Carbon Governance Arrangements and the Nation-State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority
Carbon Governance Arrangements and the Nation State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority
Due to the difficulties among nation-states in adopting effective means of implementation to cope with climate change, a plethora of new "governance experiments" has emerged in the past few years. Some of them are targeting activities or units which are contributing enormously to global carbon dioxide emissions, like deforestation or megacities.
So far, little systematic knowledge exists about how these governance arrangements work and what their impacts on the political-administrative systems are. Given these shortcomings, this research project sets out to explore how (and how far) different types of globally operating governance arrangements have caused changes in the distribution of public authority within nation-states.
Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
2015-2019
In cooperation with the
Chair of International Relations at the
Technical University of Darmstadt
We will focus on
(1) C40 as an example of Transnational City Networks (TCNs) that operates bottom-up
(2) REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) that operates top-down.
Research Questions and Hypotheses
We aspire to gain practical insights on the following questions, informing scholars, practitioners and policy-makers alike:
(1) How do the various new climate arrangements reconfigure public authority in developing countries?
(2) What are the consequences of the reconfiguration of public authority in terms of actual policy outcomes?
The hypotheses that guide our research are that in the in the field of environmental policy-making
(1) The top-down governance arrangement (REDD+) generates a trend towards more centralized decision-making while
(2) The bottom-up governance arrangement (TCNs/C40) strengthens decentralization efforts.
Case Studies
We will conduct field research in the following countries:
India, Brazil, South-Africa, Indonesia
Publications
- Fuhr, Hickmann, Höhne, Lederer and Stehle (2017) "How Global Climate Governance Initiatives Reconfigure Public Authority in Developing Countries", In: Public Administration Review's Speak Your Mind Symposium on Climate Change and Public Administration.
- Hickmann, Fuhr, Höhne, Lederer and Stehle (2017) "Carbon Governance Arrangements and the Nation-State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries", In: Public Administration and Development 37:5, pp. 331-343.
- Fuhr, Hickmann and Kern (2018). "The Role of Cities in Multi-Level Climate Governance: Local Climate Policies and the 1.5°C Target", In: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 30, pp. 1-6.
- Höhne, Fuhr, Hickmann, Lederer and Stehle (2018). "REDD+ and the Reconfiguration of Public Authority in the Forest Sector: A Comparative Case Study of Indonesia and Brazil" In: Nuesiri, Emmanuel O. (ed.): Global Forest Governance and Climate Change: Interrogating Representation, Participation, and Decentralization. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 203-241.
- Elsässer, Hickmann and Stehle (2018). "The Role of Cities in South Africa's Energy Gridlock", In: Case Studies in the Environment 2, pp. 1-7.
- Hickmann and Stehle (2019). "The Embeddedness of Urban Climate Politics: A Case Study of South Africa's Major Cities", In: Journal of Environment & Development 28:1 (Early View).
Outreach Activities and Further Information
Project Documents
- Project Proposal (PDF 457KB)