[gep-ed] Reminder: Call for Papers GLOBALGOALS2020 – Int’l SDG Research Symposium, Utrecht, 10-11 June 2020

[Biermann, F.H.B. (Frank)]

Dear GEP-ED members,

Allow us this kind reminder about the upcoming 2020 International SDG Research 
Symposium GLOBALGOALS2020, held 10-11 June 2020 in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The Call is open for only a few more days.

The deadline for paper submissions to 15 December. All abstracts must be 
submitted by that date through our online submission system.


The 2020 SDG Research Symposium GLOBALGOALS2020 brings together a broad group 
of leading social scientists from universities and prominent think tanks for a 
first stocktaking of what we know about the impact of ‘governance through 
goals’, and of the SDGs in particular. The SDG Research Symposium will not 
address sustainability governance as such but focus on assessing the effects of 
global goal-setting, with special emphasis on the Sustainable Development Goals 
as the premier and most comprehensive global goal-setting effort to-date.

GLOBALGOALS2020 will address six broader research streams:

(1) Implementation. To what extent have the Sustainable Development Goals been 
effective so far in achieving their stated objectives? Where are main areas of 
success or failure? And where can we attribute positive changes and progress to 
the agreement on the SDGs in 2015?

(2) Integration. The Sustainable Development Goals are to align the efforts of 
public and private actors around their ambitious agenda, and to further the 
integration of governance instruments at global and national levels in support 
of the Goals. To what extent is such integration of governance around the 17 
Goals in fact observable? Where are actors aligning their efforts, and to what 
extent is this attributable to the Goals that were adopted in 2015?

(3) Inclusiveness. The Sustainable Development Goals follow an agenda of 
leaving ‘no one behind’ and shall advance the interests of the poorest and most 
vulnerable people. Increased inclusiveness of governance arrangements and 
processes is one of the key aspirations associated with the Sustainable 
Development Goals. Yet, to what extent can we observe a better inclusion and 
support of poor and vulnerable communities within countries, and 
internationally of the Least Developed Countries? Did the promise of 2015 
materialize in actual policies since then?

(4) Integrity. The claim behind the Sustainable Development Goals is that they 
help align social justice with the protection of the life-supporting earth 
systems. Yet to what extent did the Sustainable Development Goals really 
advance planetary ecological integrity, especially in areas and policy fields 
that have so far only marginally been associated with ecological concerns? 
Where can we observe changes towards more planetary integrity in governance 
efforts that can be attributed to the SDGs?

(5) Interlinkages. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals were designed to 
advance overall coherence in sustainability governance – yet often they seem to 
operate in silos. There might be trade-offs between some Goals, and actors 
might prefer one Goal over the other. Research into the interlinkages between 
these Goals is thus highly important to inform policy and provide 
evidence-based recommendations on how to resolve trade-offs, leverage 
synergies, and accelerate progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

(6) Indicators and Methods. Finally, the SDG Research Symposium will focus on 
the best suited methods to identify and trace impacts of the Sustainable 
Development Goals. We hope for extensive accounts from the humanities and 
qualitative social sciences approaches, including discursive and interpretative 
work on the role that the Sustainable Development Goals could play so far. We 
also invite scholars who focus on quantitative work on the Sustainable 
Development Goals, including social network analysis and integrated assessment 
models. We especially seek to bring quantitative and qualitative work in 
conversation, while creating enough space for both meta approaches to further 
improve and fine-tune their methodological tool boxes.

The 2020 SDG Research Symposium invites contributions from all disciplines and 
intellectual traditions. We plan to focus on research on the impacts and 
politics of global goal-setting as a mode of global and national governance – 
and here on the Sustainable Development Goals in particular. We are less 
interested, at this symposium, in more general studies on larger questions of 
global sustainability with no specific reference to the Sustainable Development 
Goals as governance mechanism. Instead, we especially focus on current research 
that explores the impacts of global goal-setting as a distinct mechanism of 
global and national policy-making – and here on the Sustainable Development 
Goals in particular.

The 2020 SDG Research Symposium is hosted by Utrecht University’s Copernicus 
Institute of Sustainable Development and co-hosted by several international 
research institutions and think tanks, including the Stockh

[gep-ed] new publications on energy transitions in federalist systems (special issue JED, partially open access)

[Schreurs, Miranda]

Dear all,

we just published a special issue on energy transitions in federalist systems 
in the Journal of Environment and Development with support from the Swiss 
National Science Foundation and the Technical University of Munich. Maybe some 
of these articles will be of interest to some of you.

Andreas Balthasar, Miranda Schreurs and Frédéric Varone,
Energy Transition in Europe and the United States: Policy Entrepreneurs and 
Veto Players in Federalist Systems  (Open access)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887489

The focus of this special issue is on the energy transformations taking place 
in several European countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland) and 
at the federal and subnational (state) levels in the United States with special 
attention given to California. The cases examined all have federalist 
structures, and with the exception of the federal level of the United States, 
all have relatively ambitious climate and renewable energy targets. We compare 
these states out of an interest in better understanding how federalism 
interacts with energy transitions. The comparison is also intriguing as at the 
federal level the United States presents a stark contrast with the federalist 
European countries considered in this special issue but at the subnational 
level many similarities can be found.


Stephan Wurster and Christian Hagemann, Expansion of Renewable Energy in 
Federal Settings: Austria, Belgium, and Germany in Comparison.  (Open Access)  
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887488

In the face of accelerating climate change, the transition towards a nonnuclear 
renewable energy system represents a key political challenge, which can be 
aggravated by the increasing energy supply uncertainty created by the shift 
away from fossil fuels. In this article, we conduct a comparison of the 
expansion of renewable energy sources in Austria, Belgium, and Germany at the 
level of their subnational units (federal states), thereby covering three 
economically very important central European federal European Union members. We 
consider potentially influential factors in a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative 
analysis: In addition to state-specific socioeconomic and geographical 
characteristics, political factors, such as parties in government, and specific 
energy-related policy instruments are included in the analysis. We find that a 
high potential for renewable electricity expansion in combination with low 
financial prosperity is most likely to lead to a successful expansion of 
renewable electricity production from wind and photovoltaics.

Isabelle Stadelmann, Stefan Rieder, Chantal Strotz, The Politics of Renewable 
Energy Production in a Federal Context: The Deployment of Small Hydropower in 
Swiss Cantons  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519886005
This article explores the factors that hinder and promote the deployment of 
renewable energy generating infrastructure in/across the Swiss cantons (i.e., 
the country’s federal units). Using the example of small-scale hydropower, we 
shed light on how political regulations at the cantonal level interact with 
national policies and the local political process to affect the deployment of 
renewable energy production. The analysis demonstrates that political 
regulations can both foster and hinder the deployment of renewable energy 
production. While the national feed-in tariff scheme is revealed to be a 
beneficial framework condition, cantonal regulations hamper, rather than 
facilitate, the deployment of small-scale hydropower. Moreover, inclusive local 
processes and the existence of local entrepreneurs seem to act as a trigger for 
the local acceptance of renewable energy generation infrastructure. More 
generally, we conclude that, quite independently of whether state structures 
are decentralized or centralized, subnational and local leeway in the 
definition and organization of projects can help to prevent or deal with local 
opposition.

State Leadership in U.S. Climate Change and Energy Policy: The California 
Experience
Daniel Mazmanian, John Jurewitz and Hal Nelson
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496519887484

It is a long-held belief among scholars and practitioners that the State of 
California is a notable subnational leader in environmental and climate change 
policy. This article focuses primarily on four essential contextual factors 
that explain why and how within the United States’ federal system of government 
California has become such an important leader, performing far in excess of the 
national government and most other states. These essential factors are 
preferences, authority, capacity, and effectiveness. The article then moves to 
the multifaceted implementation strategy California policy makers have employed 
to realize their environmental goals. Finally, despite the history of strong 
leadership, the state continues to face a ho

[gep-ed] wall art depicting climate change

[Debra Javeline]

A slightly unusual request for suggestions: My department is finally getting
around to putting up wall art, and professors are tending to choose
provocative photos/art that reflect what they do (gender politics, electoral
politics, etc.).  Can you suggest a particularly provocative image that
makes passers-by ponder the climate crisis?  I think the department or
college is footing the bill, so I can purchase something of high
quality/good resolution.  I don’t want it to be cliché or expected.
Ideally, it would make someone stop, take a second look, and think, “gotta
do my part and mobilize.”  Thanks!  --Debra

 

*

Debra Javeline

Associate Professor | Department of Political Science | University of Notre
Dame | 2060 Jenkins Nanovic Halls | Notre Dame, IN 46556 | tel:
 574-631-2793

 

Fellow,   Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies,   Kellogg Institute for International
Studies,   Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Core faculty,
 Russian and East European Studies Program

Affiliated faculty,   Notre Dame
Environmental Change Initiative

 

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[gep-ed] Institutions and tropical forests - free educational videogame

[Paul Steinberg]

Dear GEPers,

If your students are looking for something a little deeper than the
Brazilian President's theory that Leonardo DiCaprio is destroying the
Amazon... I am pleased to announce that the Law of the Jungle videogame is
again available for use in your courses, after a one-year hiatus due to
some technical problems.

The game features a variety of social science concepts, from common
property regimes to multilevel governance, communications theory (Everett
Rogers' work on homophily), power dynamics in rural settings, social
capital, and policy strategy.

It takes about an hour to play and can be launched for free at the "Play
the Game" link on rulechangers.org.  As I noted in an earlier post, the
site also features a short animated film about institutions, a teaching
guide, and other resources.

Law of the Jungle was created over a two-year period by computer science
and art students under my direction at the Claremont Colleges.

I hope you find it to be of value in your teaching.

With best wishes,

Paul Steinberg

-- 
Paul F. Steinberg
Chair, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts
Malcolm Lewis Chair in Sustainability and Society
Professor of Political Science and Environmental Policy
Harvey Mudd College
http://www.hmc.edu/steinberg

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