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Degrowth and the Global South: The twin problem of global dependencies
... The term "Global South" broadly refers to regions and countries that are considered to be less economically developed, often characterized by lower income levels, greater economic inequality, and historical colonial ties [1,2]. This classification encompasses a diverse group of countries that share common developmental challenges (i.e., socio-economic and politics), rather than a strictly geographical location [3]. ...
... This includes both Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of North Africa, where economic development levels vary but generally align with the characteristics of the Global South [1]. Latin America and the Caribbean, include all countries in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean [2]. In Asia, these include South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of East Asia. ...
... Through reduction of economic growth of wealth nations, degrowth aims to decrease the global economic disparities. The idea is that if rich countries consume less, resources can be freed up for poorer countries allowing them to improve their living conditions without increasing global ecological footprint (Radkowitsch & Strunk, 2023). ...
... As per (Radkowitsch & Strunk, 2023) criticizes the contend that implementing degrowth in the Global North could have detrimental consequences for Global South economies. These economies often heavily rely on exporting primary commodities and manufactured goods to Northern markets. ...
As the concept of degrowth gains traction as a response to escalating ecological crises, its applicability to the Global South presents complex challenges. Historically, the Global North has been the primary driver of industrialization, economic expansion, and environmental degradation, disproportionately contributing to global issues like climate change and resource depletion. In contrast, the Global South, with its rich traditions of self-sufficiency, faces severe developmental challenges, including poverty and inequality, exacerbated by colonial legacies and economic dependency. This study adopts a qualitative research approach, grounded in postcolonial theory, to explore the dynamics between the Global North and South. Through a case study of Sri Lanka, the research examines how degrowth principles can be reinterpreted to meet the specific needs and aspirations of the Global South. The methodological approach is informed by ecological economics and political ecology, emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental sustainability and social equity. The study proposes a tailored approach to degrowth in Sri Lanka, leveraging the country's historical and cultural strengths in sustainable living and community-based resource management. It advocates for the integration of degrowth-oriented policies into national development plans, emphasizing renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and eco-friendly tourism. Additionally, it highlights the importance of engaging local communities in the degrowth dialogue, ensuring that traditional knowledge systems are incorporated into sustainable development strategies. By reimagining degrowth within the unique socioeconomic context of Sri Lanka, this paper argues that the country can pursue a development path that addresses both ecological concerns and the well-being of its people. The study also examines broader issues of global inequality, historical injustices, and the portrayal of the Global South in Western media, aiming to contribute to a more equitable and sustainable future for all.
... These include the possibility, in a globalized market-dominated food system, of less economically efficient allocation of production 24 and reduced capacity for needs-based allocation of nutrient supply 25 , although whether the latter is observed is debated 26 . Furthermore, with around a quarter of food for human consumption being traded 27 , a future degrowth-aligned Global North with reduced consumption and food imports has the potential, in the absence of other measures, for negative short-term effects on export-oriented economies 28 . ...
Food systems require urgent transformation towards social and ecological sustainability. Degrowth posits a radical pathway of transformation to reduce ecological impacts while increasing well-being and reducing inequality. Here we highlight that degrowth and food systems—albeit both linked to transformation—are not well integrated. We conduct a conceptual exploration of the potential alignment between key food systems and degrowth transformation measures, arguing for complementary and reciprocal perspectives to theorize and enact transformation. Finally, we offer concrete practical actions to integrate degrowth and food systems, thereby widening the narrative and analytical lens of social–ecological
transformation.
... Pertumbuhan ekonomi hijau merupakan isu yang mengusung konsep keberlanjutan lingkungan seperti green building, green financing, green banking, dan green growth (Suparmoko, 2020). Seiring pertumbuhan ekonomi hijau, konsep degrowth justru menggugat ketidakadilan ekologi akibat krisis iklim yang diterima masyarakat terkena dampak pertumbuhan global (Gräbner-Radkowitsch & Strunk, 2023). Pertumbuhan ekonomi akan mengangkat kesejahteraan masyarakat apabila rencana aksi mitigasi perubahan iklim tidak hanya berorientasi pada pengurangan emisi gas rumah kaca, akan tetapi menggunakan konsep pembangunan berkelanjutan dengan memanfaatkan sumber daya alam untuk kesejahteraan (Yufuai & Nurochmat, 2019). ...
Abstrak Kajian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan bahwa pertumbuhan ekonomi hijau sangat dipengaruhi oleh desain kelembagaan multipihak dengan mempertimbangkan berbagai aspek utama yaitu ekonomi, sosial, dan lingkungan. Banyak studi menemukan tantangan pertumbuhan ekonomi hijau antara lain kelembagaan, penghargaan terhadap sumber daya alam, dan pilihan antara pertumbuhan ekonomi atau pelestarian lingkungan. Sumber data diambil dari berbagai artikel yang kemudian direview dan diklasifikasi pada konsep pembangunan berkelanjutan, pertumbuhan ekonomi hijau, pembiayaan hijau, kerjasama hijau, kelembagaan, juga pengambilan keputusan. Hasil akhir menunjukkan bahwa kelembagaan multi sektor yang melibatkan banyak elemen terutama pihak diluar pemerintah harus memperhatikan aspek dasar pengambilan keputusan, format kelembagaan, dasar pembentukan dan komitmen lembaga. Abstract This study aims to explain that green growth is strongly influenced by multi-stakeholder institutional design by considering various key aspects: economic, social, and environmental. Many studies have found that the challenges of green growth include institutionalisation, respect for natural resources, and the choice between economic growth or environmental conservation. Data sources were taken from various articles which were then reviewed and classified on the concepts of sustainable development, green growth, green financing, green cooperation, institutions, as well as decision-making. The final result shows that multi-sectoral institutions that involve many elements, especially those outside the government, must pay attention to the basic aspects of decision making, institutional format, basis of formation and institutional commitment.
... The goal of SDG 13 is to promote green growth thus economic growth that ensures net zero emissions; an economic system that enhances industrial growth without causing harm to nature. Despite the benefits of green industrialization, the concept of creating a green economy has been criticized by 'degrowth' scholars (Gräbner-Radkowitsch & Strunk, 2023). They argue that instead of seeking economic growth by green transition, economic efficiency can be accomplished through 'de-growth' carbonintensive industries (Butcher, 2023). ...
The convergence of global crises sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental degradation, and supply disruptions due to regional conflicts in Europe and the Middle East has underscored the imperative for analyzing the drivers of green growth in emerging economies. While considerable research has focused on green growth in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) nations, there still is a significant gap in understanding Africa’s transition to a green economy. Fundamental questions about the key variables propelling Africa’s green growth, their interconnectedness, potential obstacles to green economy development, and the trajectory of future research in this area remain largely unaddressed in the extant literature. This review paper aims to evaluate the state of Africa’s green economy by synthesizing recent scientific literature on green growth in WEIRD nations from an African perspective. Employing an analytical approach grounded in holistic frameworks and systems thinking, the study conducts a thorough multidisciplinary assessment of existing research. Using the PRISMA systematic review approach, the search terms, databases, inclusion and exclusion criteria were designated for the study.In addition to exploring the challenges of green industrialization, the research investigates the driving forces and essential elements necessary for achieving Africa’s progress towards achieving net zero emissions. Common hurdles such as susceptibility to extreme climate events, natural disasters, and ecological degradation are found, alongside the potential benefits of attaining net zero emissions, including equitable distribution of climate benefits, reduction of adverse health impacts, and addressing social inequalities, particularly among low-income and vulnerable populations and communities. The contributions of this paper are as follows: firstly, it broadens knowledge about the possible forces propelling the green sector and how policy makers in Africa may be guided to design strategies for achieving net-zero economy in their particular context. secondly, Important gaps are found, common themes are recognized and addressed, and notable scholars and their own conceptual and theoretical contributions are all highlighted by this analytical examination. It is hoped that this paper will offer a theoretical and empirical foundation to inspire future researchers to take on the significant research tasks related to how environmental policy imperatives and domestic green growth interact with the global climate.
... Latouche (1996Latouche ( , 2009) also helped bring attention to the injustice of the fact that people in countries from the Global South are both least responsible for, and most vulnerable to the consequences of ecological crises. Further, he began to advance the idea in European scholarship that degrowth in the Global North is a necessary step to address this dismal state of affairs, and that this process would help to create space for members of the Global South to construct their own trajectories for a world beyond growth (Latouche, 2009;D'Alisa et al., 2015;Gräbner-Radkowitsch & Strunk, 2023). ...
This paper explores the possible consequences for education of a transition to a post-growth society. Utilising a post-qualitative approach to inquiry, this study begins by analysing post-growth economic literature. It then connects this literature to existing educational scholarship to explore the consequences for education of a transition to a post-growth society. The analysis reveals key features and arrangements proposed in the literature for a post-growth society. It discusses the ways in which education can prepare young people for a future beyond economic growth and speculates as to how education can contribute towards the realisation of this type of society. The paper concludes that education can help prepare students for a post-growth future by focusing on the development of ecological literacy, embracing a place-based approach to education, helping students to comprehend the need for social and economic change, introducing them to a plurality of ideas about how the future might look, developing their capacity to think critically about their future, enhancing their sense of personal autonomy and capacity for self-determination, and supporting their capacity to form strong social relationships.
... The literature on degrowth economics, specifically, has also predominantly focused on examining the viability of its theories and policies within the structural economic conditions of central economies (Cosme and O'Neill, 2017;Kallis, 2018). There remains a significant gap in understanding the applicability and feasibility of degrowth economic policies in peripheral economies, which face different challenges due to their distinct type of production, strong external constraints, dependencies, and critical socio-structural conditions (Fischer, 2015;Chiengkul, 2018;Dengler and Seebacher, 2019;Hanacek et al., 2020;Gräbner and Strunk, 2023). ...
É com grande satisfação que apresentamos o relatório "Economia e Sustentabilidade: Horizontes Brasileiros", que reflete um compêndio de investigações centradas nas dinâmicas de desenvolvimento sustentável e governança econômica no contexto brasileiro. Em uma conjuntura marcada por transições políticas, este documento busca fornecer uma análise das iniciativas e desafios que se apresentam na interseção da inovação, sustentabilidade e política econômica.
Esse relatório aborda as necessidades de financiamento de sistemas de inovação sustentáveis, com particular ênfase na Amazônia Legal, destacando a importância da criação de um novo paradigma de desenvolvimento que seja coerente com as especificidades locais. Reconhece-se que o financiamento eficaz para esta transição justa demanda uma abordagem renovada que integre as funções estratégicas dos bancos de desenvolvimento, considerando os riscos associados a projetos inovadores e a sustentabilidade a longo prazo.
A emergência climática é considerada um dos principais desafios contemporâneos, exigindo mudanças substanciais nos padrões de consumo e produção. O relatório discute como uma transição para um modelo de desenvolvimento resiliente ao clima e de baixa emissão de carbono pode ser apoiada por transformações nos fluxos de financiamento e investimento, uma tarefa que requer colaboração e ação concertada em níveis múltiplos.
Analisam-se também as implicações das mudanças climáticas nos eventos extremos que afetam o Brasil, evidenciando a necessidade premente de políticas robustas de adaptação e mitigação. As discussões incluem a influência das mudanças climáticas globais na variabilidade climática regional e os mecanismos necessários para enfrentar a crescente severidade desses fenômenos.
A questão das assimetrias financeira e monetária é explorada por meio de um prisma histórico, ressaltando a hierarquização das economias emergentes no sistema monetário internacional e as consequências desta dinâmica para as políticas macroeconômicas. O relatório salienta a volatilidade cambial e a necessidade de maior autonomia nas decisões políticas econômicas.
A análise da vulnerabilidade externa da economia brasileira é abordada por meio de um exame da Posição Internacional de Investimentos, discutindo a importância de uma trajetória de crescimento sustentado e a atenuação dos riscos externos.
Adicionalmente, o relatório contempla a gestão e alocação de fundos soberanos em contextos locais, sublinhando a relevância de assegurar a sustentabilidade das políticas públicas e o desenvolvimento econômico, com uma atenção especial à gestão ambiental e econômica diante da finitude dos recursos naturais.
Por fim, o documento examina as políticas de decrescimento macroeconômico em países periféricos, uma área de estudo que tem ganhado destaque face às limitações do paradigma de crescimento econômico. A análise busca compreender a aplicabilidade e as consequências de tais políticas, considerando os desafios estruturais específicos que essas economias enfrentam.
... Many prominent degrowth policies try to achieve this-from moratoria on green extractivism, caps on resource and energy use, work time reduction, degrowing of fossil fuel and resource intensive sectors etc. 2 However, only relying on these policies of ending the Global North's externalization could have serious sideeffects. For example, a shift towards unconditional basic services, as well as ecological taxation and a localization of needs-oriented production, will likely lead to less consumption overall and less reliance on resource extraction from the Global South, but could possibly also heavily damage the economies of the Global South that rely on exporting resources and consumer goods, or on tourism, as was evidenced by the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown (Ajl 2021;Gräbner-Radkowitsch and Strunk 2023). That is why any policy to reverse the accumulation process towards the Global North or provincializing the Global North would need a supporting set of policies to ensure global justice. ...
Faced with multiple crises, recent years have seen the rise of degrowth as a newly emerging field of research on alternatives to development in the Global North, as well as increasing calls for ecological reparations to the Global South to address the harm done by colonial, capitalist, and extractivist development over the past centuries. This article makes a twofold argument about the need to closely interlink these. Degrowth and ecological reparations discourses, policies and related movements could gain from strengthening their connections and a mutual integration of core perspectives and demands. On the one hand, we argue that degrowth needs to develop into a global justice perspective by integrating demands for (ecological) reparations, freedom of movement, and a global-justice oriented reshaping of the international economic system—demands most prominently articulated from Global South movements. Without this global justice outlook, degrowth risks becoming an inward-looking, provincial, localized, and eventually exclusive project within Europe and the Global North. On the other hand, demands for reparations—strongly articulated from the Global South—could benefit from incorporating the call for degrowth in the Global North. Without this call—which can, of course, be articulated by using different terms—the reparations agenda risks a key opportunity to address core structural and systemic drivers of extractive processes.
Abstract: This work aims to develop an analytical model that addresses the transition to a low-carbon economy by interplaying demand-driven dynamics and energy supply constraints. As the modeling of energy production in the ecological macroeconomics literature has been addressed within supply-driven growth models, the novelty of this article lies in integrating the energy sector into a demand-led growth framework. On the growth side, our model follows the Sraffian supermultiplier literature (Serrano, 1995). On the energy side, it draws inspiration from Bernardo and D'Alessandro (2016), explicitly modeling energy production from renewable sources. We assume business-as-usual and green government expenditures are sources of autonomous demand, with investment and capital stock composed of green and conventional components, respectively. The growth and energy sides of the model are connected through a green investment equation, which embodies a constraint on green capital stock accumulation given by the availability of renewable energy. Therefore, the growth dynamics are demand-driven, but the feasibility of the ecological transition is supply-constrained. Numerical simulations demonstrate that scenarios combining green fiscal policy and low growth are more conducive to promoting the energy transition, aligned with post-growth approaches.
The influential position of multinational corporations in the global economy of the twenty-first century is a particularly controversial and timely subject. This paper aims to improve our understanding of this phenomenon by focusing on one particular aspect of it: corporate power. To this end, it first puts forth a number of conceptual clarifications that help to distinguish different kinds of power and the distinct analytical levels at which power is executed. It then focuses on corporate power and studies it against the backdrop of the development of global value chains. The aim of this analysis is twofold: firstly, to review the variety of analytical tools and ontological perspectives that coin current research on corporate power, and secondly, to discuss the causes and practical consequences of asymmetrical power constellations among corporations and between corporations and other actors. This discussion is meant to facilitate a better alignment of applied research on corporate power with pluralist approaches towards rethinking economics.
Los debates sobre el postdesarrollo vienen ocupando desde hace años un lugar destacado tanto en el plano académico como en el ámbito social. En este contexto, aproximaciones al tema como el Buen Vivir -surgida en la América andina- o el Decrecimiento -planteada inicialmente en Europa y más específicamente en Francia- son habitualmente presentadas como propuestas equivalentes, que comparten los mismos fundamentos y representan alternativas similares. El presente trabajo trata de indagar en la realidad de este supuesto analizando, a la luz de la literatura más relevante sobre ambos temas, el alcance de las posibles convergencias y/o divergencias entre los mismos.
The biophysical foundations of socioeconomic systems are underrepresented in the vast majority of macroeconomic models. This lack is particularly troublesome when considering the links between energy, matter and the economy in the context of the energy transition. As a remedy, we present here a biophysical stock-flow consistent macroeconomic model calibrated at the global scale, that combines detailed bottom-up estimates for the high capital intensity of renewable energies and the decreasing energy return on investment (EROI) of fossil fuels. We find that the completion of a global energy transition scenario compatible with the 1.5 • C objective of the Paris Agreement leads to a decrease of the system's EROI and to high investment share, employment and inflation trends, characteristic of a ''war economy''. Our results further indicate that a slower growth rate eases the transition, and call for further work on post-growth scenarios studies.
This paper critically examines the European Union’s (EU) role in tropical deforestation and the bloc’s actions to mitigate it. We focus on two EU policy communications aimed at the challenge: stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world's forests and the EU updated bioeconomy strategy. In addition, we refer to the European Green Deal, which articulates the bloc’s overarching vision for sustainability and transformations. We find that by casting deforestation as a production problem and a governance challenge on the supply side, these policies deflect attention from some of the key drivers of tropical deforestation—the EU’s overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities and asymmetric market and trade power relations. The diversion allows the EU unfettered access to agro-commodities and biofuels, which are important inputs to the EU’s green transition and bio-based economy. Upholding a ‘sustainability image’ within the EU, an overly business-as-usual approach has taken precedence over transformative policies, enabling multinational corporations to run an ecocide treadmill, rapidly obliterating tropical forests. Whereas the EU's plan to nurture a bioeconomy and promote responsible agro-commodities production in the global South are relevant, the bloc is evasive in setting firm targets and policy measures to overcome the inequalities that spring from and enable its overconsumption of deforestation-related commodities. Drawing on degrowth and decolonial theories, we problematise the EU’s anti-deforestation policies and highlight alternative ideas that could lead to more just, equitable and effective measures for confronting the tropical deforestation conundrum.
Cities in low- and middle-income countries have experienced deindustrialisation as localised agglomerations that historically served domestic and regional markets have become exposed to highly productive global value chains as capital has been (re)allocated to primary sectors. State, corporate and social actors have responded to economic decline by embracing a range of coping and adaptation strategies, some of which are consistent with degrowth, but they are often combined with business-as-usual initiatives in pursuit of economic growth. We refer to this as subordinate degrowth because localised responses are conditioned by the subordinate position of countries and cities in the global economy. While we acknowledge its divergence from ‘pure’ ideal-type degrowth, we do not dismiss the transformative potential of incremental change. Indeed, we argue that any realistic strategy to spatialise degrowth within cities must recognise the indeterminacy and messiness of urban politics. We employ subordinate degrowth as an analytic to interpret responses to deindustrialisation and economic decline in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our analysis attends to three meso-level blind spots that characterise much degrowth scholarship, between (1) particular and universal, (2) advanced-industrial and agrarian ideal-types and (3) past/current socio-technical regimes and ‘pure’ degrowth.
This article reviews the theoretical concept of ‘sustainable adaptation’ to climate
change and water scarcity using a gender-relations approach by answering the
following questions: i) What is a sustainable adaptation to climate change? ii)
Based on a literature review, how does gender interact with climate change ad�aptation to water scarcity and droughts in rural India? (iii) How do the concepts
of sustainable adaptation, degrowth, and gender relations interact on the ground,
pertaining to water justice?
The paper argues that climate change adaptation and development goals can
harmonize only if they rectify root causes of vulnerabilities. For adaptation ac�tions to yield sustainable outcomes, they need to be embedded in a just degrowth
politics that transforms unequal power relations, including gender relations with
water. In India, degrowth is about ecological, economic, and social justice that
calls for transformation of the economy. This transformation looks into the life�cycle of goods - how goods are produced, composed, assembled, distributed,
consumed, and regenerated today; further degrowth strategy explores alternate,
just, non-extractive, decolonial, and democratically led trajectories that sustain
the web of life. This paper discusses five interrelated principles of sustainable
degrowth-based adaptation that center on community-based notions of water
and gender justice.
Despite a varied picture in terms of their relative economic strength, Developing and Emerging Economies (DEEs) remain in a subordinate position in the global monetary and financial system. While the IPE and economics literatures provide rich insights about the significance of this phenomenon, research efforts remain fragmented. To address this problem, we offer an umbrella concept—international financial subordination (IFS)—to channel research efforts towards cumulative theory-building. IFS is about unearthing why the structural power of finance takes a particularly violent form of expression in DEEs. To provide structure to IFS as a scholarly field, we first assess the contributions of IPE in analyzing various factors that reproduce IFS. To better ground these efforts in processes of accumulation and the histories of the relation between finance and (post)colonial development, we then offer a critical synthesis of three heterodox traditions—dependency theory, post-Keynesian economics, and Marxism. Next, we develop a pluridisciplinary research agenda organized around six analytical axes: the historical analysis of financial relations, the relations between financial and productive subordinations, the constitutive role of monetary relations as expressions of power, the role of the state, the actions and practices of non-state actors, and the spatial relations of financial subordination.
In thinking about alternatives to growth-based development, we draw attention to Mediterranean islands and the way they animate imaginaries and practices of a simple life. We follow Franco Cassano’s thesis of ‘Southern thought’ – a critique of Western developmentalism, prioritizing instead values of slowness, moderation and conviviality. These values are central to what Serge Latouche and others call ‘degrowth’. Drawing on fieldwork and ethnography from Ikaria and Gavdos, two remote islands in the Greek archipelago, we show how Southern thought, and forms of real-existing degrowth develop in relation to ‘islandness’ – a physical and cultural condition specific to small islands. Geography, historical contingency, and processes of myth-making combine to re-valorise what otherwise would be seen as ‘undeveloped’ places, thereby generating space for real-existing degrowth.
Designing policy for climate change requires analyses which integrate the interrelationship between the economy and the environment. We argue that, despite their dominance in the economics literature and influence in public discussion and policymaking, the methodology employed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) rests on flawed foundations, which become particularly relevant in relation to the realities of the immense risks and challenges of climate change, and the radical changes in our economies that a sound and effective response require. We identify a set of critical methodological problems with the IAMs which limit their usefulness and discuss the analytic foundations of an alternative approach that is more capable of providing insights into how best to manage the transition to net-zero emissions.
This article explores the significance of Jineolojî, an emancipatory praxis elaborated by the Kurdish Women’s Movement, for contemporary degrowth and pluriverse politics. Considering Jineolojî as the most original dimension of the Democratic Confederalist model of government in Northern and Eastern Syria (compared to other revolutionary projects), the article contributes to recent debates around the central place of “depatriarchization” in pluriverse debates. In the first part, we highlight a renewed interest in matriarchy, which has emerged at the intersection of ecofeminist with post-development and degrowth thought, noting how this resonates with the rediscovery of Mesopotamia’s matristic culture, which has been key to Democratic Confederalism and its radical critique of capitalist modernity and the nation State. We also highlight the inherent contradictions of the matristic model and formulate the question whether, and under what conditions, it bears potential for emancipatory political ecologies. The second part briefly describes the article’s sources and method, namely militant ethnography carried out with the Kurdish Women’s Movement, both in Rojava and in the European diaspora, cross-referenced with an analysis of some key texts of Jineolojî. The third part investigates the process by which the matristic perspective is being currently performed in Rojava through Jineolojî: a pedagogy for women’s self-defense, the autonomous re-appropriation of communalist and ecological praxis, and men’s liberation from hegemonic masculinity. We conclude that Jineolojî does not configure as a model of society to be recovered from a pre-patriarchal age, but as an original tool for liberating social potential towards gender, decolonial and ecological revolutions.
The world economy crucially depends on multi-layered value chains with high degrees of sector-related specialization. Its final products are of international character and serve the needs and wants of the global citizen. However, many production processes are causing severe damage to the environment and moreover create health hazard for workers and local populations. This research article focuses on the increasing global unequal economic- and ecological exchange, fundamentally embedded in international trade. Resource extraction and labor conditions in the Global South as well as the implications for climate change originating from industry emissions in the North are investigated with an agent-based model. The model serves as a testbed for simulation experiments with evolutionary political economic policies. An international institution is introduced sanctioning the polluting extractivist sector in the Global South as well as the emitting industrial capital good producers in the North with the aim of subsidizing innovation reducing environmental and social impacts. Both regions are modelled as macroeconomic complex adaptive systems where international trade is restricted to a three-sector value chain, originating from mining resources in the South that are traded to capital good producers in the North crafting machinery which is eventually traded to consumer good firms, both in the North and South. The main outcome of the study is that sanctions alone are not effective in countering unequal exchange. They only make a difference in combination with subsidies for innovation activities, which are protecting labor and reducing local pollution in mines as well as reducing carbon-emissions in capital good production.
In a recent edition of Globalizations, Hickel and Trainer discuss the degrowth and The Simpler Way movement in regard to the global South. This author contributes a different point of view to the discussion using the world-systems analysis and highlights that to have any successful movement able to address global challenges, the differences between the South and North in terms of economic and political systems must be considered. Many South countries have rentier oligarchic systems, which require Western researchers to be more cautious about what they propose in terms of transitions. Furthermore, an effective solution for global challenges must go beyond behavioural or national strategies and be structural at the global level. This author claims that complete economic and political independence of the South from the capitalist world-economy is the only solution that can address global environmental and inequality challenges and should be considered as a long-term vision by degrowth and the TSW movement.
The accumulation of new technological capabilities is of high empirical relevance, both for the development of countries and the business success of firms. This paper aims to delineate strategies for the consideration of processes of capability accumulation in comprehensive macroeconomic models. It comprises a methodological discussion about the preconditions for macroeconomic models to consider insights from the applied business literature, as well as an extensive review of the literature specialized on capability accumulation on the firm and aggregated level. In doing so, it summarizes evidence on various determinants and mechanisms of capability accumulation and aligns them with the current representation of capability accumulation in macroeconomic models. Based on these results, it offers some suggestions on how macroeconomists may integrate these determinants derived from the specialized literature into their models.
This paper considers the relationship between Samir Amin’s programme for delinking, smallholder agriculture, his theories of ecology, and the current of ecological dependency that developed out of North African dependency analysis. It argues that ecological forms of agriculture in fact underpinned the original case from which Amin derived delinking – the developmental model of Amin’s China. It goes on to show how collaborators and fellow travellers of Amin like Mohamed Dowidar, Fawzy Mansour and Slaheddine el-Amami advanced the case for smallholder-centred national development, and connects their investigations to Amin’s theoretical framework.
Degrowth can support urban sustainability, especially in the Global South. Degrowth and technological innovation have a controversial relationship, some believe they cannot function together, others believe they are supportive. This debate is evaluated and we posit that they are compatible if managed carefully with effective policies in place. We provide three technological cases from Egypt, where these cases are mapped to degrowth elements. This study is just an initial step in introducing the discourse; degrowth with environmental and social sustainability needs to be included on the map of policy makers. Policy implications include investment, awareness raising, education, and diffusion of technologies that can support degrowth.
Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.
Ecologically unequal exchange theory posits asymmetric net flows of biophysical resources from poorer to richer countries. To date, empirical evidence to support this theoretical notion as a systemic aspect of the global economy is largely lacking. Through environmentally-extended multi-regional input-output modelling, we provide empirical evidence for ecologically unequal exchange as a persistent feature of the global economy from 1990 to 2015. We identify the regions of origin and final consumption for four resource groups: materials, energy, land, and labor. By comparing the monetary exchange value of resources embodied in trade, we find significant international disparities in how resource provision is compensated. Value added per ton of raw material embodied in exports is 11 times higher in high-income countries than in those with the lowest income, and 28 times higher per unit of embodied labor. With the exception of embodied land for China and India, all other world regions serve as net exporters of all types of embodied resources to high-income countries across the 1990-2015 time period. On aggregate, ecologically unequal exchange allows high-income countries to simultaneously appropriate resources and to generate a monetary surplus through international trade. This has far-reaching implications for global sustainability and for the economic growth prospects of nations.
This paper presents a stock-flow consistent (SFC) macroeconomic simulation model for Canada. We use the model to generate three very different stories about the future of the Canadian economy, covering the half century from 2017 to 2067: a Base Case Scenario in which current trends and relationships are projected into the future, a Carbon Reduction Scenario in which measures are introduced specifically designed to reduce Canada's carbon emissions, and a Sustainable Prosperity Scenario which incorporates additional measures to improve environmental, social and financial conditions across society. The performance of the economy is tracked using two composite indicators constructed especially for this study: an environmental burden index (EBI) which describes the environmental performance of the model; and a composite sustainable prosperity index (SPI) which is based on a weighted average of seven economic, social and environmental performance indicators. Contrary to the widely accepted view, the results suggest that ‘green growth’ (in the Carbon Reduction Scenario) may be slower than ‘brown growth’. More importantly, we show (in the Sustainable Prosperity Scenario) that improved environmental and social outcomes are possible even as the growth rate declines to zero.
Recent research and policies recognize the importance of environmental defenders for global sustainability and emphasize their need for protection against violence and repression. However, effective support may benefit from a more systematic understanding of the underlying environmental conflicts, as well as from better knowledge on the factors that enable environmental defenders to mobilize successfully. We have created the global Environmental Justice Atlas to address this knowledge gap. Here we present a large-n analysis of 2743 cases that sheds light on the characteristics of environmental conflicts and the environmental defenders involved, as well as on successful mobilization strategies. We find that bottom-up mobilizations for more sustainable and socially just uses of the environment occur worldwide across all income groups, testifying to the global existence of various forms of grassroots environmentalism as a promising force for sustainability. Environmental defenders are frequently members of vulnerable groups who employ largely non-violent protest forms. In 11% of cases globally, they contributed to halt environmentally destructive and socially conflictive projects, defending the environment and livelihoods. Combining strategies of preventive mobilization, protest diversification and litigation can increase this success rate significantly to up to 27%. However, defenders face globally also high rates of criminalization (20% of cases), physical violence (18%), and assassinations (13%), which significantly increase when Indigenous people are involved. Our results call for targeted actions to enhance the conditions enabling successful mobilizations, and for specific support for Indigenous environmental defenders.
Through their synergies, trade-offs, and contradictions, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) have the potential to lead to environmental justices and injustices. Yet, environmental justice (EJ), and social justice more broadly, are not currently embedded within the language and spirit of the SDGs. We part from the premise that “many ‘environmental’ problems are, by their very nature, problems of justice” (Lele, Wiley Interdiscip Rev Water 4:e1224, 2017). We review progress in EJ frameworks in recent years, arguing for the need to move beyond a focus on the four principles of mainstream EJ (distribution, procedure, recognition, and capabilities) towards a more intersectional decolonial approach to environmental justice that recognises the indispensability of both humans and non-humans. EJ frameworks, and the SDGs should recognise power dynamics, complex interactions among injustices, and listens to the different ‘senses of justice’ and desires of theorists, activists, and other stakeholder from the Global South. We analyze how EJ frameworks are, or fail to be, incorporated in the SDGs with a focus on the food–water–health nexus (SDG2, 3, 6); climate-energy (SDG7, 13), conservation (SDG14, 15); and poverty and inequality (SDG1, 10). We call attention to the ‘elephant in the room’—the failure to go beyond GDP but instead include economic growth as a goal (SDG8). We argue that sustainable degrowth and intersectional decolonial environmental justices would create better conditions for the transformative changes needed to reach the broader aim of the SDGs: to leave no one behind.
Climate change and increasing income inequality have emerged as twin threats to contemporary standards of living, peace and democracy. These two problems are usually tackled separately in the policy agenda. A new breed of radical proposals have been advanced to manage a fair low-carbon transition. In this spirit, we develop a dynamic macrosimulation model to investigate the long-term effects of three scenarios: green growth, policies for social equity, and degrowth. The green growth scenario, based on technological progress and environmental policies, achieves a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of increasing income inequality and unemployment. The policies for social equity scenario adds direct labour market interventions that result in an environmental performance similar to green growth while improving social conditions at the cost of increasing public deficit. The degrowth scenario further adds a reduction in consumption and exports, and achieves a greater reduction in emissions and inequality with higher public deficit, despite the introduction of a wealth tax. We argue that new radical social policies can combine social prosperity and low-carbon emissions and are economically and politically feasible. A dynamic macrosimulation study of three scenarios finds that policies for social prosperity and low-carbon emissions are economically and politically feasible.
Meta‐analysis has become the conventional approach to synthesizing the results of empirical economics research. To further improve the transparency and replicability of the reported results and to raise the quality of meta‐analyses, the Meta‐Analysis of Economics Research Network has updated the reporting guidelines that were published by this Journal in 2013. Future meta‐analyses in economics will be expected to follow these updated guidelines or give valid reasons why a meta‐analysis should deviate from them.
This article introduces a novel (environmental) interpretation of a “Keynesian coordination game” and develops four potential scenarios to remaining within a global carbon emissions constraint. With inspiration from research on “ecologically unequal exchange” (EUE), we demonstrate the drawbacks of present “green growth” strategies by considering how pollution- and resource-intensive industries are distributed unevenly in the world economy, with large and increasing negative impacts on the periphery. The situation may only be exacerbated if the reduction of emissions in the center is based on shifting heavy industries and extractive enterprises to low-cost producers in the periphery. In this way, existing research likely overemphasizes the capacity of “green” investment policy to achieve sustainable outcomes. Our scenarios show that achieving global sustainability and improving global equity will require an impressive level of coordination between the center and periphery, as well as a significant reduction in the rate of growth (“degrowth”) in the center.
This paper analyses macroeconomic developments in the Eurozone since its inception in 1999. In doing so, we document a process of divergence and polarisation among those countries that joined the Eurozone during its first two years. We find evidence for a 'core-periphery' pattern among Eurozone countries, that is, however, marked by substantial heterogeneity within these two clusters. We show how the polarisation process underlying this pattern first manifested in increasing current account imbalances, before it translated unto the level of general macroeconomic development when the crisis hit. Empirically, we demonstrate how this macroeconomic divergence is tied to a 'structural polarisation' in terms of the sectoral composition of Eurozone countries; specifically, the emergence of export-driven growth in core countries and debt-driven growth in the Eurozone periphery can be traced back to differences in technological capabilities and firm performance. Pushing for convergence within Europe requires the implementation of industrial policies aiming at a technological catch-up process in periphery countries in combination with public investment and progressive redistributional policies to sustain adequate levels of aggregate demand in all Eurozone countries.
Globally there has been recognition that there is little consensus attributed to the definition of the blue economy. However, despite this acknowledgement, the blue economy is championed for its development potential by the African Union and subsequently, several African states. Having formalised the agenda in its fifth National Development Plan Namibia is working to implement a governance and management framework to “sustainably maximise benefits from marine resources” by 2020 (Republic of Namibia in Namibia’s 5th National Development Plan (NDP5) 2017). Concurrently, new entrants, such as marine mineral mining projects, have emerged in recognition of the potential offered within the state’s Exclusive Economic Zone. This article argues that the uptake of the blue economy is shaped by multiple, and often conflicting, interests. The emergence of the agenda is not apolitical, nor has it been established in isolation from exogenous actors and interests. Subsequently, this article suggests that the critique of the emerging blue economy should be applied to discussions of a blue degrowth movement, to avoid transposing a new agenda over another. As demonstrated with reference to Namibia, contextual and historical issues need to be recognised by degrowth discussions, and their inherent and continued structural effects analysed. This is of particular importance when considering whose voices are represented or excluded by such agendas, complicated by the (geo)physical characteristics of the marine sphere.
Climate policy has been mainly studied with economic models that assume representative, rational agents. Such policy aims, though, at changing carbon-intensive consumption and production patterns driven by bounded rationality and other-regarding preferences, such as status and imitation. To examine climate policy under such alternative behavioral assumptions, we develop a model tool by adapting an existing general-purpose macroeconomic multi-agent model. The resulting tool allows testing various climate policies in terms of combined climate and economic performance. The model is particularly suitable to address the distributional impacts of climate policies, not only because populations of many agents are included, but also as these are composed of different classes of households. The approach accounts for two types of innovations, which improve either the carbon or labor intensity of production. We simulate policy scenarios with distinct combinations of carbon taxation, a reduction of labor taxes, subsidies for green innovation, a price subsidy to consumers for less carbon-intensive products, and green government procurement. The results show pronounced differences with those obtained by rational-agent model studies. It turns out that a supply-oriented subsidy for green innovation, funded by the revenues of a carbon tax, results in a significant reduction of carbon emissions without causing negative effects on employment. On the contrary, demand-oriented subsidies for adopting greener technologies, funded in the same manner, result in either none or considerably less reduction of carbon emissions and may even lead to higher unemployment. Our study also contributes insight on a potential double dividend of shifting taxes from labor to carbon.
The expansion of industrial fishing via technological advancements and heavy subsidies in the Global North has been a significant factor leading to the current global fishery crisis. The growth of the industrial fleet led to an initial increase in global catches from the 1950s to the 1990s; yet, today, several marine fish stocks are harvested at unsustainable rates, and catches are stagnating. As a result, industrial fishers increase investments and fishing effort, reaching farther and deeper, while small-scale fishers face the threat of disappearance as both their catches and livelihoods worsen. The emergent international emphasis on Blue Growth is likely to put further pressure on marine capture fisheries. This paper explores how the growth imperative in the seas has manifested itself in Turkey since the 1970s and how industrial and small-scale fishers responded to this growth spiral in the seas. Based on participant observation methods and in-depth interviews, this paper problematizes the expanding boundaries of industrial fishers and examines the reactions of small-scale fishing cooperatives in Istanbul, in particular their proposed alternative economic model, as a response to the growth imperative. Overall, the paper demonstrates that the crisis that small-scale fishers are facing not only presents economic and ecological difficulties, but also represents an existential threat to the identity and traditional ways of life as a fisher. The strategies adopted by small-scale fishers in response to this crisis in Turkey, especially in Istanbul, are politicizing fishers as they open up new spaces, collaborations, and demands for environmental, social, and economic justice. However, their efforts constitute an ongoing process prone to numerous tensions and contradictions. This paper concludes that challenging the growth paradigm in fisheries via the Blue Degrowth framework can be useful for analyzing emerging alternative imaginaries to the growth-driven capitalist economic system among small-scale fishers.
Degrowth is establishing itself as a theory within the ecological and post-development scholarship. At the core of degrowth is a local-centric perspective, whereby small urban agglomerations are considered as the key actors of the political and economic system of an imagined post-consumerist and post-capitalist society. Degrowth proponents thus argue that the fundamental steps to achieve a truly democratic, socially just and ecological society should be taken at local level. However, in the degrowth theory a thorough debate about why the local level would be the most suitable spatial units to achieve degrowth is scarce. The importance of the small urban size appears to be axiomatic, rather than supported by substantive arguments. By engaging with non-mainstream strands of green political thought, this paper critically reflects upon the local-centred perspective at the core of the degrowth theory, identifying its main practical and theoretical shortcomings.
This study looks at a socio-environmental conflict over a tourism megaproject in the Benoa Bay in Bali, Indonesia. This conflict is interesting because it crystallizes key questions about the future of the island. Intriguingly, all the conflicting groups of actors mobilize the same philosophy of Tri Hita Karana (THK), which can be translated as the “three causes of well-being” and which is said to guide the development policies of the island. Our objective is to investigate how THK relates to the conflict and to what extent some of its interpretations are growth-critical. Using political ecology as a theoretical lens and qualitative methods, we find that the conflicting groups do not oppose each other through different languages of valuation, but within them. Likewise, THK is only superficially “one” idiom of valuation. In reality, THK covers different visions of development, depending on the actors involved. We identify three broad ways of interpreting THK in this conflict: (i) a marketable way, (ii) an equity-oriented way, and (iii) a radical-integral way, which bears similarities with post-growth views. This article is a contribution to the emerging debates on post-growth thinking from the “global South” and to the radical critique of tourism industry in developing regions.
A partir de la tesis de la crisis civilizatoria, el artículo pretende mostrar la necesidad de una complementariedad o fertilización cruzada entre “discursos de transición” del Sur y del Norte global con la matriz ideacional del desarrollo para viabilizar una transición socioecológica hacia la sustentabilidad. La experiencia del buen vivir como proyecto estatal de transformación social en Ecuador y Bolivia ha develado la falacia de dar respuestas autonomistas a una crisis que evidencia, como ninguna antes, las interdependencias globales. El artículo presenta un análisis de los potenciales y los límites de una articulación discursiva que ponga el foco en estas interdependencias, con base en el buen vivir, el decrecimiento y el desarrollo humano como discursos emblemáticos de transición en el Sur y en el Norte global, y del mainstream político liberal, respectivamente. El argumento se estructura a partir de las principales contribuciones y limitantes estructurales de cada uno de estos discursos, para promover una transición civilizatoria hacia una trayectoria de (pos)desarrollo global socioecológicamente sustentable. A pesar del fracaso del buen vivir como programa político para una “Gran Transición“, el análisis destaca su potencial de transformación cultural, implícito en el ideario y la práctica de mundos ecoconvivales alternativos a escala macrosocial. Los puntos ciegos del discurso del buen vivir —es decir, las interdependencias geoeconómicas derivadas de una matriz de producción y consumo globalizada, que no es generalizable— constituyen la preocupación principal de los discursos del decrecimiento. Estos últimos, sin embargo, carecen de tracción política y cultural para implementar los cambios previstos. Así, el círculo sinérgico se cierra en el análisis del potencial de fecundación que tienen el buen vivir y el decrecimiento sobre el ideario político-cultural del desarrollo humano, como es articulado por el Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (pnud), basado en Amartya Sen y Martha Nussbaum, para transformar el discurso político como precondición para una transformación fundamental de la práctica política. Con este análisis de potenciales sinergias discursivas interculturales, el artículo pretende, a su vez, ofrecer nuevas perspectivas a una sociología comprometida con la crítica y la transición socioecológica a la sustentabilidad en tiempos de crisis ambiental global.
This short conceptual article seeks to integrate world-systems theory and degrowth. It suggests that an ecological rendering of world-systems theory can clarify some of the most important quandaries of the degrowth movement in regards to global justice, decolonialism, the excessive material throughput of the Global North, and globalization. The article reframes these concerns from a world-systems framework that recognizes global hierarchies, imperialism, and dependencies, issues that the degrowth movement as a whole has failed to sufficiently address. It argues that while degrowth has made some progress in conceptualizing the kinds of changes that would be necessary for a more sustainable and just global economy, further proposals and research into deeper, world-systemic changes are necessary.
Answering the call in this special issue to spatialise degrowth studies beyond the Global North, this paper examines practices of ‘park-making’ in Chennai and Metro Manila as a potential degrowth pathway. Parks in the coastal mega cities of Metro Manila and Chennai can be seen as relics of a colonial era, and spaces coherent with capitalist, growth-oriented and consumerist logics. At the same time, however, they become spaces that prefigure alternative ways of organising social life in the city based upon values of conviviality, care and sharing. Using qualitative methods of analysis, this paper examines what practices people engage with to satisfy their everyday needs in parks, but also the dynamics of exclusion and contestation that play out in these spaces. In doing so, we evaluate when and under what conditions park-making supports practices of de-growth and commoning beyond consumerist culture. Both commoning and uncommoning practices are detailed, revealing the role of provisioning systems that lead to the satisfaction of needs for some at the expense of others. Further, writing from cities that are highly unequal, and where the basic needs of many are yet to be met, we assert that understanding how degrowth manifests in these contexts can only be revealed through a situated urban political ecology approach. Spatialising degrowth in cities of the Global South should start with a focus on everyday practices, study power relationally and explore the scope for a radical incrementalism.
This paper explores how subordinated financialisation occurs through uneven environmental transformations on a global scale, thereby revealing a political ecology of finance-dominated capitalism. Rather than depicting financialisation as a detachment of profits and power from the ‘real’ economy, this paper argues that financial accumulation arises from co-dependent and hierarchical monetary, productive and environmental relations. In particular, we outline how Peripheral subordination is connected to the reorganisation of global value production (‘offshoring’) and the intensification and expansion of capital to new frontiers of resource extraction (‘commodity frontiers’). These patterns form a ‘financialisation-offshoring-commodity frontier’ nexus, a self-reinforcing institutional arrangement that guarantees new possibilities for capital accumulation within the Core of the world-system, while accentuating the Periphery’s vulnerability to financial instability, uneven development and ecological degradation. This suggests that addressing Core–Periphery structural imbalances and systemic ecological risks requires a major overhaul of the international monetary and financial system, in a way that may nevertheless limit capital accumulation and GDP growth in Core economies.
Degrowth has become a major topic of interdisciplinary scholarship and practice that critiques the ideology of growth, reimagining social and economic relations and measures of well-being outside economic rationality. While the movement engages with gender politics peripherally in coalition with feminist schools of thought and activist groups, e.g., the feminisms and degrowth alliance, I argue the politics of gender, race, and labor are fundamentally tied to the development of a modern capitalist global system and therefore must be central in the understanding and praxis of non-capitalist alternatives. In this article, I examine how a decolonial feminist approach can address this condition by challenging the epistemes and ontologies that constitute modern colonial systems of power and furthering plural understandings and practices of being, seeing, and knowing across the North-South divide. By engaging in decolonial feminist praxis, degrowth stands to better address, dislodge, and reimagine the elements and relations that maintain an ideology of growth, building instead towards a stronger coalition across movements that encourages socially just and ecologically sustainable futures.
This paper addresses the question of how to organize care in degrowth societies that call for social and ecological sustainability, as well as gender and environmental justice, without prioritizing one over the other. By building on degrowth scholarship, feminist economics, the commons, and decolonial feminisms, we rebut the strategy of shifting yet more unpaid care work to the monetized economy, thereby reinforcing the separation structure in economics. A feminist degrowth imaginary implies destabilizing prevalent dichotomies and overcoming the (inherent hierarchization in the) boundary between the monetized economy and the invisibilized economy of socio-ecological provisioning. The paper proposes an incremental, emancipatory decommodification and a commonization of care in a sphere beyond the public/private divide, namely the sphere of communitarian and transformative caring commons, as they persist at the margins of capitalism and are (re-)created by social movements around the world.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda rests on both economic growth and Inclusive Development (ID). However, since growth is entangled with socio-ecological exploitation and appropriation, it conflicts with ID where ‘inclusive’ encompasses social, ecological and relational dimensions, and fundamentally redefines ‘development’. Using Toulmin’s argumentative model, we show that: (a) inclusive green growth does not promote socio-ecological inclusion and ignores relational inclusion, as economic growth cannot be optimized towards those broader aims; (b) policies for inclusion through pro-poor ‘access’ without ‘re-allocation’ of resources are self-defeating, as inequitable allocation of wealth and of a limited environmental utilization space impoverishes the poor and transfers ecological risks to them; (c) ‘re-allocation’ requires a post-growth agenda involving a downscaling of overconsumption and overaccumulation by the global Centers, and a redefinition of development by the Peripheries; and (d) such an agenda is obstructed by the unequal distribution of wealth and political power. The only way forward is when science and social movements converge to demand system change on the streets and in the courts.
In this article, we study the effects of industrial policies on international convergence using a multicountry agent-based model which builds upon Dosi et al. (2019b, J. Econ. Dyn. Control, 101, 101–129). The model features a group of microfounded economies, with evolving industries, populated by heterogeneous firms that compete in international markets. In each country, technological change is driven by firms’ activities of search and innovation, while aggregate demand formation and distribution follow Keynesian dynamics. Interactions among countries take place via trade flows and international technological imitation. We employ the model to assess the different strategies that laggard countries can adopt to catch up with leaders: market-friendly policies; industrial policies targeting the development of firms’ capabilities and R&D investments, as well as trade restrictions for infant industry protection; protectionist policies focusing on tariffs only. We find that markets cannot do the magic: in absence of government interventions, laggards will continue to fall behind. On the contrary, industrial policies can successfully drive international convergence among leaders and laggards, while protectionism alone is not sufficient to support catching up and countries get stuck in a sort of middle-income trap. Finally, in a global trade war, where developed economies impose retaliatory tariffs, both laggards and leaders are worse off and world productivity growth slows down.
Addressing ecological crises such as climate change within the current International Monetary System (IMS) will likely be impossible. International monetary relations are built upon a hierarchy between currencies, which generates structural Core-Periphery imbalances and prevents Peripheral countries from attracting the long-term investments necessary for an ecological transition. While propositions have emerged to reform the IMS in order to address both global imbalances and ecological crises, they typically approach these issues as separate phenomena. In contrast, this paper develops a political ecology of global imbalances to explore how currency hierarchies are constituted and maintained through ecological hierarchies: monetary dominance depends upon the continuous and uneven flow of resources from Peripheral to Core countries. This connection between monetary and ecological hierarchies is particularly visible through the Chimerica relationship, which linked the international dominance of the US dollar to China’s coal-powered development. While China is now transitioning away from its Peripheral status by seeking to reconfigure currency and ecological hierarchies to support its own resource-intensive growth, this trend also increases the likelihood of systemic ecological crises. This suggests that the quest for a balanced and green IMS requires a dramatic shift away from the Core-driven imperial modes of production, consumption and living.
According to the neoliberal narratives, opening up to the world system has deformed the structure of the Chinese economy, thereby passively serving the needs of the centre. In his works, Samir Amin offers the theoretical basis to demystify such narratives. However, he only cursorily analysed the specific policies through which China has achieved the goal of subordinating the domestic market to the logic of internal development. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the strategy adopted by the Chinese authorities, which allowed the country to integrate itself into global relations without abandoning its strategy of delinking from imperialism.
Among other aims, degrowth calls for a deprioritization of economic growth as primary indicator of success. However, deprioritizing economic growth is challenging because it is the antithesis of business as we know it today. Yet, in this study, we find examples of enterprises operating in the renewable energy industry in the Global South, which deprioritize traditional economic growth as their preferred indicator of success. We interviewed 30 renewable energy enterprises (REEs) on the basis of an importance-performance analysis (IPA). Our findings confirm that conventional measures of financial performance are not universally applicable to all enterprises in the Global South. Specifically, we observed that the REEs that are least satisfied with conventional economic performance indicators possess two characteristics in common: (1) they have strong social motivations (e.g., energy access and poverty alleviation) and (2) they are averse to economic growth in the traditional sense. We draw insights from these REEs for the future of post-growth enterprise, including the importance of localness in success and performance appraisal as the Global South transitions toward degrowth. We also introduce 14 alternative performance indicators, suggested by the REEs themselves, which may help bring enterprises closer to post-growth orientation in the Global South.
This contribution shows that a relevant curtailment of carbon emissions results from productivity-led working time reduction, i.e. increases in labour productivity converted into less working time. However, the interaction between working time reduction and GDP can constrain the achievement of emission reductions. To explore these interactions, we apply Eurogreen, a dynamic macro-simulation model, to France and compare three different scenarios: i. Working Time Reduction converts increases in labour productivity into more time affluence; ii. Global Working Time Reduction explores the effects on exports when working time reduction occurs also abroad; iii. Constrained Working Time Reduction additionally examines the impact of a binding fiscal rule. We find that the greater the performance in terms of emission reduction, the smaller the improvement in employment. Moreover, under working time reduction, changes in the sensitivity of wage to productivity growth affect the relationship between distribution and emission. The benefits in emissions reduction are still significant while the labour share increases with respect to the baseline.
This article evaluates the relevance of dependency theory for understanding contemporary development challenges, especially in the light of changes in the global economy over the past 50 years. In order to do so, the article rectifies previous misunderstandings of the scholarship and offers a new definition of dependency theory as a research programme, rather than a singular theory. Four core tenets of this research programme are identified: a global historical approach; theorizing of the polarizing tendencies of global capitalism; a focus on structures of production; and a focus on the specific constraints faced by peripheral economies. While each of these elements can be found in many contemporary theories, what makes dependency theory unique — and a particularly strong research programme — is the combination of these elements. The article demonstrates how this approach provides a deep and broad understanding that is necessary to appreciate the persistence of uneven development with reference to two case studies, namely successful industrialization in South Korea, and how the fragmentation of global value chains has impacted industrialization in Indonesia. Finally, the article argues that approaching these kinds of cases through a dependency research programme can contribute to a fruitful renewal of development studies.
Research by ecological economists on degrowth is a flourishing field. Existing research has focused on limits to (green) growth and on economic alternatives for prospering without growth. Future research, we argue here, should pay more attention to, and be written, from the “margins” – that is from the point of view of those marginalized in the growth economy. We conduct a comprehensive systematic review of the prevalent themes in the existing literature on the ecological economics of degrowth, and its engagements with North-South relations and gender issues. The analysis identifies seven research areas where ecological economics can better integrate these matters, namely: the study of post-growth policies for the Global South; the unequal exchanges that sustain an imperial mode of living; the deconstruction of ecological economic concepts that reproduce problematic Western or gendered assumptions; the study of the clash of metabolisms in peripheries of the Global South; the metabolism of care-work in growth economies; the leading role of women in ecological distribution conflicts, and the reproduction of gender inequalities in alternative post-growth spaces. We propose that ecological economics should welcome more contributions from critical feminist scholarship and scholars from the Global South.
This paper addresses a gap in degrowth scholarship: the lack of a theory of the state. Those who write about degrowth advocate radical policy and social change, but have no model to explain how, why and under what conditions such change could come about and what role the state would play in it. This is because they have no theory of what the state is, or when and why it changes. We review for the first time the Anglophone and Francophone literatures on state and degrowth and find both wanting. We propose a Gramscian theory of the state suitable for thinking about degrowth and show with the example of strategizing for a maximum income policy how this suits the degrowth literature’s emphasis on a combination of grassroots and institutional actions.
Samir Amin was a towering figure of radical political economy - known globally, but particularly recognized and appreciated in Africa. When Amin passed away on August 12th, 2018, the outpouring of grief in the form of the plentiful obituaries was moving. Notable in the many obituaries was the consistent reference to Amin’s infectious commitment and energy. He was a socialist from an early age and was concerned with responding to and building emancipatory social movements throughout his life. This shone through in his research as well, which dealt with questions of persistent global inequalities and why capitalism’s penetration to the Third World led to economic polarization globally and underdevelopment in the periphery. Few scholars oppose disciplinary conventions and boundaries the way that Samir Amin did. He was an economist, but he opposed the mainstream of the field. He was a Marxist, but he was deeply critical of many of his Marxist contemporaries. Though he coined the term Eurocentrism and thereby contributed in important ways to post-colonial literature, he did believe that there were universal material truths, such as the law of value. While he was unwavering in his independent beliefs about what was right, he was incredibly open and spent large parts of his life building inclusive and radical scholarly and activist communities that will live on after his passing. As will his theoretical contributions to the social sciences and humanities. When evaluating Amin’s legacy, it’s important to discuss his activism and intellectual contributions alongside each other. He achieved more than most activists and academics in both spheres, but the combination is what sets him apart.
Tourism is a booming global industry, seemingly at odds with a degrowth movement seeking to challenge the profit-maximizing model embedded in capitalist expansion. However, the tourism industry is not a homogenous entity, but is instead characterized by diverse forms of distinct tourisms. In Ecuador, the Kichwa Añangu Community has chosen to dedicate their livelihood to community-owned tourism. Añangu owns and operates two lodges, whose management and oversight are administered through communal governance. As a result, tourism is locally embraced as a vehicle for livelihood wellbeing, cultural reclamation, and environmental stewardship. Community-owned tourism will not provide a cure-all answer to the critiques levied against tourism or to the vulnerabilities inherent in the practice of tourism. However, Añangu’s project offers a compelling case study for considering how certain tourisms could become a vehicle for developing a localized degrowth society. The Añangu have decentralized the value placed upon profit in the practice of tourism, replacing it with Kichwa forms of communal organizing guided by their goal for Sumak Kawsay, or the “good life.” For the Añangu, the sustainability of their project cannot be separated from its economic viability, however, success is also measured by how tourism contributes to a number of community-defined goals.