Sessione 36 - Eco-social politics & policies

Coordinatori di sessione: Marcello Natili e Matteo Jessoula (Università di Milano)

Descrizione 

Recurrent forecasts about environmental (un-)sustainability have pushed the Green Transition high in the public debate and political agenda as well, at both the supranational level and the national level – with the adoption of the EU’s Green Deal and attempts to streamline a green approach into several policy fields. 

Within such framework, the relationships between ecological considerations, economic “imperatives”, environmental policies and, notably, social policies are complex and multidirectional: advanced welfare states have a relevant “carbon footprint”; climate change may disproportionally affect poor people; pursuing a Green Transition will inevitably produce “winners” and “losers”, this implying a critical role for social policies in addressing the distributional consequences of large structural adjustments and, thus, make the  transition “Just”. Moreover, some relevant welfare state sectors (healthcare, housing, ..) may effectively contribute to climate mitigation strategies.  

The concept of “eco-social policies” has thus been proposed in the literature to point at those initiatives designed to either jointly pursue environmental and social policy objectives (e.g. energy saving measures aimed to tackle energy poverty) or accompany the green and energy transition (e.g. training and re-skilling measures in de-carbonized industries). 

Whereas theoretical-analytical contributions have multiplied in recent years, empirical investigations of eco-social policies initiatives are still rare. Also, the political dimension of the latter has remained relatively unexplored, despite preliminary analysis suggesting that environmental-green issues are not straightforwardly accommodated along the traditional left/right dimension, and public support for environmental and social policies may differ, especially when competition for scarce public resources intensifies. 

Against such backdrop, the panel welcomes paper analysing – theoretically or empirically – policy developments and political dynamics underpinning the so-called 'eco-social' divide, i.e. the tension between environmental and social objectives. Papers may include either comparative analyses or case studies addressing eco-social policies and related cooperation/conflictual relations at different levels – EU, national, subnational, local, and firm level as well.