Venue: College for Social Sciences and Humanities, Lindenallee 39-41, 45127 Essen, Germany

Recent years have seen a move away from both sustainability commitments and democratic governing. However, while democratic backsliding and ecological crisis often appear intertwined, they are not always mutually reinforcing. Nor are democracy and sustainability natural allies. After all, democracies’ promise of general freedom and equality itself may be at odds with proposals that current societies need to politically restrict economic growth (if and insofar as growth equals resource consumption). To engage with this possibly intrinsic tension, this interdisciplinary conference focuses on a political concept that potentially offers a framework to conceptualise necessary limitations: the idea of republican freedom, where individual freedom is limited by ‘the freedom of others’, as well as the rules and policies upon which the political community as a whole has agreed. Participants explore the relationship between republican restrictions of individual freedom and possible economic limitations, and the relationship between democratic justice and economic growth (at the level of both ideas and practices).

Admission free, please register until 30 November via email to

sustainability-democracy@uni-due.de

 

Organisation Team

Conference of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research and its Fellow Group ‘Sustainability and Democracy’.

Organising Team: Britta Acksel, Matthias Kranke, Christian Scheper, Eva Weiler (academic programme); Lisa Mereu, Sebastian Meurer (logistics)

 

Programme

Monday, 8 December

 

12:30-13:00

Registration

 

13:00-13:15

Welcome and Introduction

 

13:15-14:45

Theories of Limits

Karoline Kalke & Daniel Hausknost (Vienna): Can Republican Freedom Address the Barriers to Implementing Politics of Limits in Western Democracies?

Tobias Vogel (Bochum) & Jan-Christoph Heilinger (Witten/Herdecke): Democracy and Sustainability in Times of Climate Crisis: Limiting Distributive Inequality to Enable Relational Equality

Basil Bornemann (Zurich): Planetary Boundaries and Democracy: Exploring Challenges and Potentials for Innovation

Chair: Eva Weiler (Duisburg-Essen)

 

15:00-16:30

What to Limit and How?

Lea Becker, Lars Berker & Doris Fuchs (Potsdam): Pursuing the Transformation Towards 1.5° Societies in Times of Polarization

Rose Troll (Bremen): Limits of Nature and Limits of Society

Lorina Buhr (Göttingen): Too Much of a Good Thing? A Political Limitarian Perspective on the Development of (Digital) Technology

Chair: Britta Acksel (Wuppertal)

 

16:45-18:15

Structural Obstacles to Limitations? The role of Economic Policy

John Berten, Robin Schulze Waltrup & Alexandra Kaasch (Bielefeld): Limits to Welfare? The Translation of Boundary Concepts in Global Eco-Social Policy

Oliver Braganza (Bonn) & Jakob Kapeller (Duisburg-Essen): Reappraising Consumption Nudging – on Liberty in the Age of Climate Catastrophe

Kajsa Emilsson, Jayeon Lee & Max Koch (Lund): Too Rich to Regulate? Perceptions of the Wealthy and the Feasibility of Climate Policy for High Emitters

Chair: Sebastian Meurer (Duisburg-Essen)

 

18:15 - 18-45

Information on the Launch of the network ‘Sustainability and Democracy’

Franziska Martinsen & Andreas Niederberger (Duisburg-Essen)

 

19:15

Conference dinner

Restaurant tablo, Huyssenallee 5

 

Tuesday, 9 December

 

9:00-10:30

Structural Obstacles to Limitations? The Role of Political Institutions

Paul Glöckner (Nuremberg): True Cost Accounting – an Idea Whose Time Has Come? Investigating the Incorporation of TCA Related Policy in the German Coalition Agreement 2021

Rosalie Arendt & Felice Diekel (Twente): Carbon Offsets Without End: The CDM, Article 6.4, and the Politics of Not-Quite-Limiting

Sayed Attaullah Shah (Peshawar) & Rahat Shah (Frankfurt): Youth Climate Activism and Republican Freedom in Peshawar, Pakistan: Negotiating Sustainability Limits Amid Democratic Distrust

Chair: Matthias Kranke (Duisburg-Essen/UA Ruhr)

 

10:45-12:15

(Un)successful Politization of Climate Issues 

Michael Rose & Okka Lou Mathis (Lüneburg): The Structures and Limits of the Emerging German Sustainability State

Anna Geyer (Frankfurt): Advocacy Coalitions and Discourses of Freedom in Social-Ecological Transformation Conflicts

Alexander Schindler (Potsdam): What Could ‘Transclassing’ Mean for Sustainable Democracies?

Chair: Petra Dobner (Halle)

 

13:30-15:00

How to Organize Sustainable Practices I

Thomas Rixen & Peter Dietsch (Berlin): Principles of Justice for a Sustainable Economy

Georgios Anagnostopoulos (Athens): Between Commoning and Commodification: Renewable Energy Communities as Hybrid Spaces in Green Accumulation.

Ala Uddin (Chittagong): Climate Change, Energy Security, and the Rise of Populist Politics in Bangladesh: Implications for Sustainable Democracy

Chair: Markus Ciesielski (Saarbrücken)

 

15:30-17:00

How to Organize Sustainable Practices II

Arsh Afroz (Islamabad), Umer Khayyam (Osnabrück) & Mariam Mansuri (Berlin): Environmental Injustice and the Limits of Democracy: The Case of Resource Governance in Balochistan, Pakistan

Lauren Goetze: Resourcing for Interdependence: How Social Ventures Balance Freedom and Limits for Sustainable Communities.

Victoria Herbig (Zurich): Nothing About Us Without Us: Inclusive Transdisciplinary Approaches for Equitable Climate and Sustainability Governance

Chair: Christian Scheper (Duisburg-Essen)

 

17:00

Wrap up

 

17:30

End of the Conference

 

Contact

University of Duisburg-Essen

Centre for Global Cooperation Research

Schifferstrasse 44

47059 Duisburg, Germany

sustainability-democracy@uni-due.de

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