The Social-ecological dimension of the European Green Deal

Online Seminar - 25th April 2024, 10 am – 4.45 pm

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The 2019 European Green Deal (EGD) has been a quantum leap in the history of European climate policies. It gave unprecedented priority to the climate crisis, setting 2050 as a target for the decarbonization of European economies (European Commission, 2019). As ecological issues have gained salience, it is also becoming increasingly evident that both climate change and climate policies will generate a new wave of social risks for European welfare states to address, disproportionally impacting not only low-income households but also the lower middle class (Beaussier, Chevalier, Palier 2024). Since the publication of the EGD, a just transition policy framework – meant to “leave no one behind” in the green transition – has been gradually emerging at the EU level, with notable instruments including the Just Transition Fund and the Social Climate Fund (Zimmermann and Gengnagel, 2023; Graziano, 2023). Nevertheless, the EU’s weak interpretation of just transition is likely to be insufficient to meet the huge challenges ahead, since EU efforts only target the most urgent social impacts of the green transition (Sabato et al. 2023; Crespy and Munta, 2023). Furthermore, just transition policies should always be in line with the EU growth imperative, which problematically remains unquestioned, as the EU strives to make growth “green” through technological modernization (Laurent, 2021). To make matters worse, consensus around the European Green Deal seems to be fading in many parts of the political spectrum and sectors of society, with new “eco-social divides” on the rise, potentially pitting environmentalists against welfare enthusiasts (Otto and Gugushvili, 2020).

With the EU elections just around the corner and in the face of growing support for far-right parties and anti-green “countermovements”, it is more necessary than ever to reflect upon how to strengthen the EU just transition agenda, and how to redesign the European Green Deal towards a truly social-ecological model. In this respect, in the past few years, a growing academic interest in the interconnections between social and ecological challenges and policies has surfaced, bringing various scholars to build a Sustainable Welfare and Eco-social Policy Network (Mandelli et al, 2022). The aim of scholars in this network is precisely to study eco-social policies, which should allow us to address the new social risks related to climate change, by building a sustainable welfare that guarantees human needs within planetary boundaries (Bohnenberger, 2023; Gough, 2017). This objective often goes hand to hand with the promotion of a post-growth approach, seeking to reduce the ecological footprint of the welfare state, which is rooted in its growth dependence (Büchs and Koch, 2017).

The seminar aims to discuss the political challenges and perspectives for a social-ecological European Green Deal. Renowned scholars from the Sustainable Welfare and Eco-social Policy Network are invited to present their works in the framework of SciencesPo’s Socio-Ecological Transition Initiative (SET), which is coordinated by Anne-Laure Beaussier (CSO), Éloi Laurent (OFCE), Matteo Mandelli (LIEPP) and Bruno Palier (CEE). The seminar is sponsored by the To Be Project, funded by the European Union, and it is co-organized by CSO, CEE, LIEPP, OFCE in partnership with SciencesPo’s Atelier interdisciplinaire de recherches sur l'environnement and Institut pour les transformations environnementales. The ultimate goals of the seminar are to encourage exchanges between international academics and SciencesPo’s researchers interested in these interdisciplinary issues, as well as to inform the current political debate about the future of the European Green Deal. In this spirit, EU policymakers from the European Commission, the European Parliament and European trade unions will be invited to discuss the academic presentations.

The seminar is structured in three parts. In the first session, speakers will provide theoretical and normative perspectives about sustainable welfare and eco-social policies beyond growth. The second part will shed light on the political conflicts and coalitions connected to environmental and social policies. Third, and finally, we will discuss the social-ecological dimension of the European Green Deal, highlighting its potential and shortfalls.

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A “Soft” Financialization of Social Policy? Calculating the Value of Social Investments in the United States and Finland

par Asa Maron, University of Haifa

Discutante : Anne-Laure Beaussier, CSO.

La séance du vendredi 26 avril se tient de 10h à 12h à la fois en présentiel à Sciences Po, en salle K.011 et en distanciel sur zoom. Si vous souhaitez y assister, merci de contacter Samia Ben.

Résumé : 

The process of financialization introduces financial ideas, logics and practices to non-financial and non-economic fields, yet little is known about the formation of expectations in non-financial contexts, and the factors that influence the variation of expectations. This study explores the formation of expectations in the context of the "social investment state" by studying new methods that enable policy actors to value social investments. The rise of the social investment policy paradigm represents a shift in the rationale and justification of social spending: from the neoliberal dictum that social spending for services and programs is undesirable, toward reframing specific forms of social spending as investments that are expected to yield future returns. Policymakers' ability to invest in new social programs requires a capacity to value such investments. The paper examines the development of such valuation capacities in the context of experimenting with the Social Impact Bond (SIB) model. SIBs are financial contracts in which private capital is invested in innovative social programs with governments providing a return depending on the degree of success. The production of SIBs requires policymakers’ intensive engagement, including many hours of studying financial rationales and techniques, and experimenting with them. As platforms of intense learning SIBs have broad policy implications.

According to the valuation approach, the work of valuation entrepreneurs and the methodology they develop and apply determine what is of value. We follow valuation entrepreneurs and their accomplishments in two very different states: the United States and Finland. We ask how a financialized mode of valuation becomes re-embedded in the context of social policymaking? And what are the outcomes of this process in the United States and Finland? To answer these questions, the study analyzes textual sources (e.g. official documents, grey literature) as well as semi-structured interviews with key protagonists. We argue that the valuation of social investment represents a “soft” process of financialization leading to hybrid outcomes. In the context of financial diffusion, policy actors adopted a "Return on Investment" approach. Demonstrating non-financial professionals’ capacity to advance financialization from below, remote from financial markets, is an important contribution. And yet, the financialization process remains partial. The selective adoption of financial conventions demonstrates the path-dependent role non-financial fiscal state logics continue to play in states' calculations of social investment.

The study shows and explains variation in the valuation of social investment in the US and Finland by showing how different valuation methodologies were constructed and legitimized in each institutional context. In the US, the valuation of social investment developed with an over emphasis on statistic rigor, failing to value plausible returns in the long-term future. Moreover, the calculation of return on social investment was limited, considering only cost-savings for the Federal government, and thus ignoring and devaluing potential gains to state and local governments. In Finland, valuation methods included (and thus gave value to) the long-term future, and paid greater attention to intangible outcomes for actors other than central government. Although the calculated value of social investment remained committed to the state’s fiscal interests, the financialization of valuation went further in Finland at the expanse of neoliberal commitment to unburden the fiscal state which was prominent in the US.

For over 30 years, the EASTR organizes annual meetings, "STRs European Days" or "Euro-Mediterranean Observatory of public territorial action" which have gathered about 3000 State territorial representatives - prefects, governors, Regierungspräsident , voïvodes or commissioners in 40 different European cities, through 20 countries. The European Days focus on the exchange of experience and professional best practices. The Observatory for its part seeks to promote better coordination of public and private actors for the development of territories.

Intervention de Olivier Borraz : 

The role of state territorial representatives in managing natural disasters 

Le colloque “Réformer le capitalisme de l’intérieur? Acteur·ices, pratiques, mondes sociaux“, à l’initiative de l’équipe ANR PROVIRCAP, aura lieu les 30 et 31 mai 2024 sur le campus Jourdan de l’ENS, 48 bd Jourdan, Paris. Amphithéâtre Jourdan et salle R1-09

Entrée libre et gratuite dans la limite des places disponibles

Comité d’organisation: Pauline Barraud de Lagerie, Laure Bereni, Élodie Béthoux, Anne Bory, Thomas Depecker, Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier, Alice Lavabre

Comité scientifique: Pauline Barraud de Lagerie, Laure Bereni, Élodie Béthoux, Anne Bory, Frédérique Déjean, Thomas Depecker, Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier, Alice Lavabre, Antoine Machut, Xavier Monnier, Élise Penalva-Icher, Scarlett Salman, Chloé Socha

Contact et inscription: reformerlecapitalisme@gmail.com

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