Call for Papers

We invite papers and panels that address institutional frameworks and actors implicated in earth system governance and how they resist or respond to changes over time and the implications of their strategies for planetary integrity. Core questions include: 

• How are institutions governing different environmental issues influenced by complex global networks across sectors, scales and decision-making arenas?
• What are the implications for earth system governance of growing diversities and power disparities among agents?
• What forms of architecture and agency are most effective in earth system governance across scales?
• How, why and with what implications are shifts in authority and power in earth system governance occurring?
• How does shifting geopolitics reshape current and future architecture and agency of earth system governance such as multilateral institutions?
• What changes and new developments of architecture and agency are urgently needed in earth system governance to accelerate just transitions? 

We invite papers and panels that address how old and new conceptions of democracy (including its key element such as accountability, legitimacy and transparency) and power can make sense of, and craft responses to, trends in collective problem-solving in earth system governance as well to challenges to democracy and rise of authoritarianism and populism. Core questions include: 

• What is the nature of the relationship between democracy and sustainability in earth system governance?
• To what extent the Anthropocene exacerbate existing power inequalities or create new opportunities for the legitimate exercise of power?
• How do power asymmetries among different actors affect governance of different environmental issues and across multiple scales?
• What types of institutional arrangements and collective actions can foster building of just and sustainable futures?

We invite papers and panels that normatively or empirically address justice, and allocation of resources, rights, and access in earth system governance. Core questions include: 

• How new demands for justice and equitable allocation can emerge in the context of profound transformations of the earth system?
• What types of steering have been effective towards more sustainable approaches to environmental rights and duties?
• Who bears the costs and benefits of sustainability transitions and how are rights and livelihoods of different stakeholders affected?
• How can rights of different subjects (including non-human species) contribute to just transformations?
• What kind of trade-offs we can identify between different dimensions of justice and allocation in earth system governance?
• How can different actors better embed justice in earth system governance in the acceleration of sustainability transition? 

We invite papers and panels that address how to govern proliferating anticipation processes that seek to imagine and govern future sustainability challenges, as well as how anticipation and imagination themselves become sites of politics and influence governance outcomes. Core questions include: 

• How processes of anticipation and imagination in earth system governance are governed?
• To what extent are ongoing processes of anticipation and imagination legitimate and inclusive for different types of stakeholders?
• Under what conditions processes of anticipation and imagination can shape efforts to steer societies towards sustainable and just futures?
• How existing processes of anticipation and imagination are impacted by shifting geopolitics?
• How policymakers and other stakeholders can better incorporate anticipation and imagination in earth system governance to build sustainable and just futures? 

We invite papers and panels that address how societies can navigate change towards global sustainability in adaptive and reflexive ways. Core questions include: 

• How can adaptiveness and reflexivity as qualities of earth system governance be assessed and compared?
• What kind of governance attributes (e.g., polycentricity or centralization, market or hybrid, flexibility, or stability) are best suited to cultivating adaptiveness and reflexivity?
• Which factors enhance or hinder adaptiveness and reflexivity across diverse cultural and economic contexts?
• How shifting sociopolitical environment around the world impact adaptiveness and reflexivity in earth system governance?
• How can adaptiveness and reflexivity help reform of earth system governance for the acceleration of just transitions towards sustainability? 

We invite papers and panels that present forward-looking assessments of emerging trends in earth system governance and solutions to future global challenges, building analysis and reflections of existing gaps and combining different disciplinary perspectives. Core questions include: 

• How have the contextual conditions of earth system governance changed over the past decade and what new, pressing problems have emerged?
• What are gaps in the analytical lenses of the Earth System Governance project’s current Science and Implementation Plan?
• What new concepts and theories are useful in understanding and reforming earth system governance?
• What lessons can be learned from earth system governance research and practice over the past two decades and how might these lessons lead to the design of more effective and just solutions to global sustainability in the coming decade? 

We invite submissions of abstracts of up to 300 words that address one or more of the six conference streams. All abstracts will be anonymized and evaluated in double-blind peer-review by generally 3-4 members of our conference review panel. Please submit you abstracts through the Conference Portal. Accepted papers will be grouped into panels consisting of around 5 papers addressing similar topics. During each panel, paper authors will first present their papers and other participants will then have opportunities to ask questions in group or bilaterally. A chair will be assigned to each panel, and we encourage early-career researchers to volunteer to chair panels. 

We also invite panel proposals that address one or more of the six conference streams. Panel proposals will initially be reviewed in their entirety based on the quality of individual papers and coherence of the whole panel. Successful panels will be featured in the conference programme and may receive comments for improving individual paper inputs. Abstracts that are part of unsuccessful panel proposals can be reviewed individually by conference organizers; when successful, they will be featured in other panels.

Full panel proposals, including all individual papers of the panel, can be submitted jointly through the Conference Portal. Panel proposals must include a description of the panel (maximum 300 words), 4-6 abstracts (each up to 300 words), as well as the name of a chair and a discussant (discussants may be scholars, practitioners, or other experts). Please note that all paper abstracts should be submitted together with the panel and not separately.

We also welcome proposals for non-traditional sessions with more interactions with participants, such as roundtables with non-academics, world cafés, policy games, speed mentoring, book seminars, and exhibitions of non-traditional research outputs (such as documentaries, photos and other mediums). We particularly encourage scholars keen to promote South-South dialogue to apply for innovative sessions. Innovative sessions are assigned 90-minute time slots.

All Innovative Sessions are submitted through the Conference Portal. Proposals should include a description of the session (maximum 300 words) explaining the session’s theme and its innovative aspects and list the organizers and prospective participants. Innovative Session proposals will be reviewed by the conference organizing committee.