Visions of the Good Future: Sustainable Development and Long-term Political Thinking in the Swedish Climate Debate 1970–2015
In a time of radical climate changes, it has become clear how actions in the present have long-term consequences and affect future people and their conditions. Simultaneously, political discussions are often accused of favoring the present at the expense of the future. Long-term perspectives are replaced by qualities such as feasibility and plannability. This project examines as time when matters of the future were seen as central. The project focuses on the climate question and investigates how the relationship between the present and the future was conceptualized in terms of sustainable development. The concept sustainable development incorporates both understandings of historical developments, and thereby different traditions of ideas, and expectations for the future. In other words, it reflects different ways of perceiving the relation between the past, the present, and the future.
The project targets multiple academic fields, e.g. historical research on perceptions of time, future studies, sustainability research, and environmental politics. By synthesizing theories and methods from the domain of conceptual history, the concept of sustainable development is analyzed in order to shed light on the perceptions of time that characterized the Swedish climate debate. The project will thus provide a historical context for different ways of envisioning a future of sustainable development today.
Final report
– Purpose and Development of the Project –
The overall purpose of the project titled “Visions of the Good Future: Sustainable Development and Long-term Political Thinking, 1970–2015” has been to analyze how politics has dealt with the relationship between the present and the future, with a special focus on Swedish climate politics. The project has approached this at the level of Swedish party politics and analyzed how the political parties have discussed the climate issue and used the concept of sustainable development.
In relation to the original research plan, some changes have been made in terms of the empirical base for the project and its methodological approach. The original plan referred to methodological inspiration from German conceptual history. However, after taking the reviewers’ comments into consideration, the project has focused less on single concepts (although “sustainable development” has been the centre that the study has revolved around) and understood the future as a struggle for action and political struggle rather than as a linguistic or semantic category. In terms of sources, due to restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the project has been forced to make some changes. The university library, which is where the computer connected to the database “Svenska dagstidningar” [Swedish newspapers] is located, has had substantially decreased opening hours making it problematic to work with this database. Moreover, the travel restrictions of the university have made it difficult to motivate longer travels to archives which was part of the original plan. However, the main sources of the project have been excerpted and analyzed according to the original research plan, that is, parliamentary material, party programs, and election manifestos.
– The Three Most Important Results of the Project –
1. The project has contributed to the discussion about how the future can be understood and constructed in relation to historical language uses. More specifically, the project has aimed to nuance Reinhart Koselleck’s theory in which perceptions about time is a matter of the relationship between experiences and expectations. As shown by the project, not all statements about the future can be understood as expectations. Instead, the project has argued that it is analytically more fruitful to separate between expectations and anticipations, between what is empirically probable and what concerns potential opportunities. By combining Koselleck’s theoretical project with Ernst Bloch’s process-based utopianism, it has been shown how it is analytically possible to understand statements about the future as two separate categories and how this facilitates a deeper analysis of language uses about the future.
2. By analyzing parliamentary material, the project has shown how the political parties have used and understood the concept of sustainable development. The concept has been situated at the intersection of the semantic fields and temporalities surrounding sustainability and development respectively. The parts have, however, exercised various influence over the whole. For long, development was the dominant part of the “sustainable development” while being closely associated with ideas about continuous improvement. Sustainability was primarily given a moderating function; it was about controlling the expected improvement or to give shine to political goals formulated in terms of economic growth. When the concept of social sustainable development became more frequently discussed, sustainability was given a more prominent role. To encompass all dimensions of “sustainable development”, the concept of the sustainable society was put forward. This concept should hence be understood as an umbrella concept under which more specific forms of “sustainable development” was integrated.
3. The project has empirically shown how the postpolitical condition, that previously mainly has been discussed at a theoretical level, has come to characterize the Swedish climate debate. The project shows how Swedish election campaigns, a domain which is traditionally characterized by political vocabulary and politicization, gradually has adopted a universalistic use of language. This has made it problematic to name political subjectivities, and the enemy of global warming has been constructed as an outsider that threatens the current order rather than being understood as the order itself.
– New Research Questions –
During the project, it has become clear how the parliamentary debate about the climate increasingly has been about regulative practices while the temporal framing of the issue seems to derive from, or at least be influenced by, other parts of society. Because of this, the project has also examined the new generation of climate activism that emerged during the late 2010s, and which has gotten wide recognition in the mainstream climate debate. In particular, the project has analyzed how these climate organization try to motivate action simultaneously as they, according to previous research, argue that we are living in a postapocalyptic condition, that is, that the climate collapse is a present reality.
– Dissemination of Results –
The results of the project have been communicated in six published or accepted articles in scientific peer review journals. Two more articles are currently under review. The demand for Open Access has been met, either by university agreements with the publishers or by the project paying an Open Access fee. The results have also been communicated at scientific conferences and symposia. This has, however, due to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, been done to a lesser degree that the original research plan stated. Moreover, information about the project and its results has also been communicated through university lectures, blog posts, and popular scientific lectures.
The overall purpose of the project titled “Visions of the Good Future: Sustainable Development and Long-term Political Thinking, 1970–2015” has been to analyze how politics has dealt with the relationship between the present and the future, with a special focus on Swedish climate politics. The project has approached this at the level of Swedish party politics and analyzed how the political parties have discussed the climate issue and used the concept of sustainable development.
In relation to the original research plan, some changes have been made in terms of the empirical base for the project and its methodological approach. The original plan referred to methodological inspiration from German conceptual history. However, after taking the reviewers’ comments into consideration, the project has focused less on single concepts (although “sustainable development” has been the centre that the study has revolved around) and understood the future as a struggle for action and political struggle rather than as a linguistic or semantic category. In terms of sources, due to restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the project has been forced to make some changes. The university library, which is where the computer connected to the database “Svenska dagstidningar” [Swedish newspapers] is located, has had substantially decreased opening hours making it problematic to work with this database. Moreover, the travel restrictions of the university have made it difficult to motivate longer travels to archives which was part of the original plan. However, the main sources of the project have been excerpted and analyzed according to the original research plan, that is, parliamentary material, party programs, and election manifestos.
– The Three Most Important Results of the Project –
1. The project has contributed to the discussion about how the future can be understood and constructed in relation to historical language uses. More specifically, the project has aimed to nuance Reinhart Koselleck’s theory in which perceptions about time is a matter of the relationship between experiences and expectations. As shown by the project, not all statements about the future can be understood as expectations. Instead, the project has argued that it is analytically more fruitful to separate between expectations and anticipations, between what is empirically probable and what concerns potential opportunities. By combining Koselleck’s theoretical project with Ernst Bloch’s process-based utopianism, it has been shown how it is analytically possible to understand statements about the future as two separate categories and how this facilitates a deeper analysis of language uses about the future.
2. By analyzing parliamentary material, the project has shown how the political parties have used and understood the concept of sustainable development. The concept has been situated at the intersection of the semantic fields and temporalities surrounding sustainability and development respectively. The parts have, however, exercised various influence over the whole. For long, development was the dominant part of the “sustainable development” while being closely associated with ideas about continuous improvement. Sustainability was primarily given a moderating function; it was about controlling the expected improvement or to give shine to political goals formulated in terms of economic growth. When the concept of social sustainable development became more frequently discussed, sustainability was given a more prominent role. To encompass all dimensions of “sustainable development”, the concept of the sustainable society was put forward. This concept should hence be understood as an umbrella concept under which more specific forms of “sustainable development” was integrated.
3. The project has empirically shown how the postpolitical condition, that previously mainly has been discussed at a theoretical level, has come to characterize the Swedish climate debate. The project shows how Swedish election campaigns, a domain which is traditionally characterized by political vocabulary and politicization, gradually has adopted a universalistic use of language. This has made it problematic to name political subjectivities, and the enemy of global warming has been constructed as an outsider that threatens the current order rather than being understood as the order itself.
– New Research Questions –
During the project, it has become clear how the parliamentary debate about the climate increasingly has been about regulative practices while the temporal framing of the issue seems to derive from, or at least be influenced by, other parts of society. Because of this, the project has also examined the new generation of climate activism that emerged during the late 2010s, and which has gotten wide recognition in the mainstream climate debate. In particular, the project has analyzed how these climate organization try to motivate action simultaneously as they, according to previous research, argue that we are living in a postapocalyptic condition, that is, that the climate collapse is a present reality.
– Dissemination of Results –
The results of the project have been communicated in six published or accepted articles in scientific peer review journals. Two more articles are currently under review. The demand for Open Access has been met, either by university agreements with the publishers or by the project paying an Open Access fee. The results have also been communicated at scientific conferences and symposia. This has, however, due to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, been done to a lesser degree that the original research plan stated. Moreover, information about the project and its results has also been communicated through university lectures, blog posts, and popular scientific lectures.