An Intersectional Exploration of Climate Institutions

Governing bodies at different levels are authoritative institutions and civil servants/policy-makers are key actors in realizing global and national climate objectives. They have largely failed to create effective, legitimate, democratic, and just policies. This is problematic in light of research that views the climate transition as a social and behavioral concern and stresses the importance of paying attention to social effects in policy-making. The authors explore the Swedish climate institutions: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Traffic Administration, the Energy Agency, and the Innovation Agency. They analyzed key policy documents and 31 interviews questions on how social issues are understood and dealt with in institutional practices. The authors confirmed that emphasis has been on technological innovations and economic incentives. Although policy-makers recognize the relevance of social concerns, efforts to date seem insufficient. The main challenge is how to incorporate such concerns when action is restricted by institutional path dependencies. The authors’ approach starts in feminist institutionalism and adds intersectionality in an analytical lens that helps explore how power relations are embedded within climate institutions and can explain their effects. Insights are that power relations are context-specific and situated in a certain place and time. The authors’ method of how to pursue contextually sensitive and situated analyses of complex intersections of power can be used across contexts in further comparative studies.