Seminar (TURBA Lab): "The de-democratization of climate change"

Program

Abstract

Governments worldwide are committing a lot of effort to withstand the consequences of climate change. Democratic regimes are widely understood to offer the best solutions, but recent studies have revealed new evidence beyond democracies, including authoritarian regimes. However, our understanding of this phenomenon remains limited. This research gap not only provides an opportunity to analyse this issue, but also broadens our knowledge of political regimes and their practices for addressing climate change. To address this gap, we systematically reviewed 53 qualitative and quantitative studies from 2000 to 2022, guided by our central question: which political regimes are most effective in addressing the aftermath of climate change? We used the concepts of democracy and authoritarian environmentalism as our basis. Based on our findings, both perspectives suggest different approaches and responses to addressing climate change, revealing a lack of consensus and highlighting methodological concerns from previous studies. In this seminar, I will present a brief introduction to my thesis proposal, which includes the first results obtained through the systematic review.

Zarina Kulaeva

PhD Student in the UOC's Doctoral Programme Online in Law, Politics and Economics and Predoctoral Fellow at TURBA Lab.