Epistocracy as a conduit for change? Exploring the role of knowledge(s) to steer localised responses to climate change in the UK

• In Event: Governing the Effects of Climate Change: Local policing adaptations, impacts and implications

Abstract

This multidisciplinary paper explores the potential for epistocracy to guide localised and polycentric responses to the emergent and long-term harms of climate change. The paper draws on the case study of Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) in England and Wales, a key multiagency partnership comprising local police and emergency first responders, and a broad range of other public, private and third sector agencies. The LRFs have the potential to coordinate effective, and localised, responses to civil contingencies but recent research and policy discourse into their response to the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted challenges at a ‘horizontal’ level (between partner agencies) and at a ‘vertical’ level (between LRFs and central government). Furthermore, more than two decades of austerity, coupled with the growing political emphasis on the role of the police as ‘crime-fighters’ risks a retrenchment of the police role and mandate. This can manifest in a ‘governing through crime’ paradigm which can at best limit the capacity of the police to adequately contribute to their obligations to LRF partner agencies and at worst approach the emergent climate risks from a narrow crime-focussed lens. We argue that the challenges faced by the LRFs are consistent with those identified in empirical research on polycentric governance settings. We suggest that epistocracy, underpinned by three conditions—epistemic decision-making, knowledge co-production, and democratic mediation—may be better suited to act as a site of coordination, resisting partisan interventions and steering the police and the LRFs towards a broader harm reduction paradigm.

Authors

• Ali Malik, University of Leeds

• Julie Berg, University of Glasgow