Institutional Access, Democratic Articulation, and Self-Organized Adaptation to Climate Change

Abstract: Tropes of catastrophe have dominated conversations about climate change and its impact on societies and communities. Often, terms like hazards and vulnerability are deployed together to suggest helplessness in adapting to impending climate change. This paper seeks to disrupt the projection of climate change forecasts into a future full of disasters and refugees. Using a complex systems perspective, I investigate the conditions under which democratic institutions facilitate self-organization in large social-ecological systems in response to exogenous change. Conceptualizing adaptive capacity as an emergent property of a multi-level network of institutions, this paper analyzes household and institutional responses to the impact of climate change on apple production in the Indian Himalayas. Over the last 20 years, the core production zone for apples has steadily shifted northwards towards higher elevations in the Western Himalayas, such that it is now 80km north and 1500ft higher than in 1990. At the southern end of this shift, households have successfully moved from apple to vegetable cultivation catering to growing urban markets, also increasing their incomes compared to apple production. The paper explores the suite of institutions – and their interrelationships – that have facilitated successful adaptation to climate change in the Himalayas. Carefully examining the role of public, market, and civic institutions, I argue that democratic governance at multiple scales and articulation between institutions across scale are critical aspects of successful adaptation to climate change.

Refreshments following lecture.

This lecture series was made possible by the generous support from The Beirne Carter Foundation.

Co-sponsored by the Environment and Society Program of the Institute of Behavioral Science and CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research