Despite being directly affected by climate change, and by measures taken by society to address it, ordinary people often have very little say in collective decisions about how to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts. The idea of democratically including their voices and interests in climate governance across scales represents a significant conceptual, logistical, and political challenge. In this interdisciplinary PhD with publications, which includes four journal articles (three published and one currently under review), I examine three research frontiers where the potential for democratic principles to enhance climate governance has been under-explored: adaptation; global and multi-level climate decision-making; and climate action in authoritarian contexts. In chapter 1, I introduce these three frontiers and the research questions they prompt, I outline my methodological approach, and I explain the conceptual framework for analysing the democratic quality of a complex system that is a common thread throughout the thesis: deliberative systems analysis. In chapter 2, the first of my journal articles, I review the extent to which the adaptation literature has considered democracy to date, including the rationales that scholars put forward for and against democratic approaches to adaptation. While relatively few have even considered democracy, those who have, focus on four main types: participatory, electoral, deliberative, and agonistic democracy. In chapter 3, I move on to an empirical case study, the Global Assembly on Climate Change and the Ecological Crisis, evaluating the extent to which this first ever global-scale citizens’ assembly achieved its goal of giving ordinary people a democratic ‘seat at the table’ of global climate governance. I argue that, rather than seeing direct policy impact as the measure of its success (or failure), it makes more sense to conceptualize the international landscape of climate governance as a complex deliberative system that citizens’ deliberations at a global assembly have the capacity to influence in a range of direct and indirect ways. In the second half of the thesis, I present findings from fieldwork in Vietnam, a developing country that – like many – is highly vulnerable to climate change, a recipient of international climate finance, and also authoritarian. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with a range of individuals, I assess the deliberative quality of climate adaptation governance in Vietnam, exploring in chapter 4 the diverse ways in which adaptation is understood and articulated by different groups of actors depending on their priorities, capabilities, and governance level(s). Distinguishing between their diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framings, I map out six distinct adaptation discourses invoked in this country. Then in chapter 5, I analyse the extent to which civil society and international development organizations aspire in theory, and manage in practice, to influence those in positions of official authority in Vietnam on the issue of adaptation, and to hold them accountable. I identify three forms of influence – coercive, persuasive, and deliberative – and contrary to some accounts of the deliberative system, I observe them flowing in multiple directions. Drawing together these empirical findings and conceptual innovations, I conclude in chapter 6 by offering recommendations for making climate governance more democratic across these three frontiers, and mapping out promising areas for future research.
Democratic frontiers in climate governance adaptation, authoritarian states, global and multi-level decision-making
Conway-Lamb, W. (Author). 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis