Doris Fuchs

Research Institute for Sustainability - Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS) & Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Münster

In sustainability governance, the reliance on deliberative participatory processes has greatly increased over the last decades due to expectations that such processes can mobilize additional creative potential, foster better understanding of problems and acceptance of the costs of relevant solutions, and mediate the decline in traditional forms of...

With each new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the urgency to address climate change seems to increase. As the pressure to act rises, debates are intensifying regarding whether democracies can move toward sustainability fast enough. In this introduction to the special issue, we argue that current debates about the democracy–...

The Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance provides a state-of-the-art review of core debates and contributions that offer a more normative, critical, and transformatively aspirational view on global sustainability governance. In this landmark text, an international group of acclaimed scholars provides an overview of key analytica...

Introduction Transforming consumption and lifestyles toward sustainability cannot be achieved by individual behavior change alone but requires changes in the structures in which this behavior is embedded. However, “structure” is a blurry concept and scholars use it in a multitude of ways. What often remains implicit in studies on structural phenome...

Increasing shares of the sustainable consumption literature postulate the need for a focus on limits to consumption as a basis for achieving absolute reductions in resource use. After all, improvements in the sustainability of consumption expected from technological innovation and efficiency gains have been eaten up by rebound effects, to date. The...

Business actors create and operate in global production networks that bring them in contact with regulatory frameworks across multiple levels and domains. Importantly, they also participate in shaping those regulatory frameworks. But what are the specific interests they pursue in their involvement in regulation? Traditionally, scholars tended to as...

Recent research has considered the contribution of faith-based actors (FBAs) and religious norms to global sustainability and climate governance. However, as yet, it has paid little attention to the relationship between religion and climate politics in the EU. The EU is supposedly a secular body. Nevertheless, FBAs participate in its climate policy...

The COVID-19 pandemic that first swept across the world in 2020 led to disruptions in habits and routines—central themes in social practice approaches to consumption. Teaching was also disrupted: the move to online classes forced the development of new modalities of teaching and learning. As a result, a group of social science instructors in a “sus...

Scholars and practitioners generally see participation as a crucial element of governance strategies in pursuit of the goals of the German energy transformation. Research has focused on how to involve which groups of citizens in what kind of formats. The role of other “key actors”, who organize, moderate, and participate as decision-makers or exper...

The volume ‘Democracy and Sustainability’ brings together current perspectives on a complex relationship: How can democracy become an instrument in the fight against the global environmental and climate crisis instead of standing in the way of necessary changes? Can democratic decision-making processes, often perceived as painfully slow and inflexi...

This chapter questions the seeming existence of a universal notion of responsibility in global food governance by drawing on the concept of ‘moral geographies of responsibility’. The concept describes varying responsible attitudes as the result of expectations that link geographical ordering with morally adequate behaviours. The chapter details the...

As a salutogenic concept, “consumption corridors” aims to support what is necessary for sustainable wellbeing to be achieved in relation to the Earth system, with a deep consideration for justice and equity. Living in consumption corridors is a representation of everyday life whereby people live within limits, so that all people–now and in the futu...

Die interdisziplinäre Sachverständigengruppe "Weltwirtschaft und Sozialethik" wurde 1989 von der Kommission Weltkirche der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz eingesetzt, um Institutionen der katholischen Kirche in Fragen der weltwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung zu beraten. In der vorliegenden Studie identifizieren die Sachverständigen häufig wiederkehrende Hi...

To achieve sustainable development and the Global Sustainability Goals (SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals) a socio-ecological transformation of the economy and society is indispensable. Despite all the challenges involved with it, the necessary transformation is not an unattainable utopia, but a realistic option for the future. By means of centra...

In this article, we explore the concept of consumption corridors as it might apply to energy use, with specific attention to both wellbeing and power relations. We employ the distinction between energy provisioning and human-need satisfaction to explore different configurations of energy use, as well as their possible dynamics. Specifically, we dra...

Consumption Corridors: Living a Good Life within Sustainable Limits explores how to enhance peoples’ chances to live a good life in a world of ecological and social limits. Rejecting familiar recitations of problems of ecological decline and planetary boundaries, this compact book instead offers a spirited explication of what everyone desires: a g...

Partizipation ist eine zentrale Voraussetzung für eine erfolgreiche Nachhaltigkeitstransformation in demokratischen Kontexten. Das ist Konsens in Politik und Wissenschaft und spiegelt sich in vielen Positionspapieren und Leitbildern sowie unzähligen Forschungsprojekten zu dem Thema wider. Gleichzeitig zeigt die Vielzahl an diesbezüglichen Forschung...

Wie viel Konsum ist für ein gutes Leben mindestens nötig? Und wo verläuft die Obergrenze des Konsums? Antworten auf diese Fragen unterscheiden sich je nach gesellschaftlichem Milieu, aber auch je nach Lebensphase. So hat sich gezeigt, dass Jugendliche sowie Senior(inn)en besonders offen für einen nachhaltigen und ressourcenschonenden Lebensstil sin...

Die dramatische ökologische Krise, auf die wir zusteuern sowie die fortgesetzte soziale Ausbeutung, die unseren Lebensstil finanziert, erfordern Handeln, wenn wir heutigen und zukünftigen Generationen ein gutes Leben ermöglichen wollen. Ohne eine differenzierte Zuschreibung und die wirksame Umsetzung von Verantwortung auf individueller, vor allem a...

The movement to develop indicators that provide a more nuanced view of quality of life (QoL) continues to gain momentum and support in both scientific and policy-making circles. However, measuring QoL still faces a number of challenges. While a range of indicator sets has been developed, it is unclear whether any of them is able to adequately captu...

Selten hat eine päpstliche Sozialenzyklika so viel Aufmerksamkeit und Zuspruch erfahren wie das Schreiben Laudato siʼ von Papst Franziskus über die Sorge für das gemeinsame Haus. Mitglieder des Zentrums für Interdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung (ZIN) der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster haben die Einladung von Papst Franziskus, auf s...

Which barriers are currently impeding the successful transformation to sustainability in the four areas of consumption, participation, research and time, and how could they be overcome? This multidisciplinary edited volume provides readers with answers to these questions. The contributing authors approach these topics from the perspectives of (inte...

Which barriers are currently impeding the successful transformation to sustainability in the four areas of consumption, participation, research and time, and how could they be overcome? This multidisciplinary edited volume provides readers with answers to these questions. The contributing authors approach these topics from the perspectives of (inte...

Ethical questions concerning global sustainability governance have been widely discussed with respect to the role of civil society in general. Interestingly, faith-based actors (FBAs) have so far attracted scant attention in this context. Yet FBAs actively participate in international political negotiations and public debates on sustainable develop...

The European Union’s ambition on environmental issues proves to be highly uneven. While it has agreed on stringent binding sustainability objectives in its reforms of the Common Fisheries Policy in 2013, it failed to reach such agreement on its 2030 climate change objectives at almost the same time. How can we make sense of this uneven performance...

Das Phänomen der Globalisierung ist zu einem zentralen Themengebiet der Internationalen Beziehungen geworden und beschreibt die zunehmende Veränderung hin zu globalen Beziehungen. Theoretisch ist dieses Konzept jedoch hinsichtlich Ausmaß, Natur und Auswirkungen noch höchst umstritten, und die Folgen von Globalisierung auf globale Gerechtigkeit werd...

Sehr geehrte Frau Ministerin Hendricks, sehr geehrter Herr Minister Schmidt, sehr geehrter Herr Staatssekretär Billen, mit Ihrer Eröffnung der " Nationalen Konferenz ‚Umsetzung nachhaltiger Konsum in Deutschland' " am 23. März 2017 richten Sie den Blick auf die Implementierung des vor einem Jahr im Bundeskabinett verabschiedeten Nationalen Programm...

Der Beitrag analysiert die Einbettung lokaler Innovationsimpulse in die europäische Multi-Level-Governance (MLG). Auf theoretischer Ebene zeigt er auf, wie der Ansatz der MLG lokale Innovationsimpulse berücksichtigt, das heißt welche Rolle als Impulsgeber und Impulsnehmer er lokalen Innovationsimpulsen über die lokale Governance Ebene hinaus zuspri...

This paper investigates power dynamics between and within the core institutions of the European Union (EU) in the development of the 2030 EU climate & energy framework. Starting from the widely studied change in the EU’s climate policy from “leadership by example” to “slow motion”, it integrates a specific focus on power dynamics between the core E...

Das Phänomen der Globalisierung ist zu einem zentralen Themengebiet der Internationalen Beziehungen geworden und beschreibt die zunehmende Veränderung hin zu globalen Beziehungen. Theoretisch ist dieses Konzept jedoch hinsichtlich Ausmaßes, Natur und Auswirkungen noch höchst umstritten und die Folgen von Globalisierung auf globale Gerechtigkeit wer...

Die gesellschaftliche Bearbeitung von Umweltproblemen, und in diesem Zusammenhang die Transformation des Energiesystems, inklusive der darin enthaltenden gesamtgesellschaftlichen Entwicklungsdynamiken, verlangt nach kollektiv bindenden Entscheidungen sowie der Anpassung bestehender Steuerungs- und Governance-Modelle. Dabei ist die Gestaltung von Be...

In Deutschland begrüßen viele Menschen die Energiewende und den Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien. Bei konkreten Maßnahmen in der unmittelbaren Umgebung, dem Bau von Windrädern oder Stromtrassen, verwandelt sich Akzeptanz aber schnell in Ablehnung. KomMA-P erforschte, unter welchen Bedingungen die Menschen dazu bereit sind, die Energiewende zu akzep...

Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie sich Interessenvertretung in einer globalisierten Welt verändert hat und nimmt dabei Akteure sowie Strukturen mit Hilfe eines mehrdimensionalen machttheoretischen Ansatzes in den Blick. Auf diese Weise rückt vor allem das Phänomen der private governance ins Blickfeld, i.e. der selbständigen Regelsetzung durch ni...

In this essay, we aim to demonstrate the value of a power lens on consumption and absolute reductions. Specifically, we illuminate what we perceive to be a troublesome pattern of neglect of questions of power in research and action on sustainable consumption and absolute reductions. In pursuit of our objectives, we delineate how many of the informa...

Nachhaltigkeit ist im heutigen öffentlichen Diskurs weit verbreitet. Angesichts globaler Herausforderungen wie Klimawandel oder sozialer Ungleichheiten ist das auch nicht überraschend. Allerdings ist Nachhaltigkeit ein sehr vager Begriff. Seitdem die Brundtland-Kommission das Konzept der nachhaltigen Entwicklung populär machte und als Kombination a...

In 2002, we published a paper in Energy Policy under the title: Green electricity in the market place: the policy challenge (Fuchs & Arentsen 2002). In that paper, we used a co-evolutionary approach to show the extent to which producers and consumers were locked into technological and institutional trajectories favoring non-renewable energy sources...

In this paper, we explore whether the idea of “sustainable consumption corridors”, derived from concepts of a good life, can be a good starting point to define criteria of sustainable consumption. Such corridors would be defined by minimum standards, allowing every individual to live a good life, and maximum standards, ensuring a limit on every ind...

The labels “civil society organization” (CSO) or “civil society actor” tend to have positive connotations in much of research and political debate. This is especially the case in the context of sustainable development, where civil society participation is frequently assumed to have a positive impact on sustainabilityrelated policy outputs. This cha...

Das Phänomen der Globalisierung ist zu einem zentralen Themengebiet der Internationalen Beziehungen geworden und beschreibt die zunehmende Veränderung hin zu globalen Beziehungen. Theoretisch ist dieses Konzept jedoch hinsichtlich Ausmaßes, Natur und Auswirkungen noch höchst umstritten und die Folgen von Globalisierung auf globale Gerechtigkeit wer...

Obwohl Macht ein zentrales Konzept in der Politikwissenschaft ist, gibt es keine allgemeingültige Definition und insbesondere die dynamischen und ungegenständlichen Formen von Macht stellen die Forschung vor Herausforderungen (Baldwin 2002; Barnett/Duvall 2005; Guzzini 2000). Macht wird oftmals mit der Definition von Weber umschrieben. Demnach bede...

Nach der New-Economy-Krise zu Beginn des Millenniums und der Subprime-Krise in den USA 2007 suchten Finanzakteure neue Renditemöglichkeiten, mit verheerenden Folgen für die Preisstabilität im Agrarbereich und die Ernährungssituation der Bevölkerung in vielen Entwicklungsländern. Im Zuge der Hungerkrise 2008 wird jedoch eine stärkere Regulierung in...

Konsum soll nachhaltig sein – diese Forderung wird von weiten Teilen der Gesellschaft getragen. Was aber bedeutet das genau? Wie kann dieses Ziel erreicht werden und wer ist dafür verantwortlich? Diesen Fragen war ein Forschungsprogramm gewidmet, das 2008–2013 vom BMBF gefördert wurde. Aus der inter- und transdisziplinären Forschung sind, nebst vie...

This article reports on our experiences in a German-American partnership in internationalizing the curriculum. In a globalized world, engaging other cultures and identities as well as understanding global issues and events from other perspectives are important qualifications that allow students to gain different insights in political science. Yet,...

A number of scholars have started to investigate issues specifically associated with financialization in the agrifood sector. This article draws on this literature to map the dimensions of financialization and their interaction at different levels. In contrast to studies that have emphasized the economic preconditions and consequences of the financ...

The power of business actors and its implications for democracy have been a concern since the advent of large enterprises in the nineteenth century. However, it is difficult to move from the vague feeling that huge corporations may be a problem for democratic politics to a more systematic and differentiated understanding of why and how that may be...

A sustainable consumption perspective on global climate and environmental policy is comprehensive, multifaceted, and fundamentally challenging for science and politics as well as for society in general. A strong sustainable consumption perspective, in particular, induces us to critically reflect on core principles, on which our life is based, to as...

This paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance: sustainable consumption and degrowth. Interestingly, these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights, despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable develop...

In international relations, a long list of private donors has joined governments in addressing global problems and their financial contributions are mind-boggling. We argue that the transformational potential of philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates and Michael Otto relies largely on mechanisms of power with others, i.e. cooperation and le...

Given that the concept of need is central to both the idea of sustainability and the notion of consumption, it makes sense to approach the debate on sustainability in consumption by starting with the concept of ‘need’. Such a concept should be attuned to both the concept of consumption and the idea of sustainability. The concept of need that has to...

Societal steering of consumption towards sustainability. Introduction It is not just oen stated in science and politics that the prevalent individual patterns of consumption were not sustainable, it is also a general assumption that sustainability in consumption will not appear 'of its own accord' , but rather it requires societal or political stee...

This special section aims to investigate the interaction of global and local forces in shaping agrifood governance. It starts from the recognition that a multitude of actors and norms shape today’s agrifood system. The resulting opaqueness of the systems makes it extremely difficult to understand and explain processes and outcomes of agrifood gover...

Democratic legitimacy is rarely associated with private governance. After all, private actors are not legitimized through elections by a demos. Instead of abandoning democratic principles when entering the private sphere of governance, however, this article argues in favour of employing alternative criteria of democracy in assessments. Specifically...

Das Ziel des Artikels ist eine umfassende Darstellung der Rolle von transnationalen Unternehmen (TNUs) im Globalisierungsprozess. Im ersten Teil des Beitrags wird die Position der TNUs in der globalisierten Welt mit Hilfe quantitativer und qualitativer Daten dargestellt. Dabei stehen insbesondere die Veränderungen in der relativen Größe der TNUs, i...

The objective of this chapter is to explore the democratic legitimacy of transnational corporations (TNCs) in global governance. In pursuit of this objective, the chapter investigates political activities of TNCs within transnational processes of private and public governance. It starts from the recognition that, global governance is increasingly b...

This paper investigates the creation and consequences of private regulation in global food governance. It points to the power to govern and the authority to govern as the two crucial conditions for the emergence and diffusion of private food regulation. More specifically, the paper argues that the power to govern is a function of the structural pow...

In der Disziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen (IB) gab es bislang nicht viele Themen, die derart im Zentrum intensiv und kontrovers geführter Auseinandersetzungen standen wie „Globalisierung“. Seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre die Zahl der Veröffentlichungen zu diesem Forschungsgegenstand regelrecht explodierte (vgl. Busch 1999; Scholte 2000a), ist Gl...

The global food system and its governance have important implications for the question of sustainability. Engaging over half of the world’s population, agricultural production provides a livelihood for a major proportion of people on the planet, and food is a commodity that touches us all as consumers. Food production and trade, moreover, have impo...

The production and consumption systems (PACS) of electricity provide broad insights into possible actions and interventions in pursuit of sustainable development at different points in the life cycle from production and supply to consumption. More importantly for the context of the present book, electricity PACS allow particularly relevant insights...

In the food sector, retailers often present themselves as guardians of consumer interests, with superior efficiency and effectiveness in the governance of food, in relation to public actors. Concerns about retail governance institutions, such as private standards or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), mainly emphasise a lack of input legitimacy,...