Post-Growth Politics

Abstract

During the last decade, there has been a significant international renewal of the interest for post-growth perspectives, both in the activist and the theoretic fields. Some new political actors, such as the Francophone “degrowth movement” (since 2002) and the Anglophone “transition movement” (since 2005), have initiated a political framing process in this direction, by trying to draw some political conclusions from a global peak oil paradigm. They found some echoes in some para-institutional reflections, such as the Prosperity without growth report by Tim Jackson. More recently, these political and theoretical perspectives have been put under a new light by actual cases of deep recessions in Greece and other European countries. The convergence of energetic, economic and environmental contractions has led some political actors – both green and conventional – to reconsider some of the most fundamental bases of the implicitly growth-based political paradigm. This renewal of post-growth perspectives has led to prolific research in economy, notably within Ecological economics. However, these economic developments generally stop at the point where political questions begin, as the hypothesis of post-growth societies raises critical questions about freedom, justice, democracy, etc. This panel will focus on the post-growth theories, mobilisations, institutions and policies. It expects to include some contributions from green social movements sociology, environmental public policy, green political theory, and green parties studies. It aims at understanding how the idea of “limits to growth”, which has been for decades an ideological pillar of green political thought, is nowadays revisited in the perspective of the “peak everything” emergent hypothesis. Contributors are invited to ground their papers in practical case studies and observations, but may also assume prospective developments as to what post-growth politics, policies and institutions could be like.

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