The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Roger Hildingsson, photo.

Roger Hildingsson

Researcher

Roger Hildingsson, photo.

Greening the welfare state: Confronting the ecological state with the realities of welfare state transformations

Author

  • Roger Hildingsson
  • Jamil Khan

Summary, in English

In this paper we explore the potential of cross-fertilization between research on welfare state reforms and on efforts to green the state in response to ecological challenges. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the conditions for an ecological state to emerge we relate welfare state studies to green political theory, that provide different conceptions of the ecological state and ways to green the state, and to comparativist environmental politics that trace patterns of policy change and institutionalization for greening the state in practice. Recently some scholars have made analogies between the evolution of the ecological state and the genesis of once the welfare state. However, while providing insights on such similarities and on the kind of challenges environmental change poses for the welfare state, our concern is rather what challenges contemporary welfare state transformations pose for the efforts to green the state. How are we to understand calls for the revitalization of the state in light of key contradictions in welfare state developments such as the fiscal crisis of welfare states, liberalization of welfare policies and increasing inequalities? In this sense, the marketization of environmental policy and individualization of ecological responsibilities could be understood in analogy with the retrenchment and recommodification of welfare policy. Such welfare state developments has critical implications for the efforts to strengthen state competences and capacities for governing societies towards ecologically sustainable and socially just ends, e.g. in terms of legitimizing and organizing both ecological and social aspirations.

Department/s

  • Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies
  • Department of Political Science
  • Environmental and Energy Systems Studies
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Document type

Conference paper

Topic

  • Energy Systems

Keywords

  • Green state
  • Ecological responsiveness
  • Welfare state retrenchment
  • reform and transformative change

Conference name

11th NESS Conference

Conference date

2013-06-11

Conference place

Denmark

Status

Published