Episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions

Abstract

Populism is multilayered and involves two main dimensions – ideology and strategy – which are employed within and beyond political parties. These dimensions can result in sometimes overlapping but generally divergent backlashes, targeting specific climate and sustainability interventions in cities. This critical commentary presents episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions by exploring how they create their own political landscapes across the political spectrum in cities against progressive urban climate agendas. Specifically, the article examines how episodic populist backlashes manifest on an urban scale and highlights the need for urban scholars to pay more attention to the phenomenon. The article proposes two complementary explanations for why populism precedes urban climate actions in episodic and thematic ways. These explanations include policy backlashes against diffused global climate norms in cities, and counter-movements and rhetoric against climate justice and what it entails, such as inclusion in decision-making and intersectionality. The article then concludes by offering a research agenda on the episodic populist backlashes against urban climate actions, which highlights the need for a better understanding of how episodic populist movements might emerge into global climate policy diffusion, and climate justice coupled with intersectionality in cities of the Global North and Global South.