{"title":"Transition coalitions: toward a theory of transformative just transitions","authors":"D. Ciplet","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2031512","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT From its origins in the labor and environmental justice movements in the United States, the concept of a just transition has travelled globally as a frame to infuse concerns of justice in public responses to escalating environmental crises. However, important gaps remain in terms of understanding the potential of transition efforts to be transformative in shifting the political economic structures that cause, sustain, and deepen injustices. This article asks: what does critical sociological theory of power and social change offer for understanding the features of transformative transition coalitions as compared to those that reinforce environmental, social, and economic inequality? To this purpose, I apply insights from Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi, contemporary scholars who use their theory, and environmental justice scholars to identify the means and form of transformative just transition coalitions. I identify two respective conditions of transformative coalitions: strategic power and embedded relations. Through this lens, I describe four transition coalition types: status quo, impeded, disembedded, and transformative, and discuss related examples.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Sociology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2031512","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
ABSTRACT From its origins in the labor and environmental justice movements in the United States, the concept of a just transition has travelled globally as a frame to infuse concerns of justice in public responses to escalating environmental crises. However, important gaps remain in terms of understanding the potential of transition efforts to be transformative in shifting the political economic structures that cause, sustain, and deepen injustices. This article asks: what does critical sociological theory of power and social change offer for understanding the features of transformative transition coalitions as compared to those that reinforce environmental, social, and economic inequality? To this purpose, I apply insights from Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi, contemporary scholars who use their theory, and environmental justice scholars to identify the means and form of transformative just transition coalitions. I identify two respective conditions of transformative coalitions: strategic power and embedded relations. Through this lens, I describe four transition coalition types: status quo, impeded, disembedded, and transformative, and discuss related examples.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Sociology is dedicated to applying and advancing the sociological imagination in relation to a wide variety of environmental challenges, controversies and issues, at every level from the global to local, from ‘world culture’ to diverse local perspectives. As an international, peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Environmental Sociology aims to stretch the conceptual and theoretical boundaries of both environmental and mainstream sociology, to highlight the relevance of sociological research for environmental policy and management, to disseminate the results of sociological research, and to engage in productive dialogue and debate with other disciplines in the social, natural and ecological sciences. Contributions may utilize a variety of theoretical orientations including, but not restricted to: critical theory, cultural sociology, ecofeminism, ecological modernization, environmental justice, organizational sociology, political ecology, political economy, post-colonial studies, risk theory, social psychology, science and technology studies, globalization, world-systems analysis, and so on. Cross- and transdisciplinary contributions are welcome where they demonstrate a novel attempt to understand social-ecological relationships in a manner that engages with the core concerns of sociology in social relationships, institutions, practices and processes. All methodological approaches in the environmental social sciences – qualitative, quantitative, integrative, spatial, policy analysis, etc. – are welcomed. Environmental Sociology welcomes high-quality submissions from scholars around the world.