1st Edition
Pioneers, Leaders and Followers in Multilevel and Polycentric Climate Governance
Pioneers, Leaders and Followers in Multilevel and Polycentric Climate Governance focuses on pioneers, leaders and followers as central drivers for international climate change governance innovations.
A burgeoning literature has identified pioneers and leaders as central drivers for international climate change governance innovations. A wide range of actors (such as international organisations, the European Union, NGOs, corporations and cities) have been identified as potential and actual climate pioneers and/or leaders. Despite this, much of the academic debate is still largely focused on states. To address this research gap, this volume focuses primarily on non-state actors in different multilevel and polycentric governance structures. The chapters offer a critical analysis of the different types of actors (e.g. the EU, corporate actors, NGOs and cities) who can act as pioneers and/or leaders at different levels of climate governance (including the international, supranational, regional, national and local) encompassing non-state and state actors. The volume provides a clear conceptualisation of pioneers, leaders and followers while assessing their motives, capacities, styles and strategies. It examines critically the dynamic interrelationship between leaders and pioneers on the one hand, and followers and laggards on the other. Moreover, it analyses how multilevel and polycentric climate governance structures enable and/or constrain climate pioneers, leaders and followers.
This volume will be of great use to scholars of environmental governance, climate change, and international governance. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in Environmental Politics.
1. Pioneers, leaders and followers in multilevel and polycentric climate governance
Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel, Duncan Liefferink and Diarmuid Torney
2. Leadership and lesson-drawing in the European Union’s multilevel climate governance system
Martin Jänicke and Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel
3. Environmental, climate and social leadership of small enterprises: Fairphone’s step-by-step approach
Katja Biedenkopf, Sarah Van Eynde and Kris Bachus
4. Climate pushers or symbolic leaders? The limits to corporate climate leadership by food retailers
Johann Dupuis and Remi Schweizer
5. The oil and gas sector: from climate laggard to climate leader?
Matthew Bach
6. Oil and power industries’ responses to EU emissions trading: laggards or low-carbon leaders?
Per Ove Eikeland and Jon Birger Skjærseth
7. Cities as leaders in EU multilevel climate governance: embedded upscaling of local experiments in Europe
Kristine Kern
8. Climate pioneership and leadership in structurally disadvantaged maritime port cities
Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel, Jeremy F.G. Moulton, Winfried Osthorst, Linda Mederake, Pauline Deutz and Andrew E.G. Jonas
9. Follow the leader? Conceptualising the relationship between leaders and followers in polycentric climate governance
Diarmuid Torney
Biography
Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel is Professor of Comparative European Politics and Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Studies at the University of Hull, UK, where he is Director of the Centre for European Union Studies (CEUS).
Duncan Liefferink is Assistant Professor in the Environmental Governance and Politics group, Institute for Management Research, at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Diarmuid Torney is Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University, Ireland.
