By James Copestake<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t follow from the failure of countries to follow a neat progression from feudalism to communism via capitalism that Karl Marx had nothing useful to say about causal mechanisms affecting the course of history. Likewise, we can still learn much from Michael Albert\u2019s book \u2018Navigating the polycrisis\u2019[1]<\/strong><\/a> even if our future may not progress from \u201cneoliberal drift\u201d to \u201cneo-feudalism\u201d via a \u201cgreen Keynesian transition\u201d followed by a \u201cfossil fuelled backlash\u201d - nor indeed in line with any of the seven<\/em> scenarios he sketches out in this book.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n The book\u2019s primary purpose fits with the call for more dialogue between development studies and futures studies that I made in a previous CDS blog<\/a>. Thinking usefully about the future of the planet is so important, he argues, that the difficulties reinforce rather than weaken the case for devoting more effort to doing so - a rough map being better than none, and the task being \u201ctoo important to be left to states, corporations and technologists\u201d (p.4). Albert also argues that doing this requires a holistic approach, drawing on multiple approaches to examining the links between problematic issues that are often addressed in isolation.<\/p>\n In this review, I focus less on the precise pathways and outcomes he plots, and more on how he arrives at them: i.e. the \u201cmeta-theoretical framework\u201d he uses to \u201cfacilitate transdisciplinary analysis of the future possibility space\u201d (p.225). I also comment on his call for further analysis (p.225) by suggesting that this fits well with a post-decolonial vision for global development studies, and for drawing on advances in qualitative causal cognitive mapping.<\/p>\n Albert\u2019s synthetic and pluralist approach (set out in Chapter 2) draws on insights from complexity-informed scientific modelling, world-systems theory, ecological Marxism, Delanda\u2019s assemblage theory, Morin\u2019s notion of planetary thinking, and Williams\u2019 Neo-Gramscian idea of complex hegemony. He assesses the overall \u201cplanetary problematic\u201d by treating it as the outcome of the interaction between semi-autonomous \u201csocioecological\u201d, \u201cviolence\u201d, and \u201cexistential\u201d problematics. His analysis of the first starts in Chapter 1 with a review of climate change as an earth system crisis precipitated by global capitalism. The core of this is a downbeat assessment of how far carbon emissions can be decoupled from economic growth, and discussion of five constraints to the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.[3]<\/a> He enlarges on this analysis by linking it to a crisis in food systems, and by exploring the potentially benign, malign, and \u201cproblem-shifting\u201d effects of fourth industrial revolution technologies (FIR[4]<\/a>). Chapter 3 offers reviews of other contributions to future-oriented analysis of the same problematic, including the Club of Rome Limits to Growth<\/em> report in the 1960s, US National Intelligence Council Global Trends<\/em> reports, and the critical social science analyses of Paul Raskin, and Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright. This all feeds into Albert\u2019s own two stage synthetic analysis of the socioecological problematic, comprising (first) identification and synthetic assessment of four key sets of causal interactions[5]<\/a>, and (second) creative imagining of four alternative dynamic scenarios or trajectories that are consistent with these.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n A strength of this treatment is that the socioecological problematic is not treated as a closed system. Chapter 5 focuses on two sources of exogenous causal drivers. First, the \u201cviolence problematic\u201d encompasses systems for exercising and constraining violence through semi-autonomous security \u201cassemblages\u201d (centred on the US, EU, Russia, China\u2026) each differently positioned within the \u201cstructural violence\u201d of unequal participation in global capitalism. Incorporating the violence problematic allows discussion of factors often neglected in political economy analysis of the capitalism-climate nexus such as the effect of fourth industrial revolution technologies on the economic and environmental costs of states\u2019 externally and internally focused security apparatus.<\/p>\n Second, the \u201cexistential problematic\u201d focuses on the generation and reproduction of mental models, narratives and ideologies that confer on people a sense of meaning and identity, encompassing nationalism, race and gender. This enables him to incorporate discussion of the causes and consequences of factors such as hypermasculinity, right-wing extremism, and reactionary nationalist support for fossil fuels. The analysis again proceeds in two steps: first describing key sets of causal relationships and then creatively using these to construct possible world system pathways, leading to seven possible end-of-century outcomes that range from complete collapse to realisation of an ecosocialist Utopia.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n Overall, the book condenses discussion of a wide set of issues and sources within a coherent framework to arrive at a useful range of scenarios. Albert recognises the limitations of the analysis in the face of uncertainty and system complexity while holding to his commitment to at least improve on available alternatives, including by incorporating both quantitative modelling approaches and the qualitative analysis of emergent possibilities.[8]<\/a> By identifying multiple pathways and outcomes he goes beyond a cruder \u201crevolution versus collapse\u201d polemic. For example, the concluding chapter sketches a twin track \u201ccounter-hegemonic\u201d strategy: supporting the acceleration of green Keynesian responses to a spiral descent into planetary collapse, while anticipating their eventual failure, and pitting a vision of post-growth global ecosocialism against the champions of competing \u201cfortress states\u201d in the context of increasingly neofeudal global disorder.<\/p>\n Albert recognises that time and events will render parts of his analysis dated or redundant, but hopes the broad approach will remain relevant, and that others will \u201ccontinue to build on, enrich, and refine the book\u2019s map of the future by deepening its theoretical and methodological foundations, updating its scenarios and developing new ones, integrating new parameters, more deeply exploring feedback [loops]\u2026 and developing more fine-grained analyses of the possibility space in different states and regions across the world-system\u201d (p.226). All this fits squarely within the purview of a decolonised vision of global development studies, defined as a transdisciplinary clearing house for assessing different models (historical, normative, policy-oriented) of progress and regress at local to global levels (Copestake, 2015). Albert\u2019s analysis currently draws less from development studies than he could, particularly in his discussion of the existential problematic. His analysis can also be enriched by borrowing more from global social policy, including Karl Polanyi\u2019s seminal insights and subsequent work on the dynamics of welfare, insecurity and production regimes.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n Turning to the theoretical and methodological framework, Albert claims to follow a \u201crealist\u201d approach (p.3) but could have explained more fully what this means, particularly by making more explicit links to critical realism (Baskar 2016). The abductive<\/em> process he adopts for imagining future scenarios based on prior theory opens up scope for much more structured retroductive<\/em> testing and theory adjustment than the book accommodates. The methodology can also be strengthened by adopting more explicit and systematic approaches to labelling, coding, aggregating and mapping causal propositions within and between the different problematics.[10]<\/a> A promising step in this direction would be systematically to compare the causal claims embedded in the book with those of others authors he cites. Doing this would permit more rigorous joint theorisation and scenario development, taking us beyond reliance on the grand synthesis of individual authors, which no matter how brilliant, remain personal and partial.<\/p>\n Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n Barbrook-Johnson, P., Penn, A. (2022) Systems mapping: how to build and use causal models of systems<\/em>. Palgrave macmillan pivot series.<\/p>\n Bhaskar, R. (2016) Enlightened common sense: the philosophy of critical realism<\/em>. London: Routledge.<\/p>\n Copestake, J. (2015) Wither development studies? Reflections on its relationship with social policy. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy<\/em>, 31(2):100-13.<\/p>\n Davies, R. (2019) ParEvo (\u2026was evolving story lines).\u00a0Monitoring and Evaluation News<\/em>.\u00a0https:\/\/mande.co.uk\/special-issues\/evolving-storylines-a-participatory-design-process\/<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See also\u00a0https:\/\/parevo.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n Figueroa, A. (2017) Economics of the Anthropocene Age. Springer.<\/p>\n Powell, S., Copestake, J., & Remnant, F. (2024) Causal mapping for evaluators. Evaluation<\/em>, 30(1), 100-119. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/13563890231196601<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> \u201cNavigating the polycrisis - mapping the futures of capitalism and the earth\u201d by Michael J Albert. MIT Press, 2024.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> His full list of possible outcomes are as follows: abolitionist ecosocialism, fortress degrowth, ecomodernist socialism, stable technoleviathan, volatile technoleviathan, neofeudalism, and breakdown.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> These are scaling finance, addressing hard-to-abate sectors, scaling supply of critical energy transition minerals (which he flags up as the most serious), surmounting land-use conflicts, and factoring in low energy returns on investment.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> FIR technologies include artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, the internet of things, 3D printing, and quantum computing.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> These are headed as follows: (1) climate <-> earth system -> pandemics; (2) political economy <-> climate\/earth system; (3) energy <-> political economy <-> climate; (4) food<-> climate\/biodiversity <-> political economy <-> energy.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> These are \u201cneoliberal drift\u201d, \u201ccollapse\u201d, \u201cgreen Keynesian\u201d, and \u201cecosocialist\u201d.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> The sets of dependency relationships are as follows: (1) political economy <-> state violence <-> non-state violence; (2) political economy <-> technology <-> state\/non-state violence; (3) climate <-> political economy <-> energy <-> state\/nonstate violence; (4) climate <-> nuclear security <-> cybersecurity; (5) ideology and existential crises <-> violence problematic <-> socioecological problematic.\u00a0 A final section then links the three problematics (socioecological, violence and existential) together.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> This establishes a framework for constructive discourse across disciplinary boundaries \u2013 helping me to make more sense (for example) of working in an academic department that includes teaching of both development studies and criminology.<\/p>\n