Conference Presentations

WOW6 Panel: Climate Justice in Urban Local Governance (June 21, 2019)

CJN organized a Climate Justice panel at the Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop (WOW) conference, now in its sixth edition, at Indiana University, Bloomington.

This panel engaged WOW participants in conversations about the conditions under which urban governance is likely to address the challenge of climate justice. What do we know about the social and institutional infrastructure needed for addressing the post-disaster effects on urban communities in the periphery, while local governments are also faced with costly damages to the urban core? How do the overarching context of neoliberal policymaking centered on the discourses of “smart cities” influence the prospects of climate justice in the cities? What social and political institutions might help address the immediate contingencies, while putting in place more representative governance systems that serve the urban poor.

The expertise of the members of the Workshop community in the areas of local governance, institutional development and change, and, polycentric governance are likely to be crucial for developing practical policy solutions for urban climate justice. In addition to the analyses of specific political and institutional contexts, we also encourage comparative scholarship, such that research findings from the highly urbanized regions of the Americas may be used to develop conceptual and theoretical insights relevant to the rapidly urbanizing areas on the continents of Africa and Asia.