Sessione 8 - Towards an eco-social welfare state? The policy and politics of a just and green transition

Coordinatori / Coordinatrici di sessione: Benedetta Cotta (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa), Ekaterina Domorenok (Università degli Studi di Padova), Bianca Luna Fabris (European Trade Union Institute & University of Edinburgh), Matteo Mandelli (Università degli Studi di Milano)

Abstract:
The scholarly debate on climate change has largely focused on the ecological feasibility of maintaining the current profit-oriented model of economic growth, pitting “green growth” and “ecological modernization” against “post-growth”. Yet, the role of the welfare state in addressing the new social risks that both the climate crisis and green transitions are inevitably expected to generate remains to be explored and understood.

Due to their inherent complementarity with economic growth, traditional welfare models in the Global North have a high ecological footprint, though they can also provide effective tools to prevent and react to the afore-mentioned new risks, particularly through eco-social policies. The welfare-environmental polices nexus has recently become the center of attention for scholars elaborating on two emerging concepts: “sustainable welfare” and “just transition”. However, further theoretical, and empirical efforts are needed to bridge multiple knowledge gaps in this field. What remains to be explored is, first, how different welfare regimes will interact with environmental institutions, potentially giving rise to “eco-welfare” states; and, second, whether socio-political agents (political parties, trade unions, firms, civil society organizations and social movements) will promote a just transition by forming new coalitions or, rather, if the green transition will instead fuel new conflicts.

Accepted paper:

• Unbalanced just transition? The EU Recovery and Resilience Facility and the emergence evolution of eco-social policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain di Sotiria Theodoropoulou (ETUI), Sebastiano Sabato (Obsérvatoire Social Européen), Mehtap Akgüç (ETUI)
• Eco-social policies, the eco-social-system, and the case of wind turbine mobilizations in Villore, Italy di Daniela Chironi (Scuola Normale Superiore), Eugene Nulman (Scuola Normale Superiore)
• Old or new lines of conflict? Theorizing the multi-dimensional politics of eco-social policies di Giovanni Amerigo Giuliani (Università di Bologna), Torben Fischer (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
• Public opinion preferences behind the ‘trilemma’ between economic growth, equity, and ecological sustainability: a conjoint experiment di Marcello Natili (Università degli Studi di Milano), Alessandro Pellegata (Università degli Studi di Milano), Francesco Visconti (Università degli Studi di Milano)
• EU Renewable energy community for rural areas: systematic and meta-analysis to define a transferable model to Italian small towns di Leonardo Orsitto (Università degli Studi di Foggia), Melania Riefolo (Università degli Studi di Foggia), Nicola Faccilongo (Università degli Studi di Foggia)
• Twin transition as a just transition? Exploring the environmental-digital-social nexus di Benedetta Cotta (Università di Padova), Mariastella Righettini (Università di Padova)
• Just transition and welfare states: a largely unexplored relation di Philippe Pochet (ETUI), Bela Galgoczi (ETUI)
• Discussions on informal work and eco-social welfare framework di Riya Raphael (Lund University)
• A postgrowth economy as a care economy di Christine Corlet Walker (University of Surrey), Tim Jackson (University of Surrey)
• The best of two worlds: Theorising about the interaction of welfare states and green states di Mi Ah Schoyen (Oslo Metropolitan University), Katharina Zimmermann (University of Hamburg)