Populism, Instability, and Rupture in Sustainability Transformations

Abstract

The recent surge in populist politics in Europe and North America has challenged many of the policies aimed at advancing sustainable shifts. In this article we argue that this surge necessitates a rethinking of transition and transformation. The mainstream perspective on transitions understands it largely as the proliferation and upscaling of innovative technologies and policy frameworks. We recast sustainability transitions and transformations as continuous processes of assembly and disassembly, driven by rupture and instability. Rather than seeing populist resurgence as a "barrier" to change toward sustainability, we argue that these ruptures and instabilities should be considered inherent to the transformation process itself. The recent local election in Bergen, Norway, witnessed the surge of a new "anti-elite" political party dedicated to protesting road tolls that finance public transport. We hold that although such movements certainly pose challenges to sustainable transitions, they also provide opportunities for revitalizing democratic politicsmoving beyond postpolitical managerial governance and inviting new concerns into local and urban transformation processes.

Nordic responses to urban challenges of the 21st century

“…Increasingly, researchers also focus on the social implications of urban sustainability strategies and climate change mitigation and adaption. The right-wing populist movement is growing across the Nordic countries -as it is in many parts of Europe and the rest of the world (Jungar, 2017;Wanvik & Haarstad, 2021). We also find growing populist movements triggered by the political climate cleavage and the traditional center-periphery cleavage, protesting on toll roads and other climate measures.…”

How do cities challenge patterns of demand? Characterising the local governance of climate change in Nordic cities

“…Deeper intervention strategies that affect the way that practices interlock, might contest established notions of public and private divides, conceived notions of freedom of choice as well as socio-economic organisation across scales (Hausknost and Hammond, 2020). In this, refusals to cooperate and forms of contestation might best be seen not as 'barriers' in the governance process, but rather as part and parcel of intervening and shaping an urban fabric of social practitioners (Wanvik and Haarstad, 2021). Reconfiguring established patterns of demand would require novel approaches to political legitimacy and the development of new regulatory tools.…”

Alienating assemblages: Working the carbonscape in times of transformation

“…While we should be careful not to overstate the distance between these positions, there is arguably a tendency to employ assemblage thinking to mobilize a politics of radical innovation . Centred on notions of rupture, destabilization and disassembly, this form of politics tends to treat opposition either as defensive incumbency (Bridge, 2018) or as a populist resistance ‘from the “outside”’ (Wanvik and Haarstad, 2021: 6). A politics of radical innovation is typically based in urban consumption systems (e.g., Dijk et al, 2018; Lange and Bürkner, 2018) but can also be seen in the efforts by international financial institutions to encourage national fuel subsidy reforms in Nigeria and other developing petrostates (Coady et al, 2019), with little regard for the role subsidies play for social reproduction among workers and the poor, nor for the lack of viable welfare alternatives (Houeland, 2020).…”

“…A politics of radical innovation is typically based in urban consumption systems (e.g., Dijk et al, 2018; Lange and Bürkner, 2018) but can also be seen in the efforts by international financial institutions to encourage national fuel subsidy reforms in Nigeria and other developing petrostates (Coady et al, 2019), with little regard for the role subsidies play for social reproduction among workers and the poor, nor for the lack of viable welfare alternatives (Houeland, 2020). What these initiatives arguably have in common is that they treat sustainability transitions and political resistance as ontologically and temporally separate phenomena, even though acts of resistance sometimes are welcomed as constructive (Wanvik and Haarstad, 2021).…”

“…Among them are the 2018 gilets jaunes movement in France (Galí et al, 2020), and the bread and fuel subsidy protests leading to a revolution in Sudan in the same year, both catching the world's attention. A lesser-known example is the political mobilization against toll roads in Norwegian cities in the run-up to the 2019 municipal elections (Wanvik and Haarstad, 2021). That election campaign also saw a strong backlash from petroleum workers against what they perceived to be stigmatization from climate activists and green politicians, colloquially known as the 'oil shame' debate (Jordhus-Lier and Houeland, 2021).…”