Environmental Politics Specialist Group

Convenor

Dr. Viviane Gravey , Queens University Belfast

Dr. Conor Little, University of Copenhagen

Aims

This PSAI Specialist Group aims to provide a forum for the growing community of scholars researching environmental politics in Ireland and beyond. Ireland and the wider world face significant challenges as a result of a growing variety of environmental stresses. From global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss to local environmental issues such as air and water pollution, an expanding global population coupled with resource-intensive patterns of production and consumption are placing increasing strains on ecosystems and societies. Mitigating these challenges and adapting to the consequences of environmental change are partly technical issues but they are also fundamentally political, with notable economic, social, and governance aspects. PSAI members who work on environmental politics do so from a range of perspectives and approaches (comparative politics, EU studies, International Relations, normative political theory), and focus on a variety of environmental issues (climate change, pollution, ocean and marine politics, energy policy) at multiple scales of governance (local, national, European, international).

Activities

The Specialist Group will hold an annual workshop to provide a venue for ongoing research on environmental politics in and about Ireland. This may be combined with a policy-focused panel involving contributions from practitioners and/or a keynote from a high-profile international speaker. The Specialist Group will also convene at least one panel on environmental issues at each PSAI annual conference. Beyond this, the Specialist Group will act as a springboard for combined panel proposals for international conferences such as PSA, ECPR, APSA, UACES and ISA.

Participants

Viviane Gravey, Queens University Belfast

Conor Little, University of Copenhagen

Diarmuid Torney, Dublin City University

John Barry, Queens University Belfast

Constantine Boussalis, Trinity College Dublin

Brendan Flynn, NUI Galway

Erica Frazier, Queens University Belfast

Sadbh O’Neill, University College Dublin

Fabian Schuppert, Queens University Belfast

Jane Suiter, Dublin City University

From our Blog

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We cannot determine a collective opinion, if those concerned do not state their individual opinions, if they vote only ‘no’. Logically, an ‘Option X, yes-or-no? (‘remain-or-leave?)’ ballotcannot identify “the will of the people”. Furthermore, when there is no majority for any one thing, there is a majority against every single thing. In June 2016,…
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The PSAI Annual Conference is coming! 15/10/2019
Just a gentle reminder that the PSAI Annual Conference will be happening this weekend Friday October 18th to Sunday 20th hosted by the Department of Politics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and the venue is the Glen Royal Hotel. Full details of the programme and accommodation can be found https://psai2019.wordpress.com
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The 2019 European election in Ireland: not so second-order after all? 31/05/2019
Guest post by Dr Rory Costello, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick. There is a natural tendency to interpret European election results in terms of national politics. This is not an unreasonable thing to do; after all, European elections in Ireland, as in many other countries, are to a considerable extent seen…
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A little change never hurt anyone. Now that we have completed our Brexit Countdown blog series in collaboration with the UK’s Political Studies Association, I can announce my intention to step down as Editor of the Irish Politics Forum – a role I have been lucky enough to have had since November 2016. Stepping away…
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