Research
You will find a complete range of our peer-reviewed monographs, multi-authored and edited works, including original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
This chapter explores the extent to which eco-social policies address residential energy poverty in the existing housing stock in two case study countries: Denmark and Ireland. These cases represent different welfare regimes in different climatic or geographic regions. The chapter commences with a discussion of sustainable welfare, the conceptual underpinning of the analysis. This is followed by a review of the literature on energy poverty and an analysis of energy poverty in each jurisdiction. The next sections describe and evaluate the policies and instruments used to address energy poverty and an assessment of the extent to which eco-social policies are in place to retrofit the existing housing stock.
The immediate and increasingly urgent challenge of climate change is, among other disciplines, also a task for the social sciences. This chapter argues that Political Sociology offers concepts that help us to better understand how the efforts for an urgently needed eco-social transformation need to be analysed, moving beyond affirmative policy analysis of, for example, the European Green Deal. Instead of overstating the governmental emphasis on consensus building and respective policy proposals and implementations, critical policy analysis requires us to take into account the conflict dimension inherent to any form of transformative agenda. What’s more, analysis needs to remain open to considering eco-social policy proposals as elements of governmental climate obstruction. As neo-Gramscian approaches point out, this appears especially necessary if the discursive strategy of a technocratic authority based on scientific expertise and earth system urgency seems prone to omitting the fundamentally political and discursively charged challenge of somehow turning eco-social goals into democratically and collectively shared ones.
Global food systems are under increasing pressure to reform due to their harmful effects on climate, ecosystems, and the exploitation of both human and animal labor. This has led to growing calls for a transition toward more eco-socially sustainable outcomes. Using Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics as a framework, the main challenge is to ensure food systems operate within planetary boundaries while meeting social needs. Historically, food systems have been governed by fragmented policies, creating conflicts between social, ecological, and economic goals. However, in recent years, more local, national, and international governments have recognized the importance of integrated food policies. This chapter highlights promising initiatives, including the rise of urban food policies, the development of national food security strategies, and the EU’s ‘Farm to Fork Strategy.’ Despite these efforts, four key governance challenges persist: achieving policy integration, broadening policy frameworks, managing the transition and promoting food democracy. The chapter concludes by urging decision-makers to harness recent food system research to drive a meaningful transition toward sustainable and equitable food systems.
The eco-social nexus in urban climate transitions is a critical area of research that seeks to understand the interplay between human society and the environment in urban settings. This chapter examines the key aspects of this nexus, including the complex relationships between urbanisation, climate change and social equity. It argues that addressing the eco-social nexus requires a holistic approach that integrates social, economic and environmental factors into urban planning and management. The chapter explores various strategies for promoting sustainability and resilience in urban areas, including green infrastructure, low-carbon transportation and community-based approaches. It also highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and participatory processes in fostering inclusive and equitable urban climate transitions. The chapter concludes by emphasising the need for transformative change in urban governance and decision-making processes, as well as the importance of interdisciplinary research and collaboration in addressing the eco-social nexus in urban settings. Overall, this chapter provides valuable insights and recommendations for researchers, policy makers and practitioners seeking to promote sustainable and equitable urban development in the face of climate change.
In this chapter, we introduce a normative bedrock for eco-social policies by arguing that their fundamental goal is to advance planetary well-being. We distance ourselves from the anthropocentric and individualistic tradition in social policy research and welfare theories by discussing how human well-being must be viewed relationally, that is, in relation to other people and other living beings. An understanding of planetary well-being shifts the focus from individual well-being to social and economic processes and the Earth system and ecosystem processes that underlie all need satisfaction. Planetary well-being is defined as a state in which the integrity of Earth system and ecosystem processes remains unimpaired to the extent that species and populations can persist into the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve well-being. Emerging eco-social policies should be evaluated by examining their impact on planetary well-being: whether humans can meet their needs with systems and practices that ensure the integrity of the processes central to planetary well-being. When detecting the needs essential for human well-being, the chapter draws on the needs-based approach and briefly discusses the significance of the commonly used needs theories in the field of sustainable welfare and eco-social policies.
There is a debate in the literature about the value of welfare capitalist regime theory (WCRT) to assess the institutional arrangements likely to facilitate or obstruct the development of eco-social policies, with some commentators arguing such developments are unlikely in liberal regimes. This chapter argues that much work in this area relies on quite superficial conceptualisations of the causal mechanisms and processes by which existing institutional frameworks inhibit or facilitate reform.
To address this issue, and thus surface additional possible processes for eco-social change in liberal welfare systems, the chapter uses the recent WCRT literature to highlight the various ways existing welfare state institutions offer opportunities to reformers as well as obstacles (for example self-undermining policy feedback and policy entrepreneurs). It considers how institutions are destabilised and reformed in the face of endogenous policy pressures and exogenous structural challenges, for example, population ageing and deindustrialisation.
Empirically, the chapter uses these tools to consider the recent rise of one proposed eco-social policy – working time reduction – on the public agenda of a liberal welfare system, the UK. This development is unexpected using the standard WCRT model given liberal regimes have been strongly associated institutionally with long working hours.
