CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Comparative Governance
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1524566
This article is part of the Research Topic(De)Politicizing Climate and Environmental Politics in Times of Crises: Contexts, Strategies and EffectsView all 13 articles
Stalling, straining, severing, shallowing, simulating: How politicization can negatively affect sustainability transformation
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- 2Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
- 3Lille Catholic University, Lille, France
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The relationship between politicization and sustainability transformation is complex and multifaceted. Politicization is often viewed as a catalyst for sustainability transformations. Through contestation and mobilization of societal actors, it provides the impetus for broad and deep social change, bringing societies onto more just and ecologically sustainable pathways. At the same time, politicization can also have detrimental effects, potentially creating fatigue among the public, fostering division rather than unity, and undermining the public support and engagement necessary for effective change. This article aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between politicization and transformation. To this end, we focus specifically on the negative effects, i.e., how politicization undermines sustainability transformations. Drawing on empirical examples of 'politicized transformation,' we identify five different mechanisms by which politicization can stall, strain, sever, shallow, or simulate transformation efforts. We discuss how these mechanisms interact over time to form broader dynamics that undermine or obstruct sustainability transformations and point to potential strategies to counteract these dynamics.
Keywords: Politicization, transformation, sustainability, barriers to change, political dynamics
Received: 07 Nov 2024; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bornemann, Strassheim and Weiland. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Holger Strassheim, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, 33615, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
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