2021: Environmental Politics and Theory Group: CFP
In the spirit of APSA’s 2020 theme, “Promoting Pluralism,” the Environmental Politics and Theory Related Group calls for papers which embody or examine the inherent methodological, demographic, and theoretical diversity of the field. We are particularly interested in work that explores the complex interconnections between global environmental politics, widely celebrated political values (like toleration, mutual respect, democracy, and political equality), and developing socio-political trends (including the rise of new authoritarianisms, increasingly trenchant racism and nationalism, yawning inequality, and powerful, youth- and minority-led protest movements). What can the diverse methods of political theorists and scientists tell us about our manifold environmental crises, or how to address them? What do prevailing approaches problematically tend to obscure? Which thinkers or bodies-of-knowledge—from indigenous studies to neo-classical economics—are environmental-politics scholars under-utilizing or overlooking, and why is this a problem? What could the field, as a whole, be doing to draw in and amplify voices that have too often been left out, silenced, or ignored? How should scholars, societies, and governments attempt to navigate the tensions between the inherently global nature of environmental politics and the inexorably local experience of environmental change? What can they do to reconcile the often alienatingly technocratic aspects of environmental policy and policymaking with the popular and democratic politics needed for such policies to succeed? While the Environmental Politics and Theory Related Group especially welcomes proposals that engage the themes and issues described above, any submission that addresses the wide-ranging issues relevant to environmental politics and theory will be considered. In keeping with APSA’s goals of increasing diversity, inclusion, and access throughout the profession, we also strongly encourage proposals from scholars who belong to historically underrepresented groups, especially including those from minority racial and ethnic communities, low-income and working-class families, non-Anglophonic countries, and the LGBTQI community.