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Accepted Paper:
Collective Action at the crossroads of the climate crisis: bringing in the plurality of positions to deconstruct production systems
Shailaja Fennell
(University of Cambridge)
Collective action fails due to very high transaction costs: countries prefer to engage with those that have similar production systems. They are unwilling to address costs to countries whose systems are very different -this nation level homophily is an obstacle to international treaties.
Paper long abstract:
The lack of trust within a community is regarded as the primary reason for low levels of collective action is itself antithetical to solving the climate crisis. Moving towards a multi-scalar analysis creates the potential for analysing both how information regarding climate change is understood by local and national communities as well as how to learning how external actors can provide climate interventions to communities that are negatively affected by the impact of the climate crisis.
Within the context of this climate crisis, worsening conditions in the natural world result in a greater sense of economic insecurity in national economies. While there are opportunities to manage natural resources more effectively that are provided by new technological advances, these appear to benefit some groups while other communities are exposed to greater risks. However, nations become pitted against each other and there is no explicit recognition of costs to losers. Equally, there is a lack of understanding at global fora: particularly of knowledge within these communities that is crucial for the successful adoption of sustainable production systems. Instead of taking up the new opportunities provided by new technologies, rich countries follow the actions of other countries at a similar level of production- the phenomenon of homophily (McPherson et. al. 2001). This paper addresses the reasons that promote a preference for homophily over the selection of plural solutions, and how it continues to pose an obstacle to achieving agreement on costs of redressing the damages imposed by climate change on the poorest countries.