| 1. |
- Paglia, Eric, 1979-
(författare)
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The Northward Course of the Anthropocene : Transformation, Temporality and Telecoupling in a Time of Environmental Crisis
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Arctic—warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet—is a source of striking imagery of amplified environmental change in our time, and has come to serve as a spatial setting for climate crisis discourse. The recent alterations in the Arctic environment have also been perceived by some observers as an opportunity to expand economic exploitation. Heightened geopolitical interest in the region and its resources, contradicted by calls for the protection of fragile Far North ecosystems, has rendered the Arctic an arena for negotiating human interactions with nature, and for reflecting upon the planetary risks and possibilities associated with the advent and expansion of the Anthropocene—the proposed new epoch in Earth history in which humankind is said to have gained geological agency and become the dominant force over the Earth system. With the Arctic serving as a nexus of crosscutting analytical themes spanning contemporary history (the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century until 2015), this dissertation examines defining characteristics of the Anthropocene and how the concept, which emerged from the Earth system science community, impacts ideas and assumptions in historiography, social sciences and the environmental humanities, including the fields of environmental history, crisis management and security studies, political geography, and science and technology studies (STS). The primary areas of empirical analysis and theoretical investigation encompass constructivist perspectives and temporal conceptions of environmental and climate crisis; the role of science and expertise in performing politics and shaping social discourse; the geopolitical significance of telecoupling—a concept that reflects the interconnectedness of the Anthropocene and supports stakeholder claims across wide spatial scales; and implications of the recent transformation in humankind’s long duration relationship with the natural world. Several dissertation themes were observed in practice at the international science community of Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, where global change is made visible through a concentration of scientific activity. Ny-Ålesund is furthermore a place of geopolitics, where extra-regional states attempt to enhance their legitimacy as Arctic stakeholders through the performance of scientific research undertakings, participation in governance institutions, and by establishing a physical presence in the Far North. This dissertation concludes that this small and remote community represents an Anthropocene node of global environmental change, Earth system science, emergent global governance, geopolitics, and stakeholder construction in an increasingly telecoupled world.
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| 2. |
- Albrecht, Frederike
(författare)
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The Social and Political Impact of Natural Disasters : Investigating Attitudes and Media Coverage in the Wake of Disasters
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Natural disasters are social and political phenomena. Social structures create vulnerability to natural hazards and governments are often seen as responsible for the effects of disasters. Do social trust, political trust, and government satisfaction therefore generally change following natural disasters? How can media coverage explain change in political attitudes? Prior research suggests that these variables are prone to change, but previous studies often focus on single cases, whereas this dissertation adopts a broader approach, examining multiple disasters. It investigates the social and political impact of natural disasters by examining their effect on social and political attitudes and by exploring media coverage as a mechanism underlying political consequences.The results reveal that natural disasters may have a comparatively frequent, although small and temporary, effect on social trust. Substantial effects are less likely. Social trust was found to decrease significantly when disasters cause nine or more fatalities (Paper I). Political attitudes were expected to be prone to change after natural disasters, but Paper II illustrates that political trust and government satisfaction among citizens are generally hardly affected by these events. Finally, media framing and the political claims of actors explained the variation in political consequences after disasters of similar severity. Paper III also illustrates the importance of the political context of natural disasters, as their occurrence can be strategically exploited by actors to further criticism towards the government in politically tense situations.This dissertation contributes to existing disaster research by investigating more cases than disaster studies typically do. It also uses a systematic case selection process, and a quantitative approach with a, for disaster research, unique research design. Hence, it offers methodological nuance to existing studies. A broader analysis, factoring in the variation of disaster severity and the increased number of cases offers new answers and tests assumptions about underlying patterns. The main contribution of this thesis is that it examines how common political and social effects of disasters are. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to existing disasters research by emphasizing contextual and explanatory factors, e.g., properties of disasters and the political context that affects the media coverage of natural disasters.
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| 3. |
- Peterson, Lauri, 1989-
(författare)
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Investigating the Determinants of International, National and Local Climate Policies
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Climate change is a global threat that requires policy action on all levels of governance. The 2015 Paris Agreement opened a new era of governance, entailing a shift away from the top-down approach embodied by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It relies instead mainly on voluntary climate pledges, which are meant to be ratcheted up through a process of assessment and review. This allows international organizations and country and local governments much more flexibility in deciding their own level of climate ambition, as well as their own methods for achieving it. I identify some significant variations in policy-making that are not explained by the “usual suspects” of material capacities and organizational capabilities. In keeping with the multi-level nature of modern climate governance, I examine the determinants of climate policies on the international, national, and local levels. I do so with the help of quantitative methods applied to survey results from high-income and middle-income countries, and to data on political institutions and physical vulnerability. With this dissertation, I contribute to the literature by identifying a number of key determinants of climate mitigation policy on different levels of climate governance. First, in a study of international climate finance, I ascertain that different organizational arrangements in the bureaucratic area determine the selection of developing countries, as well as the amount of funding allocated to them by developed countries. Second, in a comparison of domestic and international climate policies, I establish that countries which have adopted more ambitious climate policies domestically are also more likely to furnish greater amounts of international climate finance. Third, in a review of national climate policies, I show that extreme weather events do not impel governments to increase climate action in countries without strong democratic institutions. Fourth, in an examination of local climate policies, I find that it is public awareness of human-caused climate change – not partisanship – that matters most for the adoption of comprehensive climate plans among frontrunner cities. These results shed light on the multi-level challenge of climate change by identifying distinct determinants of climate policy on each level of governance. This dissertation adds nuance to our understanding of the determinants of policies for climate change mitigation by stressing the importance of domestic actors and institutions for effective climate action.
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