‘‘Governmentality” of climate change and the public sphere

Abstract

The paper discusses the politics of climate change from the emergence of the problem as a public issue to the development of a form of ‘governmentality’ that implicates science, economic enterprises and individuals. I aim to understand the role of the media – as the main arena of the contemporary public sphere – in the construction and maintenance of various forms of power-knowledge. The paper starts by analysing the position of science in the management of climate change and points out that while it shaped the media’s framing of the issue in the early years, politicians and other social actors later attempted to appropriate science as a legitimatory tool for options of regulation or deregulation. I then discuss the cultural and political roles of economic growth in democratic societies and its articulation within discourses on environmental protection. This is followed by an analysis of discourses on globalization and how they are embedded in the science and politics of the greenhouse effect. Finally, the paper looks at the paradoxical positioning of citizens in relation to the greenhouse effect and concludes that discourses on techno-science, sustainable development/ecological modernization and globalization have contributed to the privatization and dissemination of responsibility and weakened the political debate in the public sphere.