Conceptualising Climate Change Mitigation Politics

Chapter 3 constructs the broad and historicised conceptualisation of mitigation politics by building on, critiquing and combining insights from constructivist political economy; climate policy, political economy of transitions; and socio-technical transitions research. The aim of this chapter is to present a perspective on mitigation politics that at once allows for analysis of different phases of climate mitigation policymaking and politics over time, recognises and incorporates mitigation-related constraints and opportunities, and takes account of a wide range of features of politics – collective choice, agency and capacity, deliberation, and social interaction. Doing so also offers up a more nuanced and detailed account of different but related varieties of politicisation – and how they interact with one another. The following four chapters apply this broad, inclusive, and historicised framing to explore and interpret different phases of constructing mitigation policies that have emerged over the past 40 years or so.