractivist and centralizing tendencies and exclusionary dynamics which mean most of the world’s citizens are unable to actively shape their collective destiny.
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About Newell
Peter Newell is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex and theme lead for sustainability in the Sussex School for Progressive Futures. Besides working for academic institutions including the universities of Sussex, Oxford, Warwick and East Anglia, and FLACSO Argentina, he has undertaken commissioned research and policy work for the governments of the UK, India, Ireland, Sweden and Finland and for international organisations such as UNDP, GEF, UNCTAD, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. His recent research focuses on the political economy of low carbon energy transitions, but he has undertaken research, advocacy and consultancy work on different aspects of climate change for over 30 years. His single and co-authored books include Climate for Change; Governing Climate Change; Globalization and the Environment; Climate Capitalism; Transnational Climate Change Governance; Global Green Politics; Power Shift; Changing Our Ways and States of Transition.
States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society is recently published by Cambridge University Press. It is open access and can be read here.