Skip to content

Special Issue on Accountability in Earth System Governance

The analytical problem of Accountability in Earth System Governance stands at the centre of a special issue of Ecological Economics (Vol. 70, Nr. 11), edited by Frank Biermann and Aarti Gupta.

This special section of Ecological Economics focuses on the analytical challenge of accountability, legitimacy and the democratic quality of earth system governance. It is intended to be a first comprehensive attempt to bring a variety of perspectives to bear on questions of accountability and legitimacy, which are still comparatively under-analysed in global change and governance literatures.

The first article by Frank Biermann and Aarti Gupta lays out a research agenda for analysis of accountability and legitimacy of earth system governance, drawing also on the contributions to the remainder of the special section.

This introductory contribution is followed by in-depth analysis of deliberative democracy and its relationship to earth system governance by John S. Dryzek and Hayley Stevenson (An earlier version of this article has been published in the Earth System Governance Working Paper Series). The role for global administrative law in securing more accountable and legitimate earth system governance is the topic of the contribution by Francesca Spagnuolo, and the complex inter-linkages between transparency, accountability and effectiveness of multilevel environmental governance arrangements are addressed in the contribution by Ronald B. Mitchell.

These conceptual contributions are complemented by analyses of accountability and legitimacy challenges in a broad array of public and private governance arrangements in specific issue-areas, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (Greetje Schouten and Pieter Glasbergen); the new climate mitigation mechanism of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) (Markus Lederer, and G Kristin Rosendal and Steinar Andresen); and transnational public–private partnerships as a tool of water governance (Eleni Dellas).

This Special Issue with Ecological Economics is the fourth special issue developing the research agenda of the Earth System Governance Project as outlined in its Science and Implementation Plan. Previous special issues are:

 

More articles

Science-policy interfaces for transformative change? Insights from the PBL innovative session at the 2023 Earth System Governance conference
2023 RadboudBlog
Science-policy interfaces for transformative change? Insights from the PBL innovative session at the 2023 Earth System Governance conference

Science-policy interfaces for transformative change? Insights from our innovative session at the Earth System Governance conference…

Become part of the reviewer pool of the Earth System Governance journal!
News
Become part of the reviewer pool of the Earth System Governance journal!

The Earth System Governance journal is looking for reviewers! The Earth System Governance (ESG) journal is…

The 2023 Radboud Conference - Key figures, session recordings and photos
2023 RadboudAnnual ConferenceNews
The 2023 Radboud Conference – Key figures, session recordings and photos

From the 22-27th October 2023, the Radboud Conference on Earth System Governance took place in Nijmegen,…