The Governance of Unsustainability

Abstract

Innovative, inclusive, consensus-seeking and often informal modes of “environmental governance” have widely been praised as the most effective, efficient and legitimate strategy for promoting and eventually achieving the objective of a “sustainable society”. These modes of governance engage a wide range of stakeholders including state agencies, international organisations, scientific research institutions, businesses, civil society organisations and so forth. However, with most global indicators of environmental degradation, resource depletion and greenhouse gas emissions still alarmingly on the rise, recent research (e.g. Swyngedouw 2005; Blühdorn 2011, 2013, Hausknost 2011) has begun to critically challenge the prevalent narratives of “environmental governance”. Aiming to further develop the research agenda set out in this work, this panel invites contributions that critically assess the (mal-)functioning of “environmental governance” and offer suggestions for a theoretically-informed critique of the governance-paradigm. The organisers particularly welcome contributions that further our understanding of environmental governance as a practice of strategic government and, in particular, as a device to sustain the “unsustainable” order of advanced capitalist consumer democracies. We are interested both in analyses that focus on a theoretical reconceptualization of the practices of governance as well as in critical analyses of empirical examples of environmental governance. The focus of this panel can be further defined by the guiding questions: What is the relationship between environmental governance and practices of de-politicisation? To what extent may innovative forms of governance-beyond-the-state be understood as post-democratic? How does environmental governance relate to visions of a ‘green economy’ and to existing structures of capitalism? What forms and modes of agency does environmental governance employ? How do practices of environmental governance change (or reproduce) established power relations?

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