Contested Imaginaries and the Cultural Political Economy of Climate Change

44 Pages Posted: 17 Apr 2016

See all articles by David L. Levy

David L. Levy

University of Massachusetts at Boston

Andre Spicer

University of Warwick - Industrial Relations & Organisational Behaviour (IROB) Subject Group

Date Written: October 10, 2013

Abstract

This article analyses the evolving cultural political economy of climate change by developing the concept of ‘climate imaginaries’. These are shared socio-semiotic systems that structure a field around a set of shared understandings of the climate. Climate imaginaries imply a particular mode of organizing production and consumption, and a prioritization of environmental and cultural values. We use this concept to examine the struggle among NGOs, business and state agencies over four core climate imaginaries. These are ‘fossil fuels forever’, ‘climate apocalypse’, ‘technomarket’ and ‘sustainable lifestyles’. These imaginaries play a key role in contentions over responses to climate change, and we outline three main episodes in the past two decades: the carbon wars of the 1990s, an emergent carbon compromise between 1998–2008 and a climate impasse from 2009 to the present. However, climate imaginaries only become dominant when they connect with wider popular interests and identities and align with economic and technological aspects of the energy system to constitute ‘value regimes’.

Suggested Citation

Levy, David L. and Spicer, Andre, Contested Imaginaries and the Cultural Political Economy of Climate Change (October 10, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2761875

David L. Levy (Contact Author)

University of Massachusetts at Boston ( email )

Boston, MA 02125
United States

Andre Spicer

University of Warwick - Industrial Relations & Organisational Behaviour (IROB) Subject Group ( email )

Coventry, CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

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