Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BACKLASH (Climate Backlash: Contentious Reactions to Policy Action)
Reporting period: 2022-08-01 to 2024-01-31
Growing calls for ambitious climate change action are challenging for governance because such action can trigger backlash. We have seen this in cases such as the Yellow Vests in France, and acrimonious policy rollbacks in Canada and Australia, among others in recent years. But why do societies sometimes accept costly public good action, but at other times push back suddenly and reject it? Although the issue of backlash is increasingly recognised by scholars and policymakers, it remains not well understood. The challenge of BACKLASH is to empirically study, and to theorise, this type of contentious reaction to policy action. Doing so is important for advancing ambitious climate action that is also socially acceptable, particularly in the context of issues such as right-wing populism, social polarisation, entrenched interests, conflicting visions of the future, and complex processes of societal change.
The aim of BACKLASH is to explain how, why, and under which conditions climate backlash emerges, focusing on advanced industrial democracies. The Objectives are to: 1) Identify the drivers of climate backlash across varying national contexts, 2) Determine the mechanisms and processes by which climate backlash occurs, 3) Establish whether and how climate backlash spreads within and between countries, and 4) Explain the forms and variation of climate backlash, within and outside of mainstream politics. To do this, BACKLASH will compare countries at two levels: 1) among OECD countries, and 2) among four national cases, namely Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom. This will help to explain why and how backlash occurs, to inform policy making to try to avoid it. The findings are especially important for successfully implementing the European Green Deal in coming years, and for understanding how ambitious and acceptable climate policy can be realised more generally.
The aim of BACKLASH is to explain how, why, and under which conditions climate backlash emerges, focusing on advanced industrial democracies. The Objectives are to: 1) Identify the drivers of climate backlash across varying national contexts, 2) Determine the mechanisms and processes by which climate backlash occurs, 3) Establish whether and how climate backlash spreads within and between countries, and 4) Explain the forms and variation of climate backlash, within and outside of mainstream politics. To do this, BACKLASH will compare countries at two levels: 1) among OECD countries, and 2) among four national cases, namely Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom. This will help to explain why and how backlash occurs, to inform policy making to try to avoid it. The findings are especially important for successfully implementing the European Green Deal in coming years, and for understanding how ambitious and acceptable climate policy can be realised more generally.
BACKLASH is proceeding well towards its objectives. Important achievements have been realised and others are expected soon in the coming 12 months. Being the halfway stage of the project, much is currently in progress and at partial completion.
Objective 1 is making good progress. The conceptual foundation for the project has been laid especially through a paper titled ‘Backlash to Climate Policy’ in the journal Global Environmental Politics (see here: https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00684). Systematic case selection (N=50) and analysis of the presence of backlash has been conducted. Potential explanatory factors for backlash have been derived and operationalized, and interviews with policy experts have begun. We anticipate data collection for this component will be completed in the coming months and analysis with first findings to be available soon afterwards. Objective 2 is also making good progress. A large body of interviews in Australia and Canada have been completed (n=68), and analysis of policy backlash and its effects is currently occurring. Interviews in the UK and France have begun but were set back due to a change in personnel, but this is now well on track within the overall project timeframe. Objective 3 is also being addressed in the aforementioned activities and will also be addressed through synthesis at a later stage. Objective 4 is making good progress. The initial conceptual paper on backlash to climate policy provides a key foundation for empirical analysis, and for synthesising insights within the project at a later stage.
Dissemination to date includes 14 conference presentations given by team members at leading conferences in several fields (Earth System Governance, European Consortium on Political Research, International Public Policy Conference, Netherlands Institute of Governance, UK Royal Geographical Society). Team members have completed extensive methods training and professional development in various ways. Two annual advisory board meetings have been held.
Objective 1 is making good progress. The conceptual foundation for the project has been laid especially through a paper titled ‘Backlash to Climate Policy’ in the journal Global Environmental Politics (see here: https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00684). Systematic case selection (N=50) and analysis of the presence of backlash has been conducted. Potential explanatory factors for backlash have been derived and operationalized, and interviews with policy experts have begun. We anticipate data collection for this component will be completed in the coming months and analysis with first findings to be available soon afterwards. Objective 2 is also making good progress. A large body of interviews in Australia and Canada have been completed (n=68), and analysis of policy backlash and its effects is currently occurring. Interviews in the UK and France have begun but were set back due to a change in personnel, but this is now well on track within the overall project timeframe. Objective 3 is also being addressed in the aforementioned activities and will also be addressed through synthesis at a later stage. Objective 4 is making good progress. The initial conceptual paper on backlash to climate policy provides a key foundation for empirical analysis, and for synthesising insights within the project at a later stage.
Dissemination to date includes 14 conference presentations given by team members at leading conferences in several fields (Earth System Governance, European Consortium on Political Research, International Public Policy Conference, Netherlands Institute of Governance, UK Royal Geographical Society). Team members have completed extensive methods training and professional development in various ways. Two annual advisory board meetings have been held.
The first main conceptual paper on backlash to climate policy is an important interdisciplinary development because it presents a conceptual foundation for theorising and empirically studying climate backlash by bringing together insights from several debates and fields: (i) legitimacy in political science and sociology, (ii) policy feedback in policy studies and political science, and (iii) contentious politics in social movement studies within sociology. This provides a basis for integrating all lines of research within the overall BACKLASH project. It also responds to rapidly growing debates within the field of climate politics, and political science more broadly, about the issue of political backlash which remains under-theorised. This paper intervenes in these debates by positing a conceptual pathway for the emergence of backlash and a comprehensive set of hypotheses to inform future empirical research. This contribution was a key goal of the early stages of the project.
The three PhD researchers in the project team are advancing novel interdisciplinary lines of investigation concerning backlash to climate policy. PhD researcher 1 comparatively studies patterns and drivers of policy backlash among OECD countries, particularly focusing on mobilization and legitimacy, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, policy studies, and political sociology. PhD researcher 2 comparatively studies mechanisms and processes of policy backlash in Australia and Canada, particularly focusing on institutional/ bureaucratic politics, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, public administration, and policy studies. PhD researcher 3 comparatively studies mechanisms and processes of policy backlash in the United Kingdom and France, particularly focusing on the construction of problems and their political consequences, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, geography, and social movements. Altogether, this positions BACKLASH to be on track to advance explanation and theorisation of political/ policy backlash beyond the state of the art while also drawing on, and contributing to, multiple relevant fields of research.
The three PhD researchers in the project team are advancing novel interdisciplinary lines of investigation concerning backlash to climate policy. PhD researcher 1 comparatively studies patterns and drivers of policy backlash among OECD countries, particularly focusing on mobilization and legitimacy, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, policy studies, and political sociology. PhD researcher 2 comparatively studies mechanisms and processes of policy backlash in Australia and Canada, particularly focusing on institutional/ bureaucratic politics, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, public administration, and policy studies. PhD researcher 3 comparatively studies mechanisms and processes of policy backlash in the United Kingdom and France, particularly focusing on the construction of problems and their political consequences, and is situated at the intersection of climate politics, geography, and social movements. Altogether, this positions BACKLASH to be on track to advance explanation and theorisation of political/ policy backlash beyond the state of the art while also drawing on, and contributing to, multiple relevant fields of research.