21/11/2025
Istanbul Policy Center-Sabancı University-Stiftung Mercator Initiative cordially invites you to the fifth meeting of the “Political Ecology” seminar series, which will take place on Friday, November 21, at 16:00 at IPC Karaköy.
Political Ecology, based on the premise that ecological processes are intertwined with political, social, economic, and political dynamics, politicizes environmental issues and examines them in relation to their social, economic, and political dimensions. In this context, ecological economics draws on various academic disciplines such as environmental sociology, environmental history, systems thinking, and political sociology.
This seminar series evaluate both theoretical developments and the ecological problems, conflicts, and current policies occurring in Turkey and around the world from a political ecology perspective.
Political Ecology - 5
21 November 2025, 16:00
"A Post-capitalist Journey in Tackling Ecological Problems"
Speaker: Pat Devine, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Moderator: Fikret Adaman, 2021/22 Mercator-IPC Senior Fellow
We may be entering a new era. Multiple interlocking crises are calling into question the continuing viability of capitalism. The global economy is experiencing major structural change and displaying signs of relative stagnation. Social cohesion is increasingly undermined as inequality reaches new levels. Failed states, terrorism and large-scale refugee movements are creating widespread human tragedy and social disruption. Democracy is under threat and authoritarian tendencies are gaining strength. And perhaps above all, in the long run, climate change and declining biodiversity pose unprecedented challenges that capitalism is intrinsically incapable of meeting. The existing broken system of liberal representative democracy, in which competing elites have lost touch with those they are supposed to be representing, needs to be developed into a system of participatory democracy based on the principle of subsidiarity. The current competitive race to the bottom between countries needs to be replaced by cooperation between nations in order to deal with challenges that can be met only by collective regional and global action.
The forces on the ground pressing for such changes exist. What is missing is a theoretical and ideological framework unifying the diversity of these movements, developing a hegemonic discourse that challenges the existing elite neoliberal consensus, and promoting a solidaristic multicenter challenge to the prevailing capitalist power structures. Building such an alliance would in itself be prefigurative in that it could start the transformatory process throughout society more widely, as it would require people to negotiate and work together in ways that particular interest groups and traditional parties at the moment normally do not. As we act to change society, we change ourselves in ways that prepare us to act as citizens in a self-governing ecosocialist society.
The event will be held in English. Please click here to register.
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