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Perceptions of degrowth in the European Parliament

Nature Sustainability volume 7, pages 64–72 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Degrowth is a sustainability strategy that is attracting increasing scientific interest, but is seen as too radical for politicians to accept, especially when compared with ‘green growth’. Here we use Q methodology to investigate viewpoints of political elites on degrowth and green growth by inquiring the views of 41 elected members of the European Parliament. We find opinions clustered around three distinct discourses: a ‘Post-growth Deal’, closer to degrowth, an ‘Ecosocialist Green New Deal’ and finally a ‘Liberal Green Deal’, linked to green growth. Green growth opinions are found in the centre-right of the political spectrum while two distinct centre-left/left discourses (post-growth and eco-socialism) are respectively critical and agnostic towards growth and coalesce on public investment, environmental justice, and working-hours reduction. Radical sustainability opinions therefore exist among elected policy makers, and consensus does not necessarily build on supposedly win–win options that combine growth and sustainability. Questions remain over when and how such radical opinions may find expression in concrete policies.

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Fig. 1: Number and percentage of MEPs from different European regions surveyed.
Fig. 2: Salient statements for each of the three discourses.
Fig. 3: Radar diagram showing salient statements shared by discourses 1 and 2 with the position of discourse 3 in relation.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the publicly accessible repository Zenodo.

Code availability

All the data used to produce the results of the study are available through Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8332338).

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support by the ‘María de Maeztu’ Unit of Excellence (MDM-2015-0552) grant. G.K.: this work was supported by the European Research Council REAL—ERC-2022-SYG REAL reference number 101071647. R.M.: the PhD project that gave rise to the results of this study received the support of a fellowship from ‘la Caixa’ Foundation (ID100010434) with code LCF/BQ/IN18/11660059. C.Z.: acknowledges support by the GRES research project (contract number CNS2022-136115) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union Next Generation/PRTR programme. We acknowledge R. Sorensen for her help with editing and E. Karafilli for her help with the visuals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICTA-UAB, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Giorgos Kallis & Riccardo Mastini

  2. ICREA, Barcelona, Spain

    Giorgos Kallis

  3. JHU-UPF Public Policy Center, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Christos Zografos

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  1. Giorgos Kallis
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Contributions

Conceptualization: G.K., R.M. and C.Z. Methodology: G.K., R.M. and C.Z. Data collection: R.M. Data analysis: R.M. and C.Z. Visualization: G.K., R.M. and C.Z. Writing: G.K., R.M. and C.Z. Funding acquisition: R.M.

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Correspondence to Riccardo Mastini.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Aron Buzogány, Vasiliki Tsagkroni and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Kallis, G., Mastini, R. & Zografos, C. Perceptions of degrowth in the European Parliament. Nat Sustain 7, 64–72 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01246-x

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