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Ecogovernmentality and climate change
Since about 2002, scholars have attempted to analyze the discourses surrounding global climate change and related policies using ideas from Foucault and from ecogovernmentality.

This subfield or application of ecogovernmentality developed first by applying Foucauldean thought to analysis of national and international climate regimes, identifying categories and methodologies that work particularly well for climate change issues. As the application of ecogovernmentality to climate change has evolved, the principles of the theory have also been applied — in appropriately modified ways — to studies of state and local government as well as private and nonprofit organizations.

Ecogovernmentality-grounded theories and methods of analysis have also begun to emerge as tools for examining climate change in fields outside political economy, such as communications and international relations.

Development of ecogovernmentality and climate change studies
As researchers began to explore the application of ecogovernmentality to climate change problems and discourses, most studies focused on national and global scales. For example, an early study by Paul Henman applied governmentality to Australian national policy and climate change modeling, concluding that modeling was a technology for rendering climate governable though it would limit the capacity of government to respond. Sverker Jagers and Johannes Stripple’s work published in 2003 identified the importance of non-nation-state actors (NNSAs) in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts and suggested that “private regimes” like the insurance industry may be more successful than national and global power structures in addressing the problem.

Studies applying governmentality to climate change picked up in frequency in the mid-2000s. Angela Oels’ 2005 paper summarized the initial forays into governmentality-based analyses for climate change discourses and suggested that the functioning governmentality of the issue had shifted since the 1980s, from a biopower-based discourse to one rooted in advanced liberal government. She demonstrated a method of discourse analysis particularly suited for addressing climate change, examining objectives, fields of visibility, technical aspects, forms of knowledge and formation of identities. Oels also provided some categories into which discourses can be sorted. These categories were also used by Karin Bäckstrand and Eva Lövbrand, beginning in 2006 with analysis of tree-planting initiatives stemming from the Kyoto Protocol. Their analysis of competing discourses in categories of ecological modernization, green governmentality, and civic environmentalism revealed areas of overlap and potential cooperation.

Also in 2006, Maria Carmen Lemos collaborated with Agrawal on a comprehensive summary of environmental governance studies to that date. They divided the applications of these studies into two categories: resource management and climate change. Among other useful insights, their work provided a clear schematic for classifying new, hybrid forms of environmental governance and identifying where these forms derive their power — that is, from combinations of the state, the community, and the market.

Ecogovernmentality studies beyond global and national regimes
More recent studies have applied ecogovernmentality precepts to discourses at state and local levels. Chukwumerije Okereke, Harriet Bulkeley and Heike Schroeder published a study in 2009 that examined possible problems of power, relationships, structures, and agency in climate governance at scales other than national or global. They suggested that examining these issues may help to overcome what they identify as an “impasse” in governmentality studies of global environmental problems.

As another example of an ecogovernmentality study of climate change at a non-global, non-national scale, Bulkeley’s 2010 paper examined network governance, vertical and horizontal power structures, political economics, the restructuring of the state, and institutional capacity, all at the urban scale. Bulkeley argued for the importance of nuanced analyses of government at non-national, non-global scales as an important field in climate change governmentality studies.

A survey study from Dallas Elgin, Andrew Pattison and Christopher M. Weible in 2011 examines analytical capacity regarding climate change at the (U.S.) state level, concluding that the neoliberal government there is not as “hollowed out” as they expected but still lacks needed analytical capacity.

Emerging influence in other fields
Ecogovernmentality-grounded studies in climate change are also emerging in fields outside political economy. For example, Max Boykoff’s work analyzing media coverage of climate change in his 2011 book was grounded in discourses analysis along with his perhaps-better-known content analysis methods. Peter Weingart, Anita Engels and Petra Pansegrau published a study using a similar combination of methods in 2000, but Boykoff’s work was cited in An Inconvenient Truth and has received far more scholarly and public attention. Other media studies scholars have followed Boykoff’s lead incorporating discourses analysis in their work.

In another communications-related study, David Ockwell, Lorraine Whitmarsh and Saffron O’Neill applied governmentality concepts to a U.K. government marketing campaign aimed at increasing “green” behaviors in citizens. In their analysis of why the campaign was ineffective, they identify regime-based barriers to behavior change, including infrastructure, financial, and structural barriers.

Chris Methmann has published work on global warming as a global governmentality in the field of international relations, citing the carbon market as a means of conducting individual conduct from a global scale. He concluded that the Clean Development Mechanism of carbon credit trading has become easily established because it protects “business as usual” – the established order of power.

Robyn Dowling argued for inclusion of ecogovernmentality perspectives regarding identity formation in the field of human geography in her 2008 paper, which addressed a variety of issues, including climate change.