Matthew Lockwood

Gendering poverty: a review of six World Bank African poverty assessments

Since the late 1980s, Poverty Assessments have emerged as the most important statements by the World Bank about poverty in particular countries. This article examines, in some depth, a set of Assessments from four sub-Saharan African countries from a gender perspective. These Assessments display an enormous variation in the extent to which gender is present, and they also show a sharp contrast between the treatment of gender issues in the measurement of poverty, particularly in the participatory elements of the Assessments, and their absence in the policy sections of the documents. The article goes on to analyse why the inclusion of gender in these World Bank country-specific poverty documents has been so problematic. In the absence of a clear analytical framework in the Bank for understanding gender, its treatment in the Assessments is driven on the one hand by a set of epistemological and methodological choices about measuring poverty, and on the other hand, by a set of prescriptions for reducing poverty which originate in the Banks 1990 World Development Report. The key conclusion of the paper is that it is impossible to integrate gender into an understanding of poverty unless the reading of evidence, analysis and policy are all based on relational processes of impoverishment or accumulation.

Does the framing of climate policies make a difference to public support? Evidence from UK marginal constituencies

Public support for climate policies is essential to underpin their credibility, but evidence suggests that an environmental basis for that support is not strong. It has been suggested that framing climate policies in other terms, such as energy security or job creation, will build a more sustainable political basis for bold climate policies. This approach is explored using data from a survey in 157 UK marginal constituencies. Framing does make a difference to support for the expansion of renewable energy, but not to support for policies on energy efficiency and financial assistance to developing countries. The data also show key differences in levels of support for policies between different socio-demographic and voter groups.

Historical institutionalism and the politics of sustainable energy transitions: A research agenda

Improving the understanding of the politics of sustainable energy transitions has become a major focus for research. This paper builds on recent interest in institutionalist approaches to consider in some depth the agenda arising from a historical institutionalist perspective on such transitions. It is argued that historical institutionalism is a valuable complement to socio-technical systems approaches, offering tools for the explicit analysis of institutional dynamics that are present but implicit in the latter framework, opening up new questions and providing useful empirical material relevant for the study of the wider political contexts within which transitions are emerging. Deploying a number of core concepts including veto players, power, unintended consequences, and positive and negative feedback in a variety of ways, the paper explores research agendas in two broad areas: understanding diversity in transition outcomes in terms of the effects of different institutional arrangements, and the understanding of transitions in terms of institutional development and change. A range of issues are explored, including: the roles of electoral and political institutions, regulatory agencies, the creation of politically credible commitment to transition policies, power and incumbency, institutional systems and varieties of capitalism, sources of regime stability and instability, policy feedback effects, and types of gradual institutional change. The paper concludes with some observations on the potential and limitations of historical institutionalism, and briefly considers the question of whether there may be specific institutional configurations that would facilitate more rapid sustainable energy transitions.

Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, Rent Management and Political Fragmentation in Developing Countries

Over the last decade, pressure to reduce subsidies for energy (especially fossil fuels) in developing countries has mounted, but reform is politically controversial. The debate on reform is dominated by a liberal narrative that employs an understanding of energy subsidies as political rent, based on public choice theory. Here, it is argued that this approach takes too static and limited a view of rent, and that engagement with theories of the state in the development process suggests a more dynamic view. The degree of centralisation of political power is also argued to be a key factor in the use and reform of subsidy. This application of the framework is then illustrated in the case of Indonesia. Finally, implications for reform strategies are drawn out.

The economics of personal carbon trading

Proponents of personal carbon trading (PCT) make strong claims for the policy on the basis of environmental effectiveness, efficiency and equity, in comparison with alternative policies such as ‘upstream’ trading schemes. However, this review of the relevant theory and evidence suggests that these claims are not as strong as they may first appear. Effectiveness is qualified by the strong likelihood of a safety valve on grounds of political risk. The case for efficiency is challenged by the fact that the administrative costs of PCT will inevitably be higher than those of an upstream scheme. The additional effects of PCT would have to be significant in order to offset these costs sufficiently to make it the more efficient option. The case for equity is stronger. However, a PCT scheme in the UK would still create groups of net losers on low incomes who could not be compensated easily, and this would have some impact on its political acceptability.

What Can Climate‐Adaptation Policy in Sub‐Saharan Africa Learn from Research on Governance and Politics?

There has been relatively little thinking about the political context of climate‐adaptation policy in sub‐Saharan Africa, what this means for the quality of governance, and the capacity to plan and deliver what are often quite complex policies and programmes. This is all the more surprising given the quantity and depth of what is already known about politics and governance in Africa. This article asks what can be learned from this body of knowledge and experience that is relevant for climate‐adaptation policy.

Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: exploring the linkages

ABSTRACT The rise of right-wing populism (RWP) poses a challenge for the climate agenda, as leaders and supporters tend to be climate sceptics and hostile to policy prescribing action on climate change. However, there is a surprising dearth of research that investigates the nature and causes of this association. Two kinds of explanation are considered, drawing on the literature on populism. One is termed ‘structuralist’, drawing on accounts of the roots of populism in economic and political marginalisation amongst those ‘left behind’ by globalisation and technological change. A second focuses on the ideological content of RWP, especially its antagonism between ‘the people’ and a cosmopolitan elite, with climate change and policy occupying a symbolic place in this contrast. It is argued that there are limits to the structuralist approach, and that an ideologically based explanation is more compelling. An agenda for future research on RWP and climate science and policy is proposed.

Stern Review 2.0? The Report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate

Eight years after the launch of the Stern Review of the economics of climate change, a new major report on economic growth and climate change (Better Growth, Better Climate) has been published by a Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, chaired by Nicholas Stern. While this comprehensive review of recent evidence has some overlap with the original Stern Review, it focuses more on the short-term costs and benefits of action needed to reduce carbon emissions in specific parts of the economy such as cities, energy and agriculture. Perhaps the most noted conclusion of the report is that policies which governments should be pursuing anyway, because they will reduce pollution, improve health, raise productivity and reduce congestion, will cut carbon emission by between 50 and 90 per cent of what is needed to get to a 2°C pathway. This is an important report that will have considerable influence, although it has had lower public visibility than the original Stern Review. However, it also points to the need for a better understanding of the politics of climate policy, and why the opportunities to adopt policies that have multiple long-term public benefits do not get taken. While Better Growth, Better Climate does have a chapter on the political economy of change, the analysis is limited, and could be deepened by bringing in the growing literature on the politics of climate policy.