300409 Global Eco-Social Policy (S) (SoSe 2023)

The growing pressures of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the required structural and behavioral changes to mitigate these crises have increasingly brought about questions of not only environmental policy but also social welfare. Global observation is that existing policies fail to moderate the relationship between natural and social systems efficiently. The more fundamental human needs a country accomplishes to satisfy, the more planetary boundaries are usually overshot. Wealthy nations reach most human needs but far overshoot biophysical boundaries, while some developing countries hardly overshoot planetary boundaries but fail to fulfill various human needs.

In order to assess and study this tension, this seminar focuses particularly on International Organisations and how they shape a field of global eco-social policy that, in one way or the other, resonates with the crucial tension and interconnections between environmental and social goals.

Several themes are explored in this seminar: Global Social Policy, Global Environmental Policy, International Organisations, Eco-Social Policy, Social-Ecological Transformation