CEPEL

Thematic cluster 2 - Environment

The environment cluster is a continuation of the innovative "sustainable development" cluster initiated during the previous five-year period. It intends to extend the work carried out in this area, building on the various research contracts obtained in 2017 and 2018, while developing new projects. The environment has long been a subject of little legitimacy in French political science, with the exception of a few notable works, including those by Pierre Lascoumes. Environmental analyses were mainly developed in laboratories focusing on scienceand technology studies(LISIS), environmental sciences or in geography laboratories importing critical American environmental approaches. Although there has been a sharp increase in the number of theses defended in recent years - suggesting a change in this field - political science researchers specializing in the environment are still few in number - often attached to technical schools (AgroparisTech) when they are teacher-researchers - and scattered across different laboratories.The Montpellier site has historically developed strong expertise in the fields of agriculture-food and the environment, thanks to the presence of EPSTs such as INRA, CIRAD, IRSTEA, IRD, IRC, etc., and Grandes Écoles in this field, and Grandes Écoles in this field (SupAgro Montpellier, AgroParisTech, etc.), France's largest ecology research laboratory - the CEFE - with an international reputation, which in 2019 will enable the University of Montpellier to achieve the top ranking in ecology in the Shanghai ranking. This vast research ecosystem is grouped together in the Pôle Agropolis, is supported by the Agropolis International Foundation and is also home to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Initially focused on engineering sciences (agronomy, hydrology, ecology, etc.) or economics, the EPSTs of the Agropolis cluster have gradually developed work in the social sciences, and in recent years have recruited researchers in political science or political sociology (mainly CIRAD and IRSTEA). CEPEL's new environment focus will build on the various research partnerships developed with these researchers during the previous five-year period. These partnerships include political scientists and sociologists from CIRAD (UMR Art-Dev and MOISA), IRSTEA (UMR G-eau) and researchers (geographers and economists) from INRA (UMR Innovation, in which Laura Michel is an associate researcher), many of whom are already involved in scientific projects with CEPEL. The aim of CEPEL's new "environment" project is to build on this momentum, to federate a community of researchers within the framework of joint research programs and scientific events, and to attract new social science researchers specializing in the environment (CNRS applications, PhDs or post-docs). This project is in line with the policy of the I-Site MUSE - Montpellier Université d'excellence, contributing to two of its 3 axes - " Feed " (agriculture and food) and "Protect" (environment) - as well as to their intersection. This axis develops a political sociology perspective on subjects considered technical and therefore little addressed by political science: the environmental stakes of agricultural and industrial policies, water management, coastal risks, etc. It questions the government of environmental criticism, which will also be the subject of an HDR dissertation to be defended during this five-year period (Laura Michel).A first sub-axis tackles this question from a cross-disciplinary perspective (environmental democracy, behaviors and opinions). A second sub-axis looks at the potential for transformation of sectoral policies (agriculture, industry, etc.) under the impact of environmental criticism. A final sub-area looks at the territorialization of public responses to environmental issues.

Environmental democracy, attitudes and opinions

The first set of projects is cross-disciplinary in scope. A subset will focus on environmental democracy, following on from earlier work on the spread of the participatory norm in the environmental field. The focus will be on the limits currently encountered by its extension, and even the phenomena of regression under the combined effect of three independent dynamics: academic criticism, which highlights the aporias and various instrumentalizations of participatory mechanisms; the growing power of economic players in environmental negotiations, who pose as - and are recognized as - representatives of civil society; and, finally, the security rhetoric that can be used to justify a retreat from the new procedural rights of access to information and public participation enshrined in international law by the Aarhus Convention. This work will be based, on the one hand, on Laura Michel's[1] observational participation in the work of the Aarhus Convention and, on the other, on observation of a participatory approach - led by IRSTEA researchers - aimed at involving citizens in future coastal development projects, in which Laura Michel is collaborating (Projet Cartodébat). A second subset will focus on environmental opinions and behavior. A questionnaire survey of electricity consumers (5,000 individuals and 500 small businesses) and four focus groups have been carried out (Jean-Yves Dormagen, Laura Michel) in partnership with a producer of "green" electricity (wind, solar, hydro). This work will also be fed into the BAROC project, led by Jean-Yves Dormagen (with Laura Michel and Emmanuelle Reungoat), in partnership with Science Po Toulouse, (call for projects Région Occitanie, 2018-2020). Two quantitative surveys (spring 2019 and 2020) will enable us to understand (among other things) the perception of environmental risks and challenges, particularly in a context of climate change (energy, agriculture and food, coastal risks) by the inhabitants of the Occitanie region, their knowledge of the relevant regional policies, and their practices (consumption and "sustainable" behaviors). This data, cross-referenced with electoral behavior (participation, political orientation), will also enable us to develop a detailed sociology of the ecological vote and, more generally, voting profiles based on environmental sensitivity.

Environment and sector governance

The aim is to examine the potential transformative effect of environmental criticism on sectoral policies, as well as sectoral strategies for channelling criticism, through three fields of study. We propose to continue our work on the rise of local agricultural and food policies as part of agro-ecological transition projects. We examine their potential to challenge the productivist model at territorial level. Our hypothesis is that actors in the agricultural sector deploy strategies of resistance to alternative models, but not only. Their partial appropriation of the critique is also a means of reinforcing the place of agriculture on the urban agenda in the face of the dominant urban planning/residential referential (agricultural land as a reserve for urbanization). The rise of urban food and agricultural policies more oriented towards a multifunctional and agro-ecological frame of reference also raises the question of their coexistence with liberal and productivist frames of reference, which are maintained at national and especially European level (CAP) and continue to guide the major instruments of agricultural policies: funding and regulation. This work will continue in partnership with the Chaire Unesco alimentations du monde (CIRAD). GATO (Gouvernances Alimentaires Territorialisées en Occitanie) is a project submitted and pre-selected by INRA (UMR Innovation in Montpellier and UMR AGIR in Toulouse). The following two fields of research are part of a new project undertaken since 2017 on climate change adaptation policies. The first focuses on the problematization of climate change as a lever for theport and tourism industries(open-air hotels, real estate development) to take coastal risks into account. We adopt a comparative perspective between these two sectors. Our work in partnership with researchers from the Agropolis cluster is based on 4 ongoing research contracts on climate change adaptation policies in coastal risk management (with S. Barone, IRSTEA): the first focuses on the Gulf of Lion coastline (Fondation de France), the second on "Metropolization and coastal risk management" (POPSU). Two others, in partnership with CIRAD political scientists or political sociologists (Gilles Massardier, Marie Hrabranski, Denis Pesche, Pierre-Louis Mayaux) (Tackling CC 2017 and Typoclim 2018 projects), winners of the MUSE program (Montpellier Université d'excellence) develop a comparative perspective between sectors (agriculture/littoral) and countries (North/South).The second fieldwork, based on the issue of climate change as a factor of transformation, concerns the green electricity sector, which will enable us to explore an example of the market's capture of environmental - and climate-related - criticism. We are basing ourselves on the survey mentioned above, which will be supplemented by semi-directive interviews with players in the sector, both on the industrial side and public players (involved in the construction of this new sector and its regulations).

Environment and Territorial Governance

The Anglo-Saxon literature on environmental policies - and climate policies in particular - emphasizes that their implementation at national and local level represents a real challenge. Implementation presupposes an integrated approach, involving the articulation of instruments (financing, market-based, nature-based,planning, development, risk management, etc.), sectors (agriculture, urban planning/housing, environment, industry, etc.), players (administrations, elected representatives, sectors, businesses, "civil society", etc.) and levels of action (international, national, territorial). Moreover, national and international policies are based on principles that are often unclear or even contradictory, and at the territorial level, these principles give rise to potential conflicts in their implementation. This raises the question of the territorial governance of environmental policies. It will be addressed through water, coastal risk and agroecological policies. The work in progress should enable us to identify the recompositions at work in the relationships between all territorial players, including government departments, around the ecological issues specific to these policies. In the field of agricultural and food policies, we will test the hypothesis that agro-ecology and multifunctionality issues are being transferred to the territories. In the field of water, Claire Dedieu's thesis will analyze the impact of the reform of the territorial State on the quality of water resource protection. A comparative thesis on the management of water stress (Ophélie Traché) has just begun under the supervision of Emmanuel Négrier (co-supervised by Sylvain Barone, IRSTEA). In the field of coastal risks, the territorial State is also less directly present, pushing local players to take on new responsibilities while seeking to govern from a distance via risk regulation or coastal erosion adaptation doctrines. Between contradictory injunctions and a shortage of resources, we'll be looking at the recompositions underway around the Metropolises - now in charge of GEMAPI - and the Regions. In addition, the governance of coastal risks and water stress under climate change will be the focus of an international comparison with the United States, which we will be developing throughout the five-year period. To this end, we have begun collaborating with the University of California Davis (UC Davis). Comparative research is underway on coastal hazards in the Gulf of Lion and San Francisco Bay in California. Laura Michel has also been awarded a mobility grant for the University of California Davis (3 research stays: October 2018, May 2019 and Autumn 2019), which will enable her to conduct research in California and build a comparative analysis grid with our partner's team (Mark Lubell, Director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behevior, UC Davis).The work carried out in this area, as well as the partnerships forged with researchers at Agropolis, will feed into the "Environnement et politique(s)" seminar of the bilingual Master 2 Comparative politics and public policy.

We will also continue our involvement in various local, national and international networks:

  • RECO (Réseau d'expertise sur les changements climatiques en Occitanie, member of the steering committee)
  • KIM (Key Initiative MUSE) Sea and coastline
  • Consultation guarantors (CNDP, Commission nationale du débat public)
  • ICPC (Institut de la concertation et de la participation citoyenne)
  • Ambition Littoral
  • Climate Change Policy/2CP International Network

It is clear that this area needs to be developed in terms of human resources. It will involve one full-time teacher-researcher (Laura Michel) and two PhD students (Claire Dedieu and Ophélie Traché), and one part-time CNRS researcher (Emmanuel Négrier) and one teacher-researcher (Jean-Yves Dormagen). The aim is to develop partnerships with Montpellier's EPSTs, placing CEPEL at the crossroads of multiple collaborations as part of the MUSE site policy. Welcoming new CNRS researchers would be an invaluable support. For the time being, obtaining a CNRS delegation will help initiate this dynamic.