Annica Kronsell

Climate Change through the lens of intersectionality

Investigations of the interconnectedness of climate change with human societies require profound analysis of relations among humans and between humans and nature, and the integration of insights from various academic fields. An intersectional approach, developed within critical feminist theory, is advantageous. An intersectional analysis of climate change illuminates how different individuals and groups relate differently to climate change, due to their situatedness in power structures based on context-specific and dynamic social categorisations. Intersectionality sketches out a pathway that stays clear of traps of essentialisation, enabling solidarity and agency across and beyond social categories. It can illustrate how power structures and categorisations may be reinforced, but also challenged and renegotiated, in realities of climate change. We engage with intersectionality as a tool for critical thinking, and provide a set of questions that may serve as sensitisers for intersectional analyses on climate change.

Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity

Vital knowledge about gender relations can be gained through the study of military and defense organizations. Such institutions of hegemonic masculinity tend to represent and reify specific notions of masculinity in ways that make it the norm. The article suggests that such institutions can be approached through feminist methodology, for example, by using critical analysis to question what appears ‘normal’ in institutional practice and by listening to the voices of women who challenge the norms of hegemonic masculinity by engaging in daily institutional practice. The article relates ‘womens voices’ and this ‘site’ of knowledge to feminist methodology by developing the standpoint perspective. It is argued that the notion of struggle formulated in standpoint theory is a useful way to understand the knowledge gained by women engaging with institutions of hegemonic masculinity, and an important contribution to the understanding of gender dynamics. Furthermore, it proposes that this ‘site’ of knowledge production will become increasingly relevant as women in rising numbers are taking positions within defense and military institutions and challenging historically embedded norms of hegemonic masculinity.

The Promise of New Modes of Environmental Governance

This important new book provides an excellent critical evaluation of new modes of governance in environmental and sustainability policy. The multidisciplinary team of contributors combine fresh insights from all levels of governance all around a carefully crafted conceptual framework to advance our understanding of the effectiveness and legitimacy of new types of steering, including networks, public private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder dialogues. This is a crucial contribution to the field. Frank Biermann, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands Can new modes of governance, such as public private partnerships, stakeholder consultations and networks, promote effective environmental policy performance as well as increased deliberative and participatory quality? This book argues that in academic inquiry and policy practice there has been a deliberative turn, manifested in a revitalized interest in deliberative democracy coupled with calls for novel forms of public private governance. By linking theory and practice, the contributors critically examine the legitimacy and effectiveness of new modes of governance, using a range of case studies on climate, forestry, water and food safety policies from local to global levels. Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy will appeal to scholars, both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as researchers of environmental politics, international relations, environmental studies and political science. It will also interest practitioners involved in the actual design and implementation of new governance modes in areas of sustainable development, food safety, forestry and climate change.

The willing, the unwilling and the unable – explaining implementation of the EU Biofuels Directive

In this article we test current knowledge about policy implementation in multilevel governance systems and focus on the debated case of transport biofuels (EU Directive 2003/30/EC). We probe a set of hypotheses in a qualitative comparative analysis, offering a systematic comparison of 10 member states between 2003 and 2006. The findings show that implementation of the EU biofuels policy is a complex phenomenon where combinations of causal conditions, and not single conditions, produce the outcome. Implementation is more likely when three favourable conditions are present, when policy frames and content between EU and national levels match, when a consensual policy style is used and the most important actors are included. These findings are in agreement with previous studies. Non-implementation, on the other hand, is explained by a dichotomy between member states unable to implement because they lack capacity and those member states unwilling to implement even if they can.

Legitimacy for climate policy: politics and participation in the Green City of Freiburg

Cities are crucial to mitigating climate change and can serve as sites for innovations, providing examples of ways to conduct effective politics in transport, energy and land-use. What does it take to become a model for climate politics? This article argues that a few innovative measures will not suffice. A common vision based on broad legitimacy is crucial to achieving this position. Using a theoretical framework on input and output legitimacy with the City of Freiburg as the case, this article explores the political dimensions of the climate innovative city. The study shows that a specific kind of “green conservative” politics and a consensual view on climate issues across parties have been very important to creating political legitimacy. This has been supported by extraordinary and extensive citizen engagement in combination with the actual output, i.e. what environmental policies have delivered. The legitimacy for the Green City model also means that Freiburg is viewed as a highly livable city, in turn, creating self-enforcing dynamics that challenge its innovative potential.

Gender, Power and European Integration Theory

Abstract The European integration process both affirms and challenges gender relations in Europe. Yet integration theories have contributed little to understanding gender dynamics. The article presents a feminist critique of integration theories and argues that they have failed to look at how gender relations impact the ‘driving forces’ of European integration. This lacuna is attributed to the implicit male norm and the rudimentary view on power embedded in integration theories. The article also explores ways to include gender in integration studies and suggests how EU integration can be perceived from a feminist viewpoint.

Organizational Challenges to Sustainable Development

The concept of sustainable development at present permeates public discourse. An inter‐organisational perspective can be used to analyse the processes through which this concept has found its way into policy and programme in four different settings: the United Nations, the European Communities, the government of Sweden and the city of Lund, Sweden. Although visible in treaties, laws and action programmes, core sustainable development practices ‐ holistic, integrative and decentralised processes ‐guide neither policy creation nor implementation in any of the organisational settings. The prevalence of governmentalism, standard operating procedures, the persistence of hierarchical solutions and tendencies to separate out discrete issues still create obstacles for effective policy implementation. The presence of similar problems in all organisational settings suggests a possibility of comparative insights to be gained by avoiding differentiation between international and domestic levels.

’The (In)visibility of Gender in Scandinavian Climate Policy-making

Abstract This article explores the link between gender representation and climate policy-making in Scandinavia. We ask to what extent equal descriptive representation (critical mass) results in substantive representation (critical acts). Our study shows that women and men are equally represented in administrative and political units involved in climate policy-making, and in some units women are in the majority. However, a text analysis of the outcomes, that is, the Scandinavian climate strategies, reveals a silence regarding gender, further confirmed through interviews. Accordingly, a critical mass of women does not automatically result in gender-sensitive climate policy-making, recognizing established gender differences in material conditions and in attitudes toward climate issues. In interviews, we also note that policy-makers are largely unaware of gender differences on climate issues in the Scandinavian context. We discuss why a critical mass of women in climate policy-making has not led to critical acts and offer alternative explanations informed by feminist IR theory. For example, poststructural feminism claims that masculine norms are deeply institutionalized in climate institutions; hence, policy-makers adapt their actions to the masculinized institutional environment. Thus, substantive representation should be understood in relation to gendered institutional processes.

“Challenges to Legitimacy in Food Safety Governance? The Case of the European Food Safety Authority”

Abstract The ‘old’ forms of governance have been criticized for being neither sufficiently democratic nor effective. The popularity of ‘new’ modes of governance includes the embracing of values — integral to democratic processes — such as legitimacy, public accountability and trust. By relating parts of this ‘old‐vs.‐new’ distinction to March and Olsen’s dichotomy of aggregative vs. integrative political processes, the aim of this paper is to find patterns for how such processes are combined in European food safety governance. The paper focuses on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). What forms of participation can be found in ‘new’ food safety governance? How are these forms of participation related to the aims of increasing the legitimacy? The article discusses challenges involved in EFSA’s mixing of integrative goals and the organization’s view of food safety politics, in which aggregative policy processes are conceived as a rough ‘natural state’ which should be tamed.

Sexed Bodies and Military Masculinities Gender Path Dependence in EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy

This article explores the European Union (EU)’s Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) through a framework based on feminist institutional theory that highlights the durability in the dynamics of gender relations. Path dependency based on historic features of military institutions—a strict sex division based on “gender war roles”—has influenced the development of different CSDP bodies. The CSDP is sexed because male bodies dominate the organizations studied, yet this remains invisible through normalization. A dominant EU hierarchical military masculinity is institutionalized in the EU’s Military Committee, combat heterosexual masculinity in the Battle groups, and EU protector masculinity in the EU Training missions. The CSDP embodies different types of military masculinities; the relations between them are important for the reproduction of the gender order through a gendered logic of appropriateness. Yet, this too is invisible as part of the informal aspects of organizations. While women’s bodies are written out of the CSDP, the construction of femininity in relation to the protector/protected binary is central to it. Two protected femininities are read in the texts. The vulnerable femininity of women in conflict areas is important for how the CSDP understands itself in relation to gender mainstreaming. In relation to the vulnerable femininity, CSDP constructs an EU protector masculinity, in turn, set against an aggressive violent masculinity in the areas where missions are deployed. Women’s bodies are absent from the CSDP and they lack agency but are nevertheless associated with a protected femininity.