Closed WorkshopWhen Power Goes Green, 10 July 2024The Politics of Ecological Emergency in the Shadow of Authoritarianism

6 June 2024

Photo: Art: Marie Klingelhöfer; Design: Martin Kollmann

How does the climate emergency engender new configurations of power? And how does it reinforce existing ones? In this workshop, we want to examine the recent entanglement between authoritarian power and the contemporary climate crisis. More specifically, we look into (1) how and why authoritarian leaders have utilized environmentalism as an instrument to sustain and expand their power base, and (2) the instances when authoritarian responses to the climate crisis, which seemingly contravene liberal values such as the rule of law, human rights, and democracy, garner popular support and resistance. Additionally, the workshop will (3) scrutinize how authoritarianism’s foray into providing solutions to the climate crisis generates new forms of subjects, relations, and contentious politics.

The program can be found here (PDF).

Speakers:
Yifei Li (NYU Shanghai):
"Capacious Capacity: Conceptualizing the State in Chinese Environmental Governance "

Kristian Karlo Saguin (University of the Philippines):
"Authoritarian populist ecologies and the city in the Philippines"

Gvantsa Gverdtsiteli (Roskilde University/Transparency International): "Conflicts and compromise of authoritarian state environmentalism: National park development and state-society relations in rural Vietnam"

Attila Antal (Eötvös Loránd University):
"Authoritarian Populism, Environmentalism and Exceptional Governance in Hungary"

Organizers:
Juneseo Hwang, Macario Lacbawan, Stefan C. Aykut (all Futures of Sustainability)

Please not that this is a closed workshop, and participation is possisble on invitation only.