Policy Spaces for
Social Ecological Transformation

Date: September, 14th, 6 PM – 8 PM (CEST)
Facilitation: Andreas Novy, Ulrich Brand 
Participants: Miriam Lang, Colleen Schneider and Ian Gough 

The issue of limits is back on the agenda! The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. Recently, it has been enriched by reflections on societal boundaries that define collective autonomy and the politics of self-limitation as key elements, acknowledging pluriverse experiences that integrate wellbeing and boundaries. These alternatives promote social freedom, defined as the right to not have to live at others’ expenses. This utopian horizon structures the search for social-ecological alternatives to neoliberal globalization. However, it often lacks an answer to the challenge posed by adverse societal dynamics: be it majorities that reject limiting their consumption, or enemies that obstruct cooperation and solidarity to achieve a good life for all – today increasingly present in diverse forms of reactionary politics.

“Can neoliberal globalization be overcome without strengthening certain borders, while eroding others?”

Karl Polanyi, aware of this, insisted in the final chapter in The Great Transformation: “No society is possible in which power and compulsion are absent, nor a world in which force has no function. It was an illusion to assume a society shaped by man’s will and wish alone.”

What does this mean for actual power constellations, given territorial sovereignty, existing policy spaces and public authorities (from municipalities to supranational institutions) in implementing necessary institutional and infrastructural changes for a just and solidaristic transformation? Can limits be imposed without borders? Can neoliberal globalization be overcome without strengthening certain borders, while eroding others?

Details

Date: 
September, 14th, 6 PM – 8 PM (CEST)

Facilitation:
Andreas Novy, Ulrich Brand

Participants:
Miriam Lang, Colleen Schneider and Ian Gough 

FURTHER READING

Organised by:

Department for Political Science (University of Vienna);
EuroMemo Group;
FH des BFI-Wien;
Institute for Multilevel-Governance and Development (WU Vienna); 
Institute of Sociology (Johannes Kepler University Linz); 
Mattersburger Kreis für Entwicklungspolitik an den österreichischen Universitäten;
ÖFSE 

In cooperation with:

Rosa Luxemberg Foundation, Brussels