Project Details
Trans-local action and local innovations in the face of climate change. A comparison of major German cities
Subject Area
Political Science
Term
from 2014 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 272994756
The research project aims to test a set of factors and conditions explaining the adoption of innovative approaches of cities regarding the issue of climate change. We propose to analyze the conditions of learning and to assess innovations in local climate governance and identify change of local knowledge orders. Thereby, we understand learning as the process of an intentional shift of local knowledge, while we define innovation as the result of learning. Innovations in climate policy can prevail or fail to appear within these processes. The project builds on the ongoing research but exceeds it in two respects. First, the perspective on learning should concentrate on trans-local action and its concrete consequences on climate protection schemes and climate protection policies. Secondly, we intend to test our preliminary results and broaden our focus since we apply the research to a larger number of cases. Therefore, a comparison of all major German cities (with more than 100.000 inhabitants) shall be conducted. The project aims to contribute to a widely acknowledged desideratum in research on local climate governance, namely to overcome the concentration on case studies and the lack of systematic comparison.
DFG Programme
Research Grants