Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHAMP (Crisis, Housing and Austerity: the emergence of a new Moral Politics?)
Période du rapport: 2022-04-04 au 2024-04-03
The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) can be seen as a watershed moment for politics in liberal democracies. It marked the end of a depoliticized, technocratic period that emerged in the immediate post-Cold War era, defined by ´third way’ politics, in which the political character of many decisions was obscured. The GFC refocused political attention to the importance of values and morals in defining political difference. In particular, it provided an opportunity for actors across the political spectrum to articulate values that challenged the status quo and hegemonic understandings of what constitutes the ‘good life’. While these sentiments often found expression in nativist and populist politics of exclusion, they also put forward a vision of solidarity, openness, fairness and justice that were adopted by progressive political forces.
The question of morals and values in politics and sociology is relatively undertheorized and understudied. Where morals do appear they are often simplified into easily measurable variables through public opinion polling. The contention of this project is that morals are much more complex social phenomena, drawing together identities, world views, knowledge and practices. And so the purpose of this project is to better understand what is the role of moral critique in delineating the frontiers of political conflict in Europe?
It does this across four broad objectives: re-theorising and reconceptualizing moral critique in the post-GFC period; historicizing political conflict by putting issues in their proper spatio-temporal contexts; identifying sites and actors that are articulating and legitimizing moral critique in the public sphere; using housing – and its relation to other issues – as important issue to compare moral critique in different countries.
The project drew three conclusions: moral critique implicates both the normative and the epistemic in the sense that what is known and knowable about crises relied on both our ability to identify and sort relevant facts and then judge them against an intersubjective set of pre-existing value commitments. This situation is, however, dynamic and crises provide opportunities to challenge and shift the established moral order, especially when actions of ourselves and others can no longer be justified in a way that makes social sense. Secondly, the intensification of multiple crises that are intersecting has increased the relevance and resonance of moral critique in political life and this is a phenomena likely to grow in importance. Lastly, if moral critique is to be better understood within the social sciences then special attention has to be paid to the historical and spatial contexts that produce it and multi-scalar analysis is necessary to understand regional, national and international moral orders.
The question of morals and values in politics and sociology is relatively undertheorized and understudied. Where morals do appear they are often simplified into easily measurable variables through public opinion polling. The contention of this project is that morals are much more complex social phenomena, drawing together identities, world views, knowledge and practices. And so the purpose of this project is to better understand what is the role of moral critique in delineating the frontiers of political conflict in Europe?
It does this across four broad objectives: re-theorising and reconceptualizing moral critique in the post-GFC period; historicizing political conflict by putting issues in their proper spatio-temporal contexts; identifying sites and actors that are articulating and legitimizing moral critique in the public sphere; using housing – and its relation to other issues – as important issue to compare moral critique in different countries.
The project drew three conclusions: moral critique implicates both the normative and the epistemic in the sense that what is known and knowable about crises relied on both our ability to identify and sort relevant facts and then judge them against an intersubjective set of pre-existing value commitments. This situation is, however, dynamic and crises provide opportunities to challenge and shift the established moral order, especially when actions of ourselves and others can no longer be justified in a way that makes social sense. Secondly, the intensification of multiple crises that are intersecting has increased the relevance and resonance of moral critique in political life and this is a phenomena likely to grow in importance. Lastly, if moral critique is to be better understood within the social sciences then special attention has to be paid to the historical and spatial contexts that produce it and multi-scalar analysis is necessary to understand regional, national and international moral orders.
I presented a paper titled “The (New?) Moral Politics of Post-Crisis European Policy” at the Council for European Studies Conference in Lisbon, Portugal between 29th June and 1st July.
I presented a book chapter called “Moral Critique in an Age of Multiple Crises: Towards Transformative Change” at a book launch workshop organized by the Roasa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels on 7th and 8th November 2022.
I presented the paper "From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the housing crises" at the conference of the Association of American Geographers on 23rd March 2023 in the session "Spatializing Urban Crisis IV: between recovery and transformation, between the structural and the everyday"
The MSCA fellows of De Montfort University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Leicester held a research symposium on 20th April 2023.
I convened, organized and directed an ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop in Toulouse, France, between the 25th and 28th April 2023. The title of the workshop was “Moral Politics In, For and Against Transformative Change”. I presented a joint chapter with Dr Matthew Donoghue titled “The (New) Moral Politics of Post-Crisis European Policy?”
I presented a paper called “Morals and Urban Crisis” at an international workshop in Lisbon, Portugal entitled “What makes urban life worth living? (Re)evaluating the value of urban life” that ran between 25th and 26th May 2023 and was organized by the Urban Transitions Hub.
Between 5th and 6th July 2023 I presented my paper “From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the urban crises” at a workshop at the University of Sheffield, entitled “How to be an Anticapitalist City in the 21st Century” and organized by the Urban Institute.
During my visiting fellowship (October-November 2023) at the Geary Institute of Public Policy, in the University College Dublin, Ireland, I presented the Geary Seminar on the 24th October 2023 in which I presented my more developed work on moral critique and crises.
I co-authored (with around 30 colleagues) a piece that highlighted the importance integrating multiple values in environmental assessments. The piece was titled “Three institutional pathways to envision the future of the IPCC” and published in September 2023 in Nature Climate Change.
These ideas were developed in a piece I wrote in the UK newspaper The Guardian, published on 5th September 2023 and titled, “Climate politics is more complex and urgent than ever – is the IPCC still fit for purpose?”
In November 2023 I co-authored a piece with Professor Rolf Lidskog called, “Accountability in the environmental crisis: From microsocial practices to moral orders” published in Environmental Policy and Governance.
I presented a book chapter called “Moral Critique in an Age of Multiple Crises: Towards Transformative Change” at a book launch workshop organized by the Roasa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels on 7th and 8th November 2022.
I presented the paper "From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the housing crises" at the conference of the Association of American Geographers on 23rd March 2023 in the session "Spatializing Urban Crisis IV: between recovery and transformation, between the structural and the everyday"
The MSCA fellows of De Montfort University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Leicester held a research symposium on 20th April 2023.
I convened, organized and directed an ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop in Toulouse, France, between the 25th and 28th April 2023. The title of the workshop was “Moral Politics In, For and Against Transformative Change”. I presented a joint chapter with Dr Matthew Donoghue titled “The (New) Moral Politics of Post-Crisis European Policy?”
I presented a paper called “Morals and Urban Crisis” at an international workshop in Lisbon, Portugal entitled “What makes urban life worth living? (Re)evaluating the value of urban life” that ran between 25th and 26th May 2023 and was organized by the Urban Transitions Hub.
Between 5th and 6th July 2023 I presented my paper “From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the urban crises” at a workshop at the University of Sheffield, entitled “How to be an Anticapitalist City in the 21st Century” and organized by the Urban Institute.
During my visiting fellowship (October-November 2023) at the Geary Institute of Public Policy, in the University College Dublin, Ireland, I presented the Geary Seminar on the 24th October 2023 in which I presented my more developed work on moral critique and crises.
I co-authored (with around 30 colleagues) a piece that highlighted the importance integrating multiple values in environmental assessments. The piece was titled “Three institutional pathways to envision the future of the IPCC” and published in September 2023 in Nature Climate Change.
These ideas were developed in a piece I wrote in the UK newspaper The Guardian, published on 5th September 2023 and titled, “Climate politics is more complex and urgent than ever – is the IPCC still fit for purpose?”
In November 2023 I co-authored a piece with Professor Rolf Lidskog called, “Accountability in the environmental crisis: From microsocial practices to moral orders” published in Environmental Policy and Governance.
Previous research on morals within political science and sociology had tended to reduce them to simple variables such as values, that could be more easily quantified and measured using methods such as opinion polling and surveys. The first step of this project was to develop a more rounded and relational understanding of morals as encompassing and implicating identities (group and individual), world views, knowledge and practices. They are social schema that help actors understand their actions and the actions of others.
Another important impact of the project has been to enter into a constructive dialogue with researchers and approaches that strongly reject many of the premises of moral critique as a tool of progressive politics. Morals have been rejected by scholars and activists on a number of grounds, they are seen as regressive, institutive of social coercion and violence, they are rejected on material grounds as irrelevant to class struggle and on political grounds as more suitable for the right. This project sought to bring to light progressive, inclusive and emancipatory reimagining of moral critique as used by a broad variety of progressive actors, from politicians, think-tankers, researchers, scientists and activists.
The project also sought to show how moral critique increasingly challenges accepted logics and discourses on issues such as housing and the environment. It rejects the established socio-economic imperatives of growth which allows exploitation and inequality to flourish and recasts social interaction and issues around housing and the environment in terms of the common good.
Another important impact of the project has been to enter into a constructive dialogue with researchers and approaches that strongly reject many of the premises of moral critique as a tool of progressive politics. Morals have been rejected by scholars and activists on a number of grounds, they are seen as regressive, institutive of social coercion and violence, they are rejected on material grounds as irrelevant to class struggle and on political grounds as more suitable for the right. This project sought to bring to light progressive, inclusive and emancipatory reimagining of moral critique as used by a broad variety of progressive actors, from politicians, think-tankers, researchers, scientists and activists.
The project also sought to show how moral critique increasingly challenges accepted logics and discourses on issues such as housing and the environment. It rejects the established socio-economic imperatives of growth which allows exploitation and inequality to flourish and recasts social interaction and issues around housing and the environment in terms of the common good.