Structural adjustment programs in countries of the Global South (Kentikelenis et al., 2016) and the liberalization of markets within the European Union (Jegen and Mérand, 2014) have led scholars to characterize the decades spanning from the 1980s to the late 2010s as a neoliberal era (Crouch, 2013).
During this period, States largely confined themselves to the roles of ‘consolidator’ (Streeck, 2014), facilitator and regulator (Mayer and Phillips, 2017).
However, the past ten years have been marked by a series of public policy measures that signal a ‘return of the State’ (Vezzoni, 2024) that is visible across very different political-economic contexts — in former ‘developmental States’ (Kohli, 2004), in coordinated or liberal market economies, and in countries where the State traditionally plays a strong interventionist role (Schmidt, 2009).
Examples include the bans on exporting minerals deemed critical for the ecological transition in Indonesia and Malaysia (Tritto, 2025); the creation of a General Secretariat for Ecological Planning in France (Durand and Keucheyan, 2024); a ban on the importation of second-hand clothing and vehicles in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda (Behuria, 2021; Wolff, 2020); the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States (Bang, 2024); South Korea’s Green New Deal (Green, 2024); the assertion of state control over the value generated by lithium in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile (Carrasco, 2024); and green industrial policies in South Africa and Brazil (Hochstetler, 2020). This series of measures over the past decade point to a renewed state presence in public policies on the ecological transition and efforts to fight climate change.
These decisions indicate both a break from modes of intervention associated with the regulatory State (Mathieu and Valenzuela, 2024) that predominated in previous decades, and the re-emergence of certain neo-mercantilist policy tools seen in state responses to the oil shocks of the 1970s (Thompson, 2017).
For some observers, this marks the beginning of a ‘post-neoliberal era’ (Nem Singh, 2023) and the potential rise of a ‘green Keynesianism’, observed in state interventions following the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic (O’Callaghan et al., 2022). The ECODETER Chair takes a critical look at this possible shift through comparative research on several regions in both the Global North and South as well as in several fields of public policy (energy, automotive industry, etc.) in order to foster a broad-based conversation on how public policy is evolving in response to the climate crisis.
A Junior Professor Chair
Hosted by Sciences Po Rennes, the ECODETER junior professor chair receives five years of funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) and is co-funded by Sciences Po Rennes.
Chair holder: Pierre Wokuri
Pierre Wokuri is a junior professor of political science. From 2015 to 2023, he lectured at Sciences Po Rennes, Université Paris 8, Université Bretagne Sud and Sciences Po in Paris. His research encompasses political economy, the sociology of public policy and social movements.
He has investigated the intertwined relationships between the State, the market and social movements in processes involving the exploitation of nature, with a focus on one central question: how are natural resources extracted, governed and politicised?
His work has focused on cooperative renewable energy projects in Europe and the oil industry in Uganda. His findings have been published in the Revue française de sociologie, Lien social et politiques, the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, Politique Européenne, Environmental Politics, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée and Governance Review. He is also the author of Une énergie verte et démocratique ? Les projets coopératifs d’énergie renouvelable au Danemark, en France et au Royaume-Uni (Éditions du Bord de l’eau, 2024) (in French).
In February 2025, Pierre Wokuri was appointed the ECODETER Junior Professor Chair.
The ECODETER Chair: objectives
The ECODETER Chair conducts research, develops and delivers teaching activities, and builds bridges between science and society in order to advance:
- Comparative North–South research to understand the divergent trajectories of ecological transition policies
- Contributions to breaking down boundaries between academic, artistic and political spheres
Three areas of research
In collaboration with the RECOVAL research project, the ECODETER Chair focuses on developing three areas of research:
1) Public policy and the governance of global value chains
2) Global value chains and the ‘green developmental State’
3) The greening of production models embedded in global value chains