Project description DEENESFRITPL Shedding light on climate backlash Currently, climate change governance theory is unable to explain sudden and impactful reactions to climate policy actions known as climate backlash. Contributing to this field, the EU-funded BACKLASH project aims to empirically study contentious reactions to climate policy actions by examining cases across and within advanced industrialised countries. This will consist of a two-level study of 36 OECD countries and four in-depth national cases of climate policy and reactions to it. Project outcomes will inform the design of ambitious climate policy, and pave the way for new approaches to the interdisciplinary study of policy-society dynamics in addressing contested collective problems. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Growing calls for ambitious climate change action are challenging for governance because such action can trigger backlash. Why do societies sometimes accept costly public good action, but at other times push back suddenly and reject it? Abrupt and impactful reactions to climate policy actions are increasingly witnessed: Climate Backlash. Examples include the Yellow Vests in France, and acrimonious policy rollbacks in Canada and Australia. Climate change governance theory is, so far, unable to account for such dynamics, which undermines prospects for ambitious climate action. The challenge of BACKLASH is to empirically study, and ultimately to theorise, this type of contentious reaction to policy action. The aim of BACKLASH is to explain why, how, and under which conditions climate backlash emerges in advanced industrial democracies. BACKLASH will: 1) Identify the configurational drivers of climate backlash across varying national contexts, 2) Determine the mechanisms and processes by which climate backlash occurs within specific national contexts, 3) Establish whether and how climate backlash diffuses within and between countries, and 4) Explain the forms (i.e. institutionalised, non-institutionalised) and variation of climate backlash across contexts. To accomplish this, BACKLASH will conduct a two-level study of 36 OECD countries, and 4 in-depth national cases of climate policy, namely Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom. BACKLASH is ground-breaking in: 1) pioneering an original interdisciplinary lens for studying climate backlash, 2) advancing an ambitious mixed-methods research design, and applying and testing new innovations in cross-case analysis, and 3) tackling a new combination of challenging empirical circumstances confronting the field of climate governance with profound implications for policy-society dynamics. This will open up new frontiers for the interdisciplinary study of backlash to policy in addressing contentious collective problems. Fields of science social sciencessociologygovernancesocial sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracynatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2020-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2020-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT Net EU contribution € 1 491 458,00 Address HEIDELBERGLAAN 8 3584 CS Utrecht Netherlands See on map Region West-Nederland Utrecht Utrecht Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 491 458,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT Netherlands Net EU contribution € 1 491 458,00 Address HEIDELBERGLAAN 8 3584 CS Utrecht See on map Region West-Nederland Utrecht Utrecht Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 491 458,00
