Narratives for Political Development in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

• In Event: Integrating Political Futures into Climate Scenarios – What Is in It for Political Science?

Abstract

Scenarios are an invaluable tool to explore long-term consequences of alternative policy choices and identify opportunities and constraints for reaching desired policy outcomes. The dominant approach to representing societal development in scenario-based climate change research is offered by the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Defined by different assumptions about challenges to climate change adaptation and mitigation, the SSPs outline five alternative trajectories of future societal change. Despite their wide scientific applicability and high political uptake, the SSPs do not formally include political development in the quantitative scenarios. In other words, the SSPs are tacitly founded on the assumption that the future will be devoid of political disruptions. In order to facilitate quantification of political development in an extended SSP framework, this paper provides narrative descriptions of alternative end-of-century political development trajectories consistent with the assumptions underpinning the SSPs. Two dimensions of domestic political development are considered – institutional quality and prevalence of peace – along with important geopolitical characteristics, all of which are described at the level of large world regions for each of the five SSPs. These narratives will guide subsequent development of end-of-century projections of political development, which will facilitate politically relevant climate emission, impact, and vulnerability assessments.

Authors

• Halvard Buhaug, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

• Elisabeth Gilmore, Carleton University

• Julia Leininger, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS, formerly German Development Institute)

• Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg

• Jonas Vestby, PRIO

• Nina von Uexkull, University of Konstanz