OAFP 9495 - Between Welfare and Climate: the Politics of Eco-social Policymaking

As the ecological crisis intensifies and governments across the world race to advance on a green transition, new social risks are rapidly emerging, including extreme weather events that damage assets and livelihoods, job losses in decarbonizing industries, and rising energy and transport poverty. These challenges highlight the growing need to integrate welfare and environmental institutions through so-called eco-social policies, public policies that aim to prevent or compensate for these new risks through measures like public services or income support. This course explores how eco-social policies take shape within the democratic policymaking process. It starts from the context of growing risks and then examines how citizens' attitudes and voting behaviours influence policy choices. Afterwards, it sheds a light on how institutional legacies (namely eco state and welfare state regimes) can constrain or enable policy changes, as well as on how actors (particularly political parties and organized interest groups) conflict and cooperate to advance their preferences. The course aims to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of the policymaking process in this emerging field of public policy. It does so by building a bridge between classic theories of welfare state and environmental governance, while also engaging with concrete cases of eco-social policymaking in Europe coming from the literature and from the experience of policymakers who will be invited to discuss with the class.

Matteo MANDELLI

Enseignement électif

English

Students should be familiar with the fundamentals of policy-making and comparative politics before taking this class. Preliminary knowledge of welfare state theories, environmental policy, and European Union (EU) studies will be helpful, though not strictly required.

Spring 2025-2026

- 1 paper: students will work in small groups to produce a final paper. Each group will select one eco-social policy area and choose an empirical case study within that area. They will then conduct exploratory desk research on a specific dimension of the policymaking process (policy design; risk mapping; institutional arrangements; public opinion and behaviour; or the role of political parties and interest groups) (60%) - 1 interactive group presentation of the (draft) final paper (20%) - 1 short individual oral presentation and discussion of an assigned reading (10%) - Active engagement during the semester and especially during the session with invited European policymakers and stakeholders (10%)

The course will begin with a series of introductory lectures to unpack the key dimensions of eco-social policymaking. These sessions will be highly interactive, combining short inputs from the instructor with group discussions of the readings and guided conversations to support students in developing their final papers. This will be followed by a dedicated session featuring representatives from EU institutions and civil society organizations, who will share their firsthand experience with eco-social policymaking. The final part of the course will consist of students presenting their draft final papers, providing an opportunity for feedback and collective learning.