September 28, 2022 Working paper Open Access

The politicization of climate change governance. Building blocks for a theoretical framework and research agenda

Wendler, Frank

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Abstract of Current Paper

Climate change prompts political controversies of increasing reach, political salience and contentiousness, creating a dynamic of public contestation captured by the term politicization. The implications of this dynamic for policy-making remain unknown, with extant research struggling to establish theoretical concepts and hypotheses in this regard. How can observable and anticipated effects of politicization on climate policy-making be theorized? The paper seeks to advance the debate on this question by proposing four building blocks for a theoretical framework and future research agenda: first, the scope of political agendas and policy programs that frame political controversies on climate change; second, relevant arenas of public debate and their effect on structuring dynamics of interaction between policy-making agents and broader political publics; third, issue dimensions emerging from controversy on climate change involving questions of problem definition, assignment of political authority and policy evaluation; and finally, interfaces between institutional nodes of climate governance networks and their interaction with each other. The central hypothesis of this framework – namely, that the effects of politicization are mediated by the escalating or accommodating quality of these four factors – is illustrated by a comparison of climate change politics in the EU and US since the Paris Agreement.

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