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Economic development is often defined as a cycle of sustained growth adding to ever‐increasing living standards of the general population. However, in human and economic geography such an orthodox definition of development is increasingly considered problematic. Not only have cycles of lower growth, rising debt, inequality and environmental degradation challenged the foundations of post‐war prosperity. Economic development in advanced nations must also be associated with the development of underdevelopment in peripheral countries. In this essay, I therefore contend that what is otherwise defined as ‘development’ has increasingly taken the form of ‘undevelopment’, i.e., a regressive cycle of falling productivity, financialisation, rising inequality, global imbalance and irreversible climate change. Although it is difficult to change the global course of undevelopment, I argue that de‐development can develop into its logical successor. Indeed, by progressively transcending the capitalist world‐system, I conclude that a more durable global economic system can emerge where global wealth redistribution and economic activity within the planet's finite boundaries are central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of policy notwithstanding, climate emergency continues to unfold and the need for new ideas is urgent. In this short article, I contextualize the need for 'revolutions for life' and set out some of the key ideas from Hosseini and Gills' recent book Capital redefined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many definitions of degrowth highlight that the corresponding great and deep transformations are going to be "designed," "planned," and "democratic." However, critical issues of democratic planning have only recently begun to be discussed. Considering a range of aspects of the technical and social division of labor, the article first revisits some of the main issues of market vis-à-vis planned resource allocation in capitalist and socialist economic growth contexts. It then zooms in on goals, characteristics, and likely issues of division of labor and resource allocation in planned degrowth circumstances. I argue that degrowth societies could use three measures to reduce the complexity of the division of labor that undermined socialist planning attempts. First, degrowth societies could immediately phase out the "excess sector" of production. Second, they could develop, under consideration of their institutional national traditions, pragmatic mixes of ex ante planning (assisted by digital solutions) of the "essential" economic sector and ex post or market regulation of the "in-between" sector. Finally, a parsimonious use of digital tools is likely to be helpful in connecting different scales of governance and associated planning activities (local, national, regional, global). To democratically legitimize planning goals and processes without overburdening people, pathways may be sought that emphasize value over formal rationality, or general planning principles and strategies over concrete targets and tasks. Democratic legitimacy could further increase through a complementation of representative democracy through deliberative instruments such as citizen forums or assemblies as well as applications of the subsidiarity principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of conviviality, introduced by Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality (1973), offers a solution to the counterproductive effects of fast transport. It is now widely recognized that fast transport does not save time for individuals and communities but rather increases the feeling of time famine and ultimately leads to greater energy consumption to travel longer distances. In today's context of urban time famine and ecological crisis, I show that Illich's system of thought finds empirical validity. An inductive approach in nine "Cittàslow" labeled European cities demonstrates that a slow pace of life and mobility contributes to the maintenance of friendly or convivial relations. Incorporating slow mobility policies into the broader framework of convivial cities could become a key instrument in the transition to a more sustainable path, while also offering prospects for future lifestyles that people find desirable. The article concludes by arguing that the pursuit of conviviality in cities can help promote slow mobility and sustainable living, ultimately contributing to a more environmentally conscious and socially connected society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to inequality is increasingly taking centerstage in the fight against climate change and environmental devastation. More and more scholars and activists emphasize the need to put the reduction of inequality at the core of environmental and climate politics, and more and more propose a (socially just) "sufficiency" approach and politics to do so. Just sufficiency is presented as the new desirable societal pact, tasked with taking over from the current dominant growth pact driving "excess," and replacing it with a politics of "enough," through "collectively defined self-limitation." However, an excess/enough lens misses the dynamics of production of inequality in the first place, with important political implications. This article thus seeks to contribute a tighter critical theoretical understanding of the inequality-unsustainability relation as a nexus historically powered by specific mechanisms of fossil, metabolic, as well as "green" accumulation. Through the theorization of these relations, one can better apprehend how inequality is not only a question of unfair distribution or exclusion from affluence demanding to be addressed through social and environmental justice, but also the condition for the modes of extraction and exploitation that produce and reproduce unsustainability. I argue that the counterhegemonic struggle must be waged on that terrain: putting limitations (not self-limitations) on the accumulation machine and its inequality-unsustainability nexus. This reading, which builds on critical theory and Marxist and feminist political ecology, is related to notions of class as structured not only by exploitation, but also, crucially by dispossession and status hierarchization. Adopting a nexus approach to inequality and unsustainability offers a critical theoretical method that can hopefully shift the assessments and orientations of the sufficiency movement away from the moral terrain of self-limitation (whose self?) toward the class politics of limits on capital needed today for socio-ecological transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roos and Hornborg's claim that I am an ecomodernist who firmly opposes the degrowth position is challenged by including citations of my papers and books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates Matthew Huber's criticism of degrowth theory, specifically his claim that the socialist project must foreground class struggle over and against calls for degrowth. We identify two key problems with Huber's approach. First, he offers no response to the central empirical thesis of the degrowth literature, i.e. that ecological sustainability is incompatible with increasing aggregate material throughput. Second, he limits his discussion to class struggle internal to the "Global North," obscuring the global character of production that so concerns degrowth theory. When these two points are understood, it becomes clear that degrowth should not be positioned against class struggle. In fact, the former should be understood as a prerequisite for any authentic realization of the latter (as well as vice-versa). This article therefore defends a version of ecosocialist degrowth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of domestic tourism as a substitute for international tourism has not received adequate attention in the literature. However, the potential for substitution has become particularly important in the COVID-19 pandemic context which has significantly impacted travel flows as well as the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing upon data on major tourism destinations and generating markets, a tourism policy thought experiment is conducted to explore the substitutability of domestic for international tourism in selected countries in light of COVID-19 and other situations, such as the climate crisis and the urgent need for low carbon tourism. The analysis and discussion highlight the complexities in achieving sustainable substitution in rescaling international mobilities to domestic. It is argued that without careful changes to overall tourism provision and consumption behaviours in the international-domestic tourism division, a (partial) shift may provide short gains but is likely to fail in the long term. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of contemporary debates on COVID-19 related tourism transformation in relation to substitution between domestic and international tourism and sustainable tourism futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision to restrict tourist arrivals must be carefully tailored to the unique circumstances and objectives of each destination. This paper aims to assess the economic impacts of limiting tourist arrivals in an overcrowded destination like the Balearic Islands. It also aims to analyze the necessary increase in tourism expenditure to counterbalance the decline in GDP. Using the input-output methodology, we will simulate different scenarios to evaluate the effects of implementing limits on tourist arrivals. In the least restrictive scenario, setting a limit of 2.5 million tourist arrivals per month in 2017 would have affected only July and August, resulting in a 2.56% decline in arrivals. This reduction in tourism consumption would have led to a 0.72% decrease in production and a 0.66% decrease in value added, both directly and indirectly. Considering direct, indirect, and induced effects, overall production would have decreased by 1.09%, and value added by 1.07%. However, by simulating a 1% increase in average tourist spending in real terms, we could offset the decrease in tourist numbers and avoid the undesired impact on the GDP. These findings shed light on the economic impacts of tourism degrowth and explore demarketing strategies to foster more sustainable tourism destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net Zero ideology promises that current and ongoing emissions can be partially offset by 'negative emissions' strategies such as carbon capture and sequestration, allowing carbon intensive firms to narrate themselves as agents that are solving - not causing - the climate crisis. This represents a shift in liberal and corporate environmentalism away from both denial and delay, towards a new strategy acknowledging the need to end fossil fuel use while urgently deferring transformations to a future made possible by not-yet developed technological innovations. Supporters see this as a sign that industry and governments are meaningfully considering the need to decarbonise, yet for detractors there is little faith in these narratives. This paper argues that a through-line of settler futurity provides affective infrastructure potent enough to transect opposing positions in minority world eco-politics, from pro-market green growth champions to pro-growth, antimarket ecosocialists. Settler futurity offers visions of possible and desirable futures where the affordances of modernity persist unchanged. To show how this infrastructure settles pro-capitalist and anti-systemic thinkers alike, I examine a variety of texts, from an industry-funded docuseries and a climate solutions book published by Bill Gates, to the ecosocialist work of Matt Huber. These strangely resonant environmentalisms comfort the discomforted, offering ontological security that 'this' life need not be undone in the pursuit of a viable and just future that extends abundance to all. Accordingly, settler futurity can be seen as an affectively charged presencing of the future, mobilising feelings of purpose, hope and confidence through promises to (eventually) become green, clean and carbon neutral. This raises important questions about what it might mean to work against/despite the allure of these pervasive narratives, which eliminate space for situating alternative visions, decolonial to degrowth. Unsettling settler environmentalism may require experimenting with approaches to confronting climate crisis that do not shy away from the difficult entanglements of life making and industrialised production, and that grapple with the affective work required to allow other futurities - and therefore other ways of living well with, against and beyond the fossil-fuelled, imperial-capitalist present - to exert their orienting presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research has been developed through a literature review on the importance of and current approach in the education system to the present environmental and ecosystemic crisis and the training of future generations in degrowth in the Spanish education system. To this end, a systematic literature review (SLR) has been carried out following the standards of the PRISMA declaration. In total, 40 articles published between January 2005 and March 2024 were selected from the following databases: Scopus, Dialnet, Web of Science and Scielo. The findings show it is a relevant topic in school education as a concern, but it is not reflected in educational practice; that it has been incorporated into the curriculum, but sporadically, decontextualised and more focused on 'sustainable development'; also, it lacks critical questioning of the unlimited growth and consumption model that capitalism entails. The study concludes that it is crucial to incorporate degrowth in a transversal way in education at all schooling levels, and to reform the curricula of the faculties of education in all universities so that the pedagogy of degrowth is a priority in the training of future teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degrowth project proposes a fundamental reorganisation of contemporary society. The existing literature focuses on explaining why degrowth is needed to tackle the multiple socioecological crises of our time and what needs to change in contemporary society. Recently, there have been explicit calls to moving on to thinking about the question of how a degrowth transition could be achieved. In this task, we identify the 'end' of the vision, that is, the cornerstones of a degrowth society, and focus on the suggested changes leading there. Therefore, we conceptualise a degrowth society as a regime that can be studied with the help of institutional theory and the change leading to a degrowth regime as a degrowth transition. To understand the constituents of such a regime, we conducted a systematic mapping of the degrowth literature by focusing on specific change proposals from 2000 to 2020. We analysed these change proposals in the framework of institutional theory and identified three overarching themes forming the backbone of a degrowth society: reduction, reorganisation and localisation. These themes represent the cultural–cognitive dimension of institutionalisation processes and entail varying degrees of normative and regulative dimensions. According to the degrowth change proposals in the literature, reduction is to be achieved mainly through top-down regulation, while reorganisation and localisation require a bottom-up approach to mobilising collective agency and changes in the normative orientation of society. Our analysis regarding the founding pillars of the institutional order of a degrowth society unveils essential signposts that could be considered when formulating policies and narratives compatible with a degrowth transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper advances recent work exploring synergies and tensions between two schools of political-economic thought—degrowth and modern monetary theory (MMT)—and posits that this synergy warrants closer attention from International Political Economy and Environment (IPEE) scholars. Thus far, degrowth policies have largely been proposed upon the assumption that governments are limited in budgetary terms. MMT theorists have offered an alternative perspective on fiscal policy space but generally provide insufficient ecological considerations. This paper asks how each school’s underlying assumptions about the limits of economic activity might inform the other’s framework of action. We find that while there are tensions between the two schools’ economic philosophies, there are possibilities for cross-fertilization, which ought to interest IPEE scholars. MMT could engage degrowth’s perspective of ecological limits and global socio-ecological justice in its discussions about what economies can ‘afford’, whereas degrowth could use MMT insights to shift from a ‘pay for’ to a ‘resource’ frame, while centering abundance before limits. Meanwhile, IPEE can provide insights to an MMT-informed degrowth transition by grounding this debate in material analyses of class and power. Our findings suggest that degrowth and MMT could provide a normative direction for IPEE research centered around meeting material needs within planetary boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lists of basic needs necessary for a decent human life have found their way into approaches to sustainable development such as the "Safe and Just Space for Humanity" framework. The "dominant" conceptions of a decent human life have been criticised by social groups which find themselves at the margins of public debates such as the Degrowth or Post-colonial movements. According to the latter, the dominant conceptions neglect certain values which are necessary constituents of a decent human life: meaningful activities, convivial activities, and relationships of certain quality (love, respect, harmony, care) towards human and other-than-human beings. With this paper, we present results of interviews with male Maasai pastoralists in a village in Northern Tanzania in which we elicited what they consider as requirements for a good human life. According to our results, Maasai pastoralists disagree about the necessary constituents of a decent human life as well, replicating the controversy from the international debates between the proponents of the dominant approaches and their critics from Post-colonial and Degrowth movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To justify the thesis under the motto "growing by decreasing," this paper presents three arguments. First, the evolution of ideas about tackling the environmental side effects of economic growth went from "limits to growth" to the unifying concept of "beyondgrowth," with "green growth" and "degrowth" as two poles of the recent debate. Second, there are indications of important convergences regarding policy prescriptions in any "green strategy." Third, some clues suggest that, despite the convergences, the main challenge is overcoming the inertia in production-consumption systems by destabilizing the dominant configuration and inducing a change in consumers' preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse surrounding energy transition is intensifying due to insufficient global energy resources. Nonetheless, given that the capitalist economy prioritizes expansion and growth, it remains uncertain whether green energy solutions can genuinely pave the way towards sustainability and address the challenges of climate change, energy shortages, and food security concerns. Degrowth calls for a radical reorganization of politics and economics to reduce resource, energy consumption. This paper discusses the crisis of capitalism from multiple dimensions. It uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as an approach to explain degrowth and green energy. It also explores green energy in terms of three aspects of sustainable development: the profitmaking industry, the high-efficiency paradox, and the re-challenge to the environment. Finally, it discusses the possible pathways for society to solve the global environmental crisis in the context of degrowth. These movements encourage critical thinking about the transition to green energy and offer a feasible pathway to sustainability without relying on growth ideology. This highlights the viability of the degrowth framework as a means to address a range of problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of planning has reappeared as an object of interest for critical research on post-capitalist organizational futures. This article offers a critical review of the emerging scholarship on planning, with reference to historical and contemporary precursors to democratic planning. Building on this review, the article develops a critical political ecology of planning that situates planning thought and practice within the matrix of the oikos. This encompasses not only the sphere of production and commodity exchange, but also the household of reproductive labor and the planetary household of the natural world. In this way, it is argued that democratic planning is indispensable for generating the forms of collective intelligibility and power needed to heal the metabolic relations of society and nature. By reimagining and reframing planning, the article aims to expand "the archive" of social imaginaries, as part of broader efforts to envision and develop more desirable organizational futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much has been said about the work of Oswald Mathias Ungers, this essay aims to address the decade from ‘67 to ‘77, which saw the departure of the Ungers family for the United States of America, more precisely for the city of Ithaca in the state of New York. It was precisely the American period that allowed O.M. Ungers to reflect and revise much of the work that had seen him directly involved in some controversies, which culminated in protests in December ‘67. The purpose of this text is to briefly review some of the events that took place during that period, in order to shed light on two almost unknown texts that saw their birth mainly thanks to the American period and the social ferment of the time: Kommunen in der Neuen Welt. 1740 - 1972, published in ‘72 by both authors and Die Rückkehr des Roten Mannes: Indianer in den USA, published in ‘74 by Liselotte Ungers. It is essetial to point out these publications, not only to bring to light a part of Ungers’ work unknown to most, but also to clarify some of the urban strategies proposed by O.M. Ungers that become, now more than ever, fundamental references for the possible resolution of contemporary crises. In a period that sees the rediscovery of utopia as a model for solving the many crises we are facing, as was already the case in the 1960s and 1970s, it is appropriate to recall and deepen Ungers’ reflections on the Utopian device trying not to fall back on the proposal of sci-fi or retro-futuristic models.

While degrowth as a plural and decolonial movement actively invites the Global South to be part of its transformative project, the current NorthSouth dichotomy threatens to miss the variety of semi-peripheral contexts. Against this backdrop, we aim to contribute to dialogues on degrowth from the often-overlooked ‘East’ – specifically post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Instead of being viewed as a site for transformative examples and inspiration for degrowth-oriented socio-ecological transformation, CEE is often portrayed as ‘lagging behind’. Problematising such reductionist narratives, this essay explores CEE as a lively and rich site of postcapitalist alternatives. Based on two special sessions organised at the 2023 International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, we reflect upon insights gathered on various degrowth-aligned traditions and practices in CEE with a goal to 1) advance an equitable dialogue between the global degrowth scholarship and the East, and 2) strengthen a context-sensitive degrowth agenda in CEE.

The aim of this extended review essay is to discuss the potential relevance of degrowth-aligned social-ecological transformation for the specific context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We frame this discussion around three recent books which we consider especially useful for this debate: The Future is Degrowth by Schmelzer et al. (2022, in Czech 2023) for an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the concept of degrowth; Marx in the Anthropocene by Saito (2023) for an ecologically grounded debate on anticapitalist strategies stemming from writings of late Marx; and The Political Economy of Middle Class Politics and the Global Crisis in Eastern Europe by Gagyi (2021) that empirically analyses the specific position of the CEE semiperiphery and its implications for a radical social-ecological transformation. We introduce and interlink the main ideas of these books and discuss their implications for the degrowth movement in the CEE context. We argue that to deeply transform our socio-metabolic relation with nature, it is crucial to cultivate and expand spaces of reproductive autonomy, and link them to struggles of labour and social movements. We conclude by emphasising the role of internationalism from below.

The article examines the neo-colonial influence in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ energy transitions, relating energy neocolonialism with power asymmetries. Most CEE countries began to reduce their reliance on Russian energy after the Cold War, elevating energy security to new levels around 2010. Although European Union (EU) norms have helped counteract Russia’s influence on energy, they have brought about a neoliberal neo-colonialism. On the one hand, the CEE countries need reliable and affordable energy supplies to maintain their economic growth, which leaves them prone to the Russian influence. On the other hand, the EU’s energy rules and regulations, which disregarded the CEE countries’ interests, have resulted in disobedience. The article employs the degrowth concept to examine energy neo-colonialism in the CEE, contending that the concept stands out as a hopeful signpost for realizing the scenario wherein the CEE countries’ interests can be protected and prioritized.

The Czech Republic is a notorious laggard in green transition policies. This begs the question of how stable the current socio-political setting is and whether it can resist deeper sustainability transitions in the long run. The paper combines institutional literature with sustainability transition research to describe the current situation and outline possible future developments in terms of the economic discourse. It shows that the reluctance towards the green transition may be caused not only by the strong position of incumbents but also by the limited relevance of the green competitiveness approach for the country’s situation. Based on recent developments and existing vulnerabilities, the paper identifies the possible strengths of the more radical approach to sustainability entailed in degrowth. Rather than a pure hegemony of one of the niche paradigms, however, it proposes as likely a pluriversal pathway combining elements of both in a patchwork manner.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to asses the welfare and macroeconomic implications of three distinct degrowth strategies designed to reduce carbon emissions: penalizing fossil fuel demand, substituting aggregate consumption with leisure and disincentivizing total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Design/methodology/approach – Using an environmental dynamic general equilibrium (eDGE) model that incorporates both green renewable technologies and fossil fuels in the production process, this study sets an emissions reduction target aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2050. Findings – The results reveal that the conventional degrowth strategy, wherein a reduction in the consumption of goods and services is compensated with an increase in leisure, may entail significant economic consequences, leading to a notable decline in welfare. In particular, a degrowth scenario resulting from a decline in TFP yields the most pronounced reduction in welfare. Conversely, inducing a reduction in fossil fuel demand by fiscally inflating the price of the imported commodity, despite potential social backlash, exhibits noticeably less detrimental welfare effects compared to other degrowth policies. Furthermore, under this degrowth strategy, the findings suggest that a globally coordinated strategy could result in long-term welfare gain. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first contribution that uses an eDGE model to evaluate the welfare implications of an additional degrowth strategy amidst the ongoing inertial reduction of carbon emissions.

In this article, we enjoin the United Nations (UN) to forge a path out of our plight of multiple environmental and social crises. With other analysts, we identify ‘overshoot’ – the state in which humanity has substantially outpaced Earth’s capacity to regenerate its natural systems and to absorb our waste output – as the root cause of the existential threats we face. This dangerous condition demands rethinking our relationship with Earth and embarking on scaling down the human enterprise within policy frameworks of equity and rights. We argue that when the UN first articulated its international unity and prosperity mission, it did so within a ‘growth’ paradigm that treats Earth and its nonhuman inhabitants as mere resources at humanity’s disposal. The 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development reinforced this agenda, with its sharp turn away from the earlier emphasis on population concerns and their link to environmental protection. Today, it is clear that the UN’s foundational goals of peace, human rights and sustainability flounder within a growth-driven framework of human exceptionalism and nature domination. To correct course and reverse our advanced state of ecological overshoot we urge the UN to lead in contracting the large-scale variables of the human enterprise – population, economy, technosphere – and to resist co-optation by political, ideological and special interest pressures that would derail this mandate.

The decades after the Second World War have seen economic growth and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Yet this incredible turnover of raw materials and energy into goods and eventually waste has brought our planetary systems close to their limits, as witnessed most prominently, yet not exclusively, by climate change and mass extinctions. Changing towards a greener, more sustainable and circular economy without limiting our economic wealth is attractive—yet this change does not seem to be easy or speedy enough to save the planet, its eco- and social systems, and its inhabitants. In contrast, moving towards an economy less demanding on energy and raw materials, and focusing more on the pursuit of immaterial forms of satisfaction and happiness, requires an alternative form of hedonism. By cerishing quality time rather than heaps of money, and social interactions rather than material goods, even a finite planet may allow sustainable and indeed infinite forms and amounts of prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of degrowth aligns with the principles of Climate and Environmental Justice (CEJ) in significant aspects. Both frameworks underline the need for new global structures and social movements that promote ecological conservation, local economic regeneration, and social well-being that goes beyond material accumulation. Therefore, degrowth can reinforce the pursuit of transformative global climate justice. However, I contend that significant contradictions remain between degrowth and North–South climate justice. I argue that on both conceptual and policy grounds, a 'strong version' of the green economy provides a better foundation for seeking international climate justice for Africa than degrowth. I also contend that green growth is a more pragmatic and realistic approach to global climate justice because it is more sensitive to the norms, structures, and dynamics of global politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of globalisation, the global pecking order, and most international development policies are anchored on the concept of economic growth, which is at the same time increasingly questioned on social and ecological grounds. Increases in global output (GDP) are indeed among the main drivers of energy and natural resources overuse, with potentially destructive consequences for the overall ecological balances sustaining life on the planet. As a consequence, a number of post-growth theories and approaches have emerged over the past few years. This article carries out a comparative analysis of three main post-growth schools of thought in order to trace back their origin, evolution, and policy impacts at the global level. It also investigates the main points of tension and synergy to advance the debate on how best to challenge conventional growth-based policies in the international arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the vast majority of post-growth thinking has been focused on explaining why a post-growth transition is needed and the policies this would entail. Less attention, in contrast, has been paid to the relations of power and structural mechanisms through which 'growth hegemony' is continuously reproduced, and even less to the mechanisms, counter-hegemonic strategies, and coalitions that could plausibly drive post-growth transitions in core states of the world-system. This article will explore these issues through the lens of Neo-Gramscian theory, particularly the 'complex hegemony' framework developed by Alex Williams. From this perspective, rather than reducing growth to capitalist relations of production (as Marxists typically do), we should instead frame it as an emergent hegemonic structure and process shaped by the reciprocally determining forces of political economy, ideology, and militarisation. I will argue that this approach provides more insight into the messiness of possible post-growth futures – which may confound neat binaries such as capitalism/socialism – as well as the mechanisms and struggles through which the world-system might be pushed in post-growth directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degrowth literature predominantly states that degrowth strategies are meant from and for the Global North. While economic mainstream discourse suggests that the Global South still has to grow in terms of achieving development, degrowth proponents expect a reduction of material and energy throughput in the Global North to make ecological and conceptual space for the Global South to find its own paths toward ecosocial transformation. Based on a Latin American post-development and post-extractivist perspective and drawing on dependency theory, this article suggests another approach: first, it argues that the growth imperative, which in the peripheral world translates into the imperative to develop, also causes harm in societies of the Global South. Throughout Latin America, in the last decades, economic growth has mainly been achieved through extractivism with negative impacts, which are now being pushed further by green growth strategies. Second, I explore some possibilities for a cross-fertilisation between degrowth and International Relations scholarship, calling into question the assumption that degrowth in high-income countries would automatically 'make space' for the Global South to engage in self-determined paths of ecosocial transformation, as long as the structures, institutions, and rules of global governance and trade which secure profoundly asymmetric, colonial relations are not challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of the increasing depletion of the planet's ecological 'resources' and endemic environmental problems, the view of creativity as servicing the ideal of infinite economic growth has become problematic. We need, instead, to explore how creativity can contribute to grounding our intentions and actions within an ongoing and mutually shaping engagement and cohabitation between people and things-in-the-world. To explore this issue, we introduce the creative preservation framework. It allows to study practices which have received little attention in the literature to date, despite ensuring continuity, preventing deterioration, and valuing what already exists. Our working definition of creative preservation refers to practices of creation that prevent the decay of existing materials and ideas by updating and adapting them, or re-expressing them in another way through the exploration of their affordances. We examine four practices that reflect non-exhaustive forms of creative preservation practices: upcycling, bricolage, low-tech, and craft. The article opens with an ethos of creative preservation in the context of degrowth. It marks a first step towards creative practices that, rather than viewing us as occupants of the world, make us inhabitants of it, thereby contributing to reimagining new modes of relationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degrowth paradigm has gained popularity in the sustainability discourse in recent years. Questioning the absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation, degrowth proponents suggest downscaling production and consumption to reduce resource extraction and energy consumption. However, this seems to be at odds with conventional wisdom about entrepreneurship. Thus, our research aims to shed light on the implications of the degrowth discourse on entrepreneurship. We answer how degrowth attitudes among (sustainable) entrepreneurs are associated with decision‐making on scaling strategies for their ventures. Differentiating between scaling fast and scaling slow strategies, we show that a degrowth attitude is negatively associated with scaling fast strategies, whether entrepreneurs consider themselves sustainable or not. However, sustainable entrepreneurship is positively associated with scaling slow strategies. Furthermore, we show that the development level of the economy an entrepreneur is active in is an essential factor in the decision‐making on scaling strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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I am proposing a manifesto for degrowth pedagogies. Designed for Higher Education institutions and theatre pedagogues, I argue the need to develop a system of theatre training based on degrowth theory. Developed from French intellectual thought in the early 1970s, degrowth diagnoses the climate, ecological, socio-political and spiritual crises, as symptoms of capitalism's growth imperative, with its impulse for ever-increasing productivity in spite of the direct and ever-increasing detriment to people and planet. The theatre sector exists in a position of subservience to this growth-centric, socio-economic model – under pressure to adopt growthist practices in theatrical production, such as high-carbon international touring; ideological conformism to attract 'greenwashing' corporate funding; among other phenomena. Yet, to avoid contributing to climate, ecological and societal breakdown, the theatre sector will need to understand and adopt degrowth practices. Theatre pedagogy is an ideal site to affect change. Theatre training institutions must undergo a transition towards new ways of serving their students, as well as local and global communities, while inviting new generations of theatre-makers to create differently; to consider how the aesthetics, forms and material realities of their practice can embody 'slow' and degrowth theatre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this article, we argue that E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful offers important insights for contemporary social theory. In particular, we focus on the merits of his use of 'meta-economics' and of 'scale' as a means for advancing ecological social critique. While we are sympathetic to Schumacher's approach, we are mindful of the limitations to his theoretical imagination and commence our article acknowledging his partisan metaphysics and his insensitivity to global political dynamics. To resolve this, we demonstrate that the central critical insights Schumacher provides can be substantially extricated from these problems. Our task here, therefore, is a critical reconstruction of Schumacher's approach to social-ecological critique, which we claim offers the potential to shape contemporary social theory, both within and beyond critical political ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we enjoin the United Nations (UN) to forge a path out of our plight of multiple environmental and social crises. With other analysts, we identify 'overshoot' - the state in which humanity has substantially outpaced Earth's capacity to regenerate its natural systems and to absorb our waste output - as the root cause of the existential threats we face. This dangerous condition demands rethinking our relationship with Earth and embarking on scaling down the human enterprise within policy frameworks of equity and rights. We argue that when the UN first articulated its international unity and prosperity mission, it did so within a 'growth' paradigm that treats Earth and its nonhuman inhabitants as mere resources at humanity's disposal. The 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development reinforced this agenda, with its sharp turn away from the earlier emphasis on population concerns and their link to environmental protection. Today, it is clear that the UN's foundational goals of peace, human rights and sustainability flounder within a growthdriven framework of human exceptionalism and nature domination. To correct course and reverse our advanced state of ecological overshoot, we urge the UN to lead in contracting the large-scale variables of the human enterprise - population, economy, technosphere - and to resist co-optation by political, ideological and special interest pressures that would derail this mandate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper makes the case for a post-capitalist oriented 'Collective Physical Activity' (Co-PA) to contribute to individual well-being and social change here and now, while working towards more equitable post-capitalist futures. We begin by underlining systemic issues that exacerbate inequalities, highlighting the need for a 'leisure for all' contributing to system change. We briefly critique dominant approaches to promoting sport and physical activity to target inequalities, suggesting three potential improvements: first, diverting attention from organized sport towards personally meaningful physical activities; second, focusing on bottom-up collective opportunities, rather than top-down ones; third, advocating for system change to foster hope and tackle societal issues at their roots. To this end, we propose Co-PA as an approach to physical activity for social justice, suggesting three core features: (i) meaning and enjoyment; (ii) collective engagement; and (iii) a post-capitalist outlook. Finally, we outline examples of how these principles could look like in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapidly expanding degrowth literature has focused predominantly on the case for degrowth and its goals and much less attention has been given to how it might be achieved. The following discussion is not concerned to review the current state of the discussion and refers to it only in order to develop a case for a particular approach to degrowth strategy, that is, one deriving from the simpler way perspective on the global predicament. This focuses on the alarming and poorly recognised extent to which global sustainability limits have been exceeded. When this is understood it is clear that extremely radical solutions must be sought. There has to be transition to far simpler lifestyles and systems. This requires abandoning various fundamental structures and taken-for-granted assumptions and ways. Thus it will be argued that numerous degrowth strategies are inappropriate, including attempting to reform existing governmental policies and adopting eco-socialist goals and means. This perspective on the situation has coercive implications for viable strategy. One major implication of the simpler way perspective is that ends and means must be anarchist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overcoming the destructive power of the capitalist world system requires bringing relevant alternatives together in a way that respects their diversity. In this article, we investigate the significance of care – in its ethical, practical, and affective dimensions – in the task of uniting the pluriverse alternatives at moments and sites of counter-hegemonic struggle. Our analysis focuses on the degrowth movement and environmental justice movements. Adopting a post-Marxist discourse theory lens, we argue that care can mobilize and coalesce these pluriverse alternatives into temporarily united counter-hegemonic coalitions. For effectively disrupting the hegemony of the capitalist world system, we suggest that the pluriverse should meet the following three conditions: (1) the symbolic construction of the world system as an enemy to mobilize against, (2) a vision recognizing the foundational nature of care-based relations for pluriversal futures, and (3) practices of care fitting together with the parallel understandings and visions of the pluriverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a critical environmental political project, the degrowth movement contests the hegemony of economic growth. Much scholarship has sought to unpack degrowth’s proposals to reduce matter and energy throughput and to promote socio-ecological justice, democracy and wellbeing. Few studies, however, examine how the movement sustains itself. In this article, therefore, we explore the role fantasy plays in the movement’s emergence and sustenance. We draw on semi-structured interviews and officially-disseminated documents to examine the discourse of degrowth through a Critical Fantasy Studies lens, arguing that fantasies structure supporters’ desires and sustain the energy lying behind their environmental politics and actions. We suggest that the fantasy of ‘mutual dependence and care’, in particular, affectively fortifies their efforts to contest economic growth’s hegemonic norms and, in doing so, bolsters degrowth’s distributed modes of political action while also allowing its members to cultivate a prefigurative ethics of engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue for consideration of deliberative democratic pathways to governing infrastructure systems to enable a planned reduction in economic activity. Given the dominant perspective is "infrastructure facilitates growth", we first consider contemporary criticisms of growth. We critique the large-scale, complex infrastructures implied, and the forms of democratic governance envisaged. Such infrastructures drive forms of economic activity that advocates of degrowth demonstrate are incompatible with attempts to reduce resources consumed by contemporary economies and their emissions. We argue any deliberation on infrastructures must acknowledge they are not simply physical objects but rather bundles of relationships. With dominant economic relationships challenged by the view that infrastructures ought to be managed as commons we argue that the relational perspective sets the stage for deliberation over physical, social, and environmental infrastructure that escapes what are incorrectly assumed to be insurmountable path dependencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across decades of contemporary discussion on sustainable development, a core concern has been the balance between economic, social, and environmental dimensions. A critical strand of the debate focuses on economic growth versus economic degrowth and, more specifically, on whether economic growth can be sustainable in environmental terms and whether degrowth can be sustainable in social terms. This conceptual and theoretical article used the Sustainability Window, or "SuWi"' method, to theoretically determine the sustainable window of economies. The window is defined as the upper and lower bounds of future change in GDP that could be deemed in line with achieving both environmental and social sustainability. The conceptual analysis considers all theoretically possible scenario paths for development by combining the outcome paths of economic, environmental, and social dimensions with the environmental and social productivities of GDP. Through SuWi analysis, it is found that only four of the logically possible scenario paths could be considered theoretically "sustainable"—two cases involving economic growth and two of degrowth. In the cases of each of the four paths, sustainability only emerges where they adhere to strict conditions in terms of environmental and social outcomes, as well as related productivities. The SuWi approach and its applied analytical formulas have many potential uses in 21st-century policymaking for sustainability, including supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It provides a unique and comprehensive theoretical and analytical framework that enables the categorisation of the complex challenges of sustainability and quantitative analysis of policy choices. Such foresight analysis could greatly assist in providing an evidence base for future development planning and policy formulation, ex ante of locking in a pathway. Further implementation in applied studies that explore a comprehensive indicator set, robust and consistent across all relevant dimensions, offers a promising opportunity to advance empirical analysis of key questions in sustainable development globally at a critical juncture in human history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The concept of conviviality, introduced by Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality (1973), offers a solution to the counterproductive effects of fast transport. It is now widely recognized that fast transport does not save time for individuals and communities but rather increases the feeling of time famine and ultimately leads to greater energy consumption to travel longer distances. In today’s context of urban time famine and ecological crisis, I show that Illich’s system of thought finds empirical validity. An inductive approach in nine “Cittàslow” labeled European cities demonstrates that a slow pace of life and mobility contributes to the maintenance of friendly or convivial relations. Incorporating slow mobility policies into the broader framework of convivial cities could become a key instrument in the transition to a more sustainable path, while also offering prospects for future lifestyles that people find desirable. The article concludes by arguing that the pursuit of conviviality in cities can help promote slow mobility and sustainable living, ultimately contributing to a more environmentally conscious and socially connected society.

Many definitions of degrowth highlight that the corresponding great and deep transformations are going to be “designed,” “planned,” and “democratic.” However, critical issues of democratic planning have only recently begun to be discussed. Considering a range of aspects of the technical and social division of labor, the article first revisits some of the main issues of market vis-à-vis planned resource allocation in capitalist and socialist economic growth contexts. It then zooms in on goals, characteristics, and likely issues of division of labor and resource allocation in planned degrowth circumstances. I argue that degrowth societies could use three measures to reduce the complexity of the division of labor that undermined socialist planning attempts. First, degrowth societies could immediately phase out the “excess sector” of production. Second, they could develop, under consideration of their institutional national traditions, pragmatic mixes of ex ante planning (assisted by digital solutions) of the “essential” economic sector and ex post or market regulation of the “in-between” sector. Finally, a parsimonious use of digital tools is likely to be helpful in connecting different scales of governance and associated planning activities (local, national, regional, global). To democratically legitimize planning goals and processes without overburdening people, pathways may be sought that emphasize value over formal rationality, or general planning principles and strategies over concrete targets and tasks. Democratic legitimacy could further increase through a complementation of representative democracy through deliberative instruments such as citizen forums or assemblies as well as applications of the subsidiarity principle.

Attention to inequality is increasingly taking centerstage in the fight against climate change and environmental devastation. More and more scholars and activists emphasize the need to put the reduction of inequality at the core of environmental and climate politics, and more and more propose a (socially just) “sufficiency” approach and politics to do so. Just sufficiency is presented as the new desirable societal pact, tasked with taking over from the current dominant growth pact driving “excess,” and replacing it with a politics of “enough,” through “collectively defined self-limitation.” However, an excess/enough lens misses the dynamics of production of inequality in the first place, with important political implications. This article thus seeks to contribute a tighter critical theoretical understanding of the inequality-unsustainability relation as a nexus historically powered by specific mechanisms of fossil, metabolic, as well as “green” accumulation. Through the theorization of these relations, one can better apprehend how inequality is not only a question of unfair distribution or exclusion from affluence demanding to be addressed through social and environmental justice, but also the condition for the modes of extraction and exploitation that produce and reproduce unsustainability. I argue that the counterhegemonic struggle must be waged on that terrain: putting limitations (not self-limitations) on the accumulation machine and its inequality-unsustainability nexus. This reading, which builds on critical theory and Marxist and feminist political ecology, is related to notions of class as structured not only by exploitation, but also, crucially by dispossession and status hierarchization. Adopting a nexus approach to inequality and unsustainability offers a critical theoretical method that can hopefully shift the assessments and orientations of the sufficiency movement away from the moral terrain of self-limitation (whose self?) toward the class politics of limits on capital needed today for socio-ecological transformation.