Using anarchist critique to unearth the ‘roots’ of authoritarian populism can offer a productive gateway for understanding the origins and continuation of socio-ecological and economic crises. The language of ‘authoritarian…
Reflections on Authoritarian Populism: Democracy, Technology and Ecological Destruction
Science, Brexit and ‘post-truth’ politics
STEPS co-director Andy Stirling is one of six researchers writing in the Guardian on ‘science after Brexit’. A longer version of his part of the Guardian article is below. The…
From Knowledge Economy to Innovation Democracy
The ESRC STEPS Centre’s Co-Director Professor Andy Stirling recently gave a keynote speech at the European Commission’s ‘FTA 2014: future oriented technology analysis’ conference. Prof. Stirling’s address, From Knowledge Economy…
Technology & democracy: the story of Brazil’s Social Technology Network
A new STEPS working paper tells the story of a recent experiment in grassroots innovation – the Social Technology Network (STN) in Brazil. The paper, by Mariano Fressoli and Rafael…
Against authoritarianism: Why we shouldn’t ‘put democracy on hold’ to achieve sustainability
Does the human response to global environmental challenges need to be channelled through authoritarian, controlled ‘transitions’? Threatened by climate change, should we ‘put democracy on hold for a while’? Or…
Democracy in the Anthropocene? Science and Sustainable Development Goals at the UN
Melissa Leach, STEPS Centre director, was one of 28 scientists invited to attend a United Nations Expert Meeting to discuss science and Sustainable Development Goals. She reflects on the issues addressed,…
STEPS Symposium 2013: Beyond Rio+20 – Improving global structures for scientific advice
Lidia Brito. Photo: Lance Bellers Guest blog by Ruth Segal, Doctoral Researcher, SPRU In recent years, global initiatives have attempted to co-ordinate scientific advice and assessments – on climate…
STEPS Symposium 2013: Science and developing countries – whose expertise counts?
Dipak Gyawali at the symposium. Photo: Lance Bellers Guest blog by Rachael Taylor, PhD student, SPRU The second session of the STEPS Symposium on the global politics of scientific advice…
3 challenges for science and democracy after Rio+20
Rally to Restore Sanity, from Steve Rhodes’ photostream on Flickr (by-nc-nd) By Melissa Leach, STEPS Centre director When sustainability poses complex and often tangled questions, how do we answer them?…
Opening up Sustainable Development decision-making at the UN?
By Adrian Ely, in Rio de Janeiro The Rio+20 conference has been enriched by a process to engage civil society the Rio+20 Dialogues forSustainable Development. While innovative and pioneering approaches…