The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

The third way: the renewal of social democracy

Over the past few generations, expectations of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have altered radically, but these dramatic changes have largely gone unnoticed. This intriguing book brings together the sociology of consumption and technology to investigate the evolution of these changes, as well the social meaning of the practices themselves. Homes, offices, domestic appliances and clothes play a crucial role in our lives, but not many of us question exactly how and why we perform so many daily rituals associated with them. Showers, heating, air-conditioning and clothes washing are simply accepted as part of our normal, everyday lives, but clearly this was not always the case. When did the daily shower become de rigueur? What effect has air conditioning had on the siesta at one time an integral part of Mediterranean life and culture? This book interrogates the meaning and supposed normality of these practices and draws disturbing conclusions. There is clear evidence supporting the view that routine consumption is controlled by conceptions of normality and profoundly shaped by cultural and economic forces. Shove maintains that habits are not just changing, but are changing in ways that imply escalating and standardizing patterns of consumption. This shrewd and engrossing analysis shows just how far the social meanings and practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have eluded us.

Comfort, cleanliness and conveniencethe social organization ofnormality

(2005) The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 History: Reviews of New Books: Vol 33, No 2, pp 82-82

The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–1957

Cet article souligne que les recherches sur l’adaptation aux changements climatiques omettent souvent l’importance des facteurs psychologiques dans la determination des mesures et actions d’adaptation. Les auteurs presentent donc un modele socio-cognitif de l’adaptation proactive privee aux changements climatiques (socio-cognitive Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change – MPPACC) qui montre que le nœud du probleme de l’adaptation se trouve dans la perception du risque et la pe...

Adaptive capacity and human cognition: The process of individual adaptation to climate change

Mobilising community action towards a low-carbon future: Opportunities and challenges for local government in the UK

Local level decision-making can provide a vital and practicable means through which to deliver carbon reductions at individual, household and community levels. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges associated with the role of local government action in delivering a resilient, low carbon future. Drawing on qualitative data gathered through interviews with six case study local authorities in the UK, the paper examines in particular the ways in which they have tried to address energy and environmental goals in their areas of jurisdiction. The principles of Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) are employed to provide fresh insights on the potential for local government to encourage ‘niche’ level influences on economic, technological and social/behavioural innovation. In doing so, we identify the enabling factors and drivers that have given rise to success in linking microlevel goals with existing macro-level objectives, as well as highlighting some of the persistent obstacles that continue to hamper progress.

Local authorities as niche actors: the case of energy governance in the UK

'We are faced with the greatest challenge to public engagement since World War Two, and a new discourse of fear - not military invasion but climate change. At the same time most people cannot grasp the scale of the challenge nor what they are supposed to do about it. Good governance requires an informed citizenry who are much more than consumers and customers, but active participants in a new post-carbon politics. Low Carbon Communities helps to set out the political and cultural agenda for the first half of the twenty-first century and, ultimately, the imaginative approaches that are required now to address climate change.' © Anastassios Gentzoglanis and Anders Henten 2010. All rights reserved.

Low Carbon Communities: Imaginative Approaches to Combating Climate Change Locally

This paper examines some of the normative aspects of “community energy” programmes—defined here as decentralized forms of energy production and distributed energy technologies where production decisions are made as close as possible to sources of consumption. Such projects might also display a degree of separation from the formal political process. The development of a community energy system often generates a great deal of debate about both the degree of public support for such programmes and the values around which programmes ought to be organized. Community energy programmes also raise important issues regarding the energy choice problem, including questions of process, that is, by whom a project is developed and the influence of both community and exogenous actors, as well as certain outcome issues regarding the spatial and social distribution of energy. The case studies, drawn from community energy programmes in both the United States and the United Kingdom, allow for a careful examination of all of these factors, considering in particular the complex interplay and juxtaposition between the ideas of “public value” and “public values”.

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Public Values and Community Energy: Lessons from the US and UK

This paper explores the politics around the role of agency in the UK climate change debate. Government interventions on the demand side of consumption have increasingly involved attempts to obtain greater traction with the values, attitudes and beliefs of citizens in relation to climate change and also in terms of influencing consumer behaviour at an individual level. With figures showing that approximately 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions are attributable to household and transport behaviour, policy initiatives have progressively focused on the facilitation of “sustainable behaviours”. Evidence suggests however, that mobilisation of pro-environmental attitudes in addressing the perceived “value-action gap” has so far had limited success. Research in this field suggests that there is a more significant and nuanced “gap” between context and behaviour; a relationship that perhaps provides a more adroit reflection of reasons why people do not necessarily react in the way that policy-makers anticipate. Tracing the development of the UK Government’s behaviour change agenda over the last decade, we posit that a core reason for the limitations of this programme relates to an excessively narrow focus on the individual. This has served to obscure some of the wider political and economic aspects of the debate in favour of a more simplified discussion. The second part of the paper reports findings from a series of focus groups exploring some of the wider political views that people hold around household energy habits, purchase and use of domestic appliances, and transport behaviour-and discusses these insights in relation to the literature on the agenda’s apparent limitations. The paper concludes by considering whether the aims of the Big Society approach (recently established by the UK’s Coalition Government) hold the potential to engage more directly with some of these issues or whether they merely constitute a “repackaging” of the individualism agenda.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/6/789/pdf

Shane Fudge

Papers

Mobilising community action towards a low-carbon future: Opportunities and challenges for local government in the UK

Local authorities as niche actors: the case of energy governance in the UK

Low Carbon Communities: Imaginative Approaches to Combating Climate Change Locally

Public Values and Community Energy: Lessons from the US and UK

Behaviour Change in the UK Climate Debate: An Assessment of Responsibility, Agency and Political Dimensions