The Comparative Politics of Just Transition Policies

LIEPP's Socio-fiscal policies & Environmental policies research groups are pleased to convene the seminar: 

The Comparative Politics of Just Transition Policies: How and why the new social risks of decarbonisation were addressed in Spain and Ireland

Monday December 11th 2023. 4pm - 5.30pm.

Location: Salle K008, Sciences Po, 1 place Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 75007 Paris

Mandatory registration

Speaker: 

Matteo Mandelli (Sciences Po, LIEPP)

Matteo Mandelli is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies of Sciences Po. He obtained a PhD in Political Studies from the University of Milan. He is co-founder and board member of the Sustainable Welfare and Eco-social Policy Network. His core research interest is the politics of eco-social policies in the European Union and in its Member States.

Abstract: 

Just transition policies are useful measures to address the new social risks related to environmental protection and, more specifically, to industrial decarbonisation. Despite their timely relevance, these policies are not only still rare, but also arguably undertheorized. This seminar aims to contribute to the emerging debate about the transformations of the Welfare State in the face of the climate crisis and of net- zero transitions, through a so-far underdeveloped empirical-political perspective. Navigating a largely unexplored field, the seminar aims to strengthen our understanding of just transition policies and politics with a theory-generating ambition. It does so by asking how and why different countries address the social risks of decarbonisation. Spain and Ireland are selected as case studies for a comparison that aims to analyse just transition policies and to unveil the mechanisms behind their adoption and formulation.

The two cases are investigated through process tracing and qualitative methods, building on an original conceptual-analytical framework and on an inductive research strategy, which allows us to map the socio ecological preferences of relevant political parties and organized interest groups. While Ireland has relied on narrow, investment-oriented and governmentalist just transition policies, Spain instead proposed a more transformative and comprehensive policy approach. The emergence of just transition policies can be explained as a result of a green-labour convergence among relevant socio-political actors engaging in a political exchange, in which political support for decarbonisation is traded for economic support to affected societal groups.