Simon PERSICO

Groupe d'étude sur l'écologie politique (AFSP)

FORESEE

Le projet FORESEE, porté par l’Université Grenoble Alpes et ses partenaires (CNRS, INRAE, l’université de Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon 3, Montpellier 3), vise à comprendre et anticiper les conséquences sociales du changement climatique. Il explore les réactions individuelles, les capacités d’adaptation des territoires, et les impacts sur le contrat social. Ce programme interdisciplinaire mobilise plus de 300 chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales. Il inclut la création d’un Observatoire des inégalités climatiques et des outils afin d’accompagner les politiques publiques.

EcoCleavage

The Ecologism/Productivism Cleavage Project emerged over the past eighteen months as an informal collaboration among political scientists from various laboratories, united by a shared focus on the growing divide between ecologism and productivism in European politics. This project builds on a theoretical article just published in West European Politics (Gougou and Persico, 2026), which argues that environmental issues are not merely "valence issues" universally supported by the public, but rather represent a deep and structuring political cleavage. The project’s core objective is to quantitatively assess how this cleavage is reshaping political conflict in Western Europe, particularly in the face of mounting ecological crises. The research puzzle is rooted in five key observations: (1) The scientific consensus on ecological risks has never been stronger, with warnings of imminent breakdowns in climate, biodiversity, and other critical systems. (2) The ecologist movement, which has long advocated for a just transition away from productivism and consumerism, remains politically marginalized despite its growing diversity and the rise of climate justice movements. (3) Green parties, the primary political representatives of ecologism, have made limited progress compared to other political forces, such as the radical right, and have rarely achieved top executive positions. (4) Social groups across Western Europe are unevenly affected by ecological crises and hold divergent interests regarding socio-ecological policies, with educated elites supporting environmental values while maintaining high ecological footprints, and marginalized groups exhibiting lower environmental engagement with lower footprints. (5) Policy solutions that challenge productivism and consumerism have been largely sidelined in favor of capitalist ecological modernization and been scaled back. The project’s central question is: Why does party competition in Europe still leave so little room for environmental issues, and why are policymakers implementing solutions that fall far short of sustainability goals? To address this, the project adopts a cleavage perspective, which allows for an analysis of how conflicts become politicized through ideological differentiation, social group formation, and policy-making. This approach will help assess how environmental conflicts structure West European societies, interact with other cleavages, and influence political systems.