Climate Change and the Endurance of Democracy

This book explores the challenges climate change poses to the endurance of democracy, situating this theme within the context of the decline in global freedom documented since the early 21st century. It discusses how disaster events have historically affected human reasoning and agency, and how the climate crisis is likely to influence democratic development in the future.

Climate extreme events can provide opportunities for autocratic leaders to curtail rights and freedoms, but they can also create critical junctures where the social and political discourse within society is reshaped, and where incumbent regimes are contested. The book illustrates how climate change may generate food insecurity, economic recessions, and deepen socioeconomic inequalities. These effects may contribute to democratic backsliding but can also create new conditions for social mobilization. The democratic consequences of climate change are thus not primarily determined by the forces of nature, but by human responses and the social, economic, and political conditions of the affected country. In the long-term perspective, however, climate change will have several negative effects on democratic stability. The book concludes that for human freedom and democracy to endure, modern society needs to be brought into balance with nature.

This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate governance, environmental politics, energy policy and global development.

Daniel Lindvall has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Stockholm University and is a Senior Researcher at the Climate Change Leadership Initiative at the Department of Earth Sciences in Uppsala University. His research mostly focuses on the interrelation between climate change and democracy, but he is also conducting research climate governance, just transition, climate policy acceptance, and energy policies, with a particular focus on energy democracy and energy justice. He is involved in a research project on fair transition and on wicked problem governance, comparing science-policy interaction in climate and Covid-19 governance.

Lindvall has worked in the Swedish government offices for several years and has severed as a Deputy Director at the unit for Democratic Affairs. He was the principal inquiry secretary for the Swedish Government’s Democracy Commission from 2014 to 2016, and for three additional governmental inquires. He has moreover worked as an advisor in different international organizations, such as the Office of the High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union Police Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has previously published books in Swedish, such as Folkstyret i rädslans tid and Upphettning: Demokratin i klimatkrisens tid. He has published a chapter in Democracy in a Hotter Time, edited by David Orr, as well as several articles in various journals and newspapers.