Environmental economics in action: A practice-based inquiry into Swedish environmental policy

Description

Today it is widely accepted that environmental problems should be managed through the market mechanism with instruments such as taxes, emission trading systems or subsidies instead of more direct regulation, such as bans or quantitative restrictions. As the ecological crises intensify, however, this approach and especially the ideas behind it from environmental economics face growing criticism for reproducing the problems that neoclassical economics is often accused of causing, such as a neglect of nature's limits and an overconfidence in markets' problem-solving ability.

Yet, whilst environmental economists may agree that too little is done against the escalating ecological crises, they fundamentally disagree with their critics about environmental economics's role in this; according to them, if anything, their ideas are not influential enough. There are thus two diametrically different stories here about the role of environmental economics for sustainability. In this project I seek to understand the role of environmental economics in environmental policy by focusing on the work of environmental economists as policy experts ‘in action’. Through qualitative, empirical case studies at Swedish governmental agencies, I use document studies, observations and interviews with environmental economists and policy-makers to examine which, how and why environmental economics' ideas translate into actual policy, and not.

I use theory and methodology from different fields, including philosophy, heterodox economics, economic history and didactics. By detailing this process of how knowledge, decisions and meaning-making come about through concrete policy practices I hope to expose how actions in environmental policy support can be reformed and open up for options that support sustainability transformation.