ERC Starting Grant Project

While research suggests that opposition to climate mitigation is often driven by economic concerns, we have little systematic knowledge of how decarbonization is actually imagined as a socio-economic transition, nor do we know about the economic images, symbols, narratives and assumptions underlying such visions and fears.

REIMAGINE brings economic sociology’s recent interest in economic imaginaries and imagined futures to the study of climate (in)action. Its overall aim is to comparatively analyze and theorize how economic imagination fuels conflicts, frictions and impasses of decarbonization in Europe. A novel theoretical framework centers on social imaginaries of the economy, a concept describing shared representations of what the economy is and ought to be. It allows capturing and comparing economic imagination related to decarbonization, but can also explain enduring contestation with reference to dissonant economic imagination: visions of decarbonization that convey contrasting understandings of the economy restrict resonance between positions, make it hard to form coalitions or even recognize mutual interests.

Substantiating this framework, an ambitious mixed method analysis explores decarbonization controversies within and across five EU societies (Ireland, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Spain). We will a) analyze media discourses and imagery to understand national frictions and develop a typology of decarbonization imaginaries; b) guided by visual prompts, interview local and national representatives from business, administration and climate initiatives to understand how economic imagination plays into conflicts of implementing decarbonization; c) apply correspondence analysis to interview results to chart major European fault lines and surprising coalitions.

Overall, the project advances our interdisciplinary understanding of decarbonization and reveals challenges to a common European mitigation strategy.