300273 Social policy and the environment: understanding society-nature relationships (S) (SoSe 2017)

Growing ecological problems such as climate change, air pollution, the degradation of soil or the acidification of the oceans call for prompt and effective political solutions and environmental regulations. However, many green policies are accompanied by or even cause new social problems. For example, energy poverty can occur if measures of climate protection raise energy costs for private households. While on the one side green policies are not necessarily social, social policies are, on the other side, often not ecologically sustainable. Particularly the comparatively generous Western welfare states have large ecological footprints and cannot be adapted by the rest of the planet if environmental concerns are considered. As a consequence, research has begun to search for possibilities to decarbonize the welfare state and reduce its material and energy consumption. More and more welfare and prosperity concepts are emerging which take into account ecological and social issues equally and share the hypothesis that much of what is required for welfare and human flourishing is non-material once a decent material standard of living is attained, and that this is achievable at much lower than current levels of environmental damages.
The seminar deals with the interplay of these normally unconnected policy fields of environmental and social policies. The following topics will be addressed:
• Basic concepts and theories of social policy
• Scientific assessment of global environmental problems and ecological concepts (ecological footprint, biodiversity etc.)
• Growth critique, social and economic factors of ecological problems
• Basic concepts and theories of environmental sociology
• Comparative welfare research: which types of welfare states are sustainable?
• Alternative models of society-nature relationships: degrowth, steady-state economics, post-growth society, sustainability and sufficiency etc.
• Examples of eco-social policies: reduction of working hours, unconditional basic income, minimum and maximum wages etc.
Details about literature and schedule will be announced during the first class and published online in the respective section of the Lernraum in eKVV.

• The last session will take place on Monday, July 17th. An alternative date replacing the session on July 24th will be announced within the first weeks of the course.