Climate change and contested (economic) futures

Climate change and contested (economic) futures

Current Issue | Vol 22, No 2 | March 2021 | Download (PDF)
Anita Engels
This is the second of three issues of the Newsletter that will be dealing with the topic of climate change. The first has spurred lively comments – from surprise about the plethora of topics and perspectives that economic sociology has to offer on climate change, through a perceived need to engage more in public (economic) sociology, to the idea of creating a European network of economic sociologists working on climate change. Reach­ing out to invite new authors for the next issue was a great pleasure and brought me interesting new insights.
Véra Ehrenstein and Alice Valiergue
Since the 1990s, carbon markets have been embraced as a policy tool to address climate change. As mentioned by Anita Engels in her editorial to the previous Newsletter, the design of emissions trading markets, where companies buy and sell allowances, requires significant work from legislators and regulators. In economic sociology, carbon markets tend to be associated with the idea of a “government by markets” (Ansaloni, Trompette, and Zalio 2017) and the task of the sociologist is to attend to the interplay between market dynamics and political decision-making (Engels 2006; Mackenzie 2009; Ehrenstein and Neyland, forthcoming).
Thomas Frisch, Stefan Laser, Sandra Matthäus, and Cornelia Schendzielorz
This article introduces the field of valuation studies and illustrates the theoretical and methodological potential it offers for analyzing climate change. Valuation studies (VS) is still an emerging, yet fertile research field that explores valuation practices and value orders as critical sites of social (trans-)formation (Lamont 2012). Valuation here can be defined as “any social practice where the value or values of something is established, assessed, negotiated, provoked, maintained, constructed and/or contested” (Doganova et al. 2014, 87). In the last decade, VS has consolidated as an interdisciplinary field of study that critically reflects the plurality of valuation practices.
Timur Ergen and Lisa Suckert
"How dare you?" Greta Thunberg’s exclamation in front of the UN was shaped by indignation but also disbelief. However, not only the young activists of Fridays for Future appear to be puzzled about humanity’s difficulties in adequately responding to climate change. Ample scientific evidence for global warming and its causes is available, and potential policies for reducing CO2 emissions have long been developed, evaluated, and tested in practice. So why has the catastrophe on the horizon not induced substantial behavioral change? Why do we see so little reaction in the face of this all-encompassing crisis?
Nichole Wissman-Weber and David L. Levy
Climate impacts have significant economic, social, and environmental consequences for cities to consider (Adger et al. 2005). In 2020 alone, climate-related disasters such as the droughts in East Africa, South Asian floods, and wildfires in Australia and the American West cost billions of dollars and brought immense suffering. This shifting environment, which is creating new, difficult-to-manage risks (Beck 2009), has been designated the Anthropocene (Steffen et al. 2007) – a new epoch characterized by human impacts on the climate and biodiversity loss (Clark 2014).
Rebecca Elliott
The climate crisis is here. Wildfires, running hotter and longer, burn homes to ash. Storms dump more water, faster, onto areas that have been paved over and built up, submerging private property and public infrastructure. Already-observed sea level rise has eaten away at coastal shorelines and generated “sunny-day” flooding from high tides, disrupting normal routines. So who pays for all this loss and damage, and how much?
Péter Mihályi, Iván Szelényi · 2019
Rent Seekers, Profits, Wages and Inequality: The Top 20 %
Cham: Springer
Reviewer: Bence Kováts

Roland Atzmüller, Brigitte Aulenbacher, Ulrich Brand, Fabienne Décieux, Karin Fischer, Birgit Sauer (eds.) · 2019
Capitalism in Transformation: Movements and Countermovements in the 21st Century
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
Reviewer: Katalin Ámon

Mahmut Cengiz, Mitchel P. Roth · 2019
The Illicit Economy in Turkey: How Criminals, Terrorists, and the Syrian Conflict Fuel Underground Markets
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books
Reviewer: Annette Hübschle

Mark Alizart · 2020
Cryptocommunism
Cambridge, UK: Polity Presss
Reviewer: Philipp Degens
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