Course Outline

The course outline is subject to change to adapt to contingencies that may arise. Changes to due dates are unlikely, but in the event they occur, students will be given ample notice.

Week	Date	Lecture topic	Lab exercise
1	Jan. 16	Introductions and Course outline	Pre-class baseline questionnaire
2	Jan. 23	Governance surrounding Climate-induced Hazards*	Discussion session^
3	Jan. 30	Complex systems, networks, and systems approaches*	Systems thinking exercise
4	Feb. 6	Introduction to governance and the policy process*	Discussion session^
5	Feb. 13	Public opinion surrounding climate politics*	Climate communication exercise
6	Feb. 20	Role of the climate issue in elite politics*	Discussion session^
7	Feb. 27	Fairness and justice in climate adaptation*	Identifying mechanisms exercise
8	Mar. 12	Climate change litigation*	Final project lab
9	Mar. 19	International climate governance regimes*	Discussion session^
10	Mar. 26	Transnational nonstate climate advocacy networks*	Discussion session^
11	Apr. 2	The role of technology in climate mitigation*	Final project lab
12	Apr. 9	Pro-climate activism and social movements*	Discussion session^
13	Apr. 16	Sources of climate obstruction*	Climate obstruction exercise
14	Apr. 23	Final presentations
	* denotes reading question points; ^ denotes discussion participation points

Weekly Schedule

Week 1 (Jan. 16)

Topic: Introductions, course overview, and expectations
Readings: Watts, D. 2017. “Should social science be more solution-oriented?” Nature Human Behaviour 1: 0015.; Bernauer, T. 2013. “Climate Change Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 16, 421-448.; Recommended Underdal, A. 2017 “Climate Change and International Relations (After Kyoto).” Annual Review of Political Science 20, 169-188.
Class: Lecture Introductions and Course Overview; In-class Exercise 0 Pre-class Baseline Questionnaire

Week 2 (Jan. 23)

Topic: Topic Focus: Governance surrounding climate-induced hazards
Readings: Kates, R.W. et al. 2012. “Transformational adaptation when incremental adaptations to climate change are insufficient.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(19): 7156-7161.; Tierney, K. 2012. “Disaster Governance: Social, Political, and Economic Dimensions.” Annual Review of Environmenta and Resources 37: 341-363.; Koslov, L. et al. 2021. “When rebuilding no longer means recovery: the stress of staying put after Hurricane Sandy.” Climatic Change 165, 59.
Class: Lecture Natural hazards governance in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation; Discussion 1 Working through concepts and measurement questions in climate adaptation research; Questions 1 Reading questions due

Week 3 (Jan. 30)

Topic: Complex systems, networks, and systems approaches
Readings: Hofstadter, D.R. 1981. “Prelude… Ant Fugue,” in Hofstadter, D.R., Dennett, D.C. eds. The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Relfections on Self and Soul, Ch. 11, Basic Books.; Bodin, Ö. et al. 2019. “Improving network approaches to the study of complex social–ecological interdependencies.” Nature Sustainability 2, 551-559.; Ostrom, E. 2009. “A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.” Science 325(5939): 419-422.; Recommended Newman, M.E.J. 2011. “Resource Letter CS-1: Complex Systems.” American Journal of Physics 79, 800.
Class: Lecture Introduction to complexity and systems approaches; In-class Exercise 1 Systems thinking exercise; Questions 2 Reading questions due

Week 4 (Feb. 6)

Topic: Introduction to governance and the policy process
Readings: Ostrom, E. 2010. “Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change.” Global Environmental Change 20(4): 550-557.; von Stein, J. 2020. “Democracy, Autocracy, and Everything in Between: How Domestic Institutions Affect Environmental Protection.” British Journal of Political Science, 1-19.; Imperial, M.T. et al. 2016. “Sustaining the useful life of network governance: Life cycles and developmental challenges.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 14(3): 135-144.; Recommended Dietz, T. et al. 2003. “The struggle to govern the commons.” Science 302(5652): 1907-1912.; Recommended Ylä-Anttila, T. et al. 2018. “Climate change policy networks: Why and how to compare them across countries.” Energy Research & Social Science 45, 258-265.
Class: Lecture The policy process and domestic political institutions; Discussion 2 Political institutions as causal mechanisms of policy outcomes; Questions 3 Reading questions due

Week 5 (Feb. 13)

Topic: Public opinion surrounding climate politics; Climate skepticism and denial
Readings: Egan, P.J., Mullin, M. 2017. “Climate Change: US Public Opinion.” Annual Review of Political Science 20, 209-227.; Hornsey, M.J., Lewandowsky, S. 2022. “A toolkit for understanding and addressing climate scepticism.” Nature Human Behaviour 6, 1454-1464.; Sarathchandra, D. et al. 2020. “Trust/distrust judgments and perceptions of climate science: A research note on skeptics’ rationalizations.” Public Understanding of Science 29(1): 53-60.; Recommended Chinn, S. et al. 2020. “Politicization and Polarization in Climate Change News Content, 1985-2017.” Science Communication 42(1): 112-129.
Class: Lecture Determinants of public attitudes toward climate mitigation and adaptation; In-class Exercise 2 Climate communication experimental design exercise; Questions 4 Reading questions due

Week 6 (Feb. 20)

Topic: Role of the climate issue in elite politics
Readings: Guber, D.L. et al. 2021. “`Time to Wake Up’: Climate change advocacy in a polarized Congress, 1996-2015” Enviromental Politics 30(4): 538-558.; Ladrech, R., Little, C. 2019. “Drivers of political parties’ climate policy preferences: lessons from Denmark and Ireland.” Environmental Politics 28(6): 1017-1038.; Kwon, K.L., Hanlon, R.J. 2016. “A comparative review for understanding elite interest and climate change policy in China.” Environment, Development and Sustainability 18, 1177-1193.; Recommended Finseraas, H. et al. 2021. “Climate politics in hard times: How local economic shocks influence MPs attention to climate change.” European Journal of Political Research 60(3): 738-747.; Recommended Mangonnet, J. et al. 2022. “Playing Politics with Environmental Protection: The Political Economy of Designating Protected Areas” Journal of Politics 84(3): 1453-1468.
Class: Lecture Climate change politics and elite political competition; Discussion 3 Linking elite political competition over climate policy to mass public opinion and climate communication; Questions 5 Reading questions due

Week 7 (Feb. 27)

Topic: Topic Focus: Fairness and justice in climate governance
Readings: Banzhaf, H.S. et al. 2019. “Environmental Justice: Establishing Causal Relationships.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 11, 377-398.; Green, F., Healy, N. 2022. “How inequality fuels climate change: The climate case for a Green New Deal.” One Earth 5(6): 635-649.; Kartha, S. et al. 2018. “Cascading biases against poorer countries.” Nature Climate Change 8, 348-349.; Recommended Harlan S.L. et al. 2015. “Climate Justice and Inequality”, in Dunlap, R.E., Brulle, R.J. eds., Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. Oxford University Press. Chapter 5.
Class: Lecture The origins of different types of climate justice; In-class Exercise 3 Identifying mechanisms exercise; Questions 6 Reading questions due

Week 8 (Mar. 12)

Topic: Climate change litigation
Readings: Peel, J., Osofsky, H.M. 2020. “Climate Change Litigation.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 16, 21-38.; Holm, F., Berardo, R. 2020. “Coalitional Architecture of Climate Change Litigation Networks in the United States.” Review of Policy Research 37(6): 797-822.; Recommended Marjanac, S., Patton, L. 2018. “Extreme weather event attribution science and climate change litigation: an essential step in the causal chain?” Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law 36(3): 265-298.
Class: Lecture The history and rise of environmental and climate litigation; Final project Demonstration and working lab; Questions 7 Reading questions due

Week 9 (Mar. 19)

Topic: Global climate governance regimes
Readings: Young, O.R. 2018. “Research strategies to assess the effectiveness of international environmental regimes.” Nature Sustainability 1, 461-465.; Axelrod, M. 2011. “Climate Change and Global Fisheries Management: Linking Issues to Protect Ecosystems or to Save Political Interests?” Global Environmental Politics 11(3): 64-84.; Aklin, M., Mildenberger, M. 2020. “Prisoners of the Wrong Dilemma: Why Distributive Conflict, Not Collective Action, Characterizes the Politics of Climate Change.” Global Environmental Politics 20(4): 4-27.; Recommended Dorsch, M., Flachsland, C. 2017. “A Polycentric Approach to Global Climate Governance.” Global Environmental Politics 17(2): 45-64.; Recommended Kennard, A., Schnakenberg, K.E. 2023. “Comment: Global Climate Policy and Collective Action.” Global Environmental Politics 23(1): 133-144.; Recommended Aklin, M., Mildenberger, M. 2023. “Reply: The Persistent Absence of Empirical Evidence for Free-Riding in Global Climate Politics.” Global Environmental Politics 23(1): 145-151.
Class: Lecture International regimes and environmental governance; Discussion 4 How to derive testable implications from theory; Questions 8 Reading questions due

Week 10 (Mar. 26)

Overview: Transnational nonstate climate advocacy networks
Readings: Hale, T. 2020. “Transnational actors and transnational governance in global environmental politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 23, 203-220.; Leifeld, P., Fisher, D. 2017. “Membership nominations in international scientific assessments.” Nature Climate Change 7, 730-735.; Vu, H.T. et al. 2020. “Who Leads the Conversation on Climate Change?: A Study of a Global Network of NGOs on Twitter.” Environmental Communication 14(4):450-464.; Recommended Vu, H.T. et al. 2021. “Social Media and Environmental Activism: Framing Climate Change on Facebook by Global NGOs.” Science Communication 43(1):91-115.; Recommended Fünfgeld, H. 2015. “Facilitating local climate change adaptation through transnational municipal networks” Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability 12, 67-73.
Class: Lecture Transnational actors; Discussion 5 Pros, cons, and challenges of transnational governance; Questions 9 Reading questions due

Week 11 (Apr. 2)

Topics: Topic focus: The role of technology in climate mitigation and adaptation
Readings: Introne, J. et al. 2013. “Solving Wicked Social Problems with Socio-computational Systems.” KI - Künstliche Intelligenz 27, 45-52.; Wagner, G. 2022. “Green Moral Hazards.” Ethics, Policy & Environment 25,(3): 264-280.; Recommended Dechezleprêtre, A. et al. 2011. “Invention and Transfer of Climate Change–Mitigation Technologies: A Global Analysis.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 5(1): 109-130.
Class: Lecture Opportunities and limitations of technological growth to climate mitigation; Final project Working lab; Questions 10 Reading questions due

Week 12 (Apr. 9)

Topic: Pro-climate activism and social movements
Readings: McAdam, D. 2017. “Social Movement Theory and the Prospects for Climate Change Activism in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 20, 189-208.; Parth, A. et al. 2020. ““How Dare You!“—The Influence of Fridays for Future on the Political Attitudes of Young Adults.” Frontiers in Political Science 2, 611139.; Hadden, J. 2014. “Explaining Variation in Transnational Climate Change Activism: The Role of Inter-Movement Spillover.” Global Environmental Politics 14(2): 7-25.; Recommended Savolainen, S. et al. 2023. “How Police Repression Shapes Social Movements Online: Evidence from Climate Activists in Finland.” Working paper.; Recommended Boulianne, S. et al. 2020. ““School Strike 4 Climate”: Social Media and the International Youth Protest on Climate Change.” Media and Communication 8(2).
Class: Lecture Effecting change from below: grassroots social movements; Discussion 6 Thinking through the impacts of transgressive climate activism on ourselves; Questions 11 Reading questions due

Week 13 (Apr. 16)

Overview: Sources of climate obstruction
Readings: Ard, K. et al. 2017. “Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time.” Environmental Politics 26(6): 1107-1131.; Brulle, R.J. et al. 2021 “Obstructing action: foundation funding and US climate change counter-movement organizations.” Climatic Change 166, 17.; Holder, F. et al. 2023. “Climate obstruction and Facebook advertising: how a sample of climate obstruction organizations use social media to disseminate discourses of delay.” Climatic Change 176, 16.
Class: Lecture Coordinated and uncoordinated climate obstruction; In-class Exercise 4 Designing climate obstruction exercise; Questions 12 Reading questions due

Week 14 (Apr. 23)

Overview: Final project presentation week
Class: Final project Presentations