Sylvain Maechler
Biographic Data
| ID | 1590969 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sylvain Maechler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sylvain |
| FAMILY NAME | Maechler |
| SIGNATURE | MAECHLER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institut d’Etudes Politiques, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4107-2698 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The nature that green finance can see: Nature-related risk and the climatization of biodiversity
This article examines why and how biodiversity enters finance through its alignment with the climate risk agenda, a process I conceptualize as the climatization of biodiversity. I argue that this development is rooted in the historical failure to financialize biodiversity due to its misalignment with the logics of finance, namely profitability and calculability, to which climate is more readily compatible. Drawing on expert interviews and analysi…
Failure-proof or failure-prone? The paradoxes of global biodiversity institutions
The number of global environmental institutions has increased dramatically over the past decade. Yet environmental governance is widely seen as failing. Focusing on biodiversity politics, we argue that many key governance institutions, particularly those advancing market solutions, are themselves deeply implicated in this persistent failure. Drawing on the sociology of expertise, we show how two recently established institutions – the European Bu…
Fixing the ecological crisis: The promises and pitfalls of green accounting infrastructures
Accounting was designed to facilitate economic growth and, as such, tends to reinforce dynamics that are harmful to the environment. Promoted today as a corrective, green accounting is often portrayed as a pioneering intervention. Yet, green accounting is not new. This paper situates it within a genealogy of initiatives developed since the 1980s and assesses their potential to establish an infrastructure capable of supporting a post-growth transi…
Climate change governance by central banks in an era of interlocking crises
In this article, we survey the literature on central bank action on climate change, focusing particularly on how the combined crises of COVID-19, inflation, and Ukraine have affected this action. We argue that the current situation is a critical juncture in which recent crises have created a highly indeterminate situation regarding what central banks might do regarding climate change. To date, some central banks have used these crises as opportun…
Globalize IPE, not just the syllabi! Virtual classrooms interactions and the making of the Atlantic Diagonals glossary
How do we as scholars and instructors globalize International Political Economy (IPE) teaching beyond the syllabi? This pedagogical intervention proposes a concrete way to globalize IPE teaching in the classroom and through student-led activities based on courses taught during two semesters at the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia). We present the making of a multilingual glossary of IPE drafted by groups of s…
Uncertainty in times of ecological crisis: A Knightian tale of how to face future states of the world
How do we face uncertainty in times of crisis? Debates in International Relations often struggle to disentangle the processes involved in turning the uncertainty of a crisis into decisions and actions. Drawing on the analysis of Frank H. Knight, we argue that decisions and actions taken by international actors in times of crisis are underpinned by the way that information is accessed, interpreted, and evaluated in order to claim reliable knowledg…
Green transition fallacies and hurdles - Brett Christophers, The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet, Verso, 2024
Solar panels have become so cheap that they are being used to build garden fences', reported a Financial Times article (Chu et al., 2024).In his latest book, The Price is Wrong, Brett Christophers demonstrates that this form of information serves as an inadequate gauge for the success of renewable energies, which hinges not on their price but on their expected profitability, which is 'the measure according to which investment decisions are made' …
Performing Nature’s Valuation: The art of natural capital accounting
Accounting for nature as capital is touted as a promising way of aligning environmental conservation with global capitalism by valuing nature like economic assets. Both its proponents and detractors speculate on what its promises might achieve if they were fully realized, i.e., if nature were actually accounted for, capitalized or commodified. There is, however, an enduring disjunction between vision and execution in this field: the promises simp…
Valuing Nature to Save It? The Centrality of Valuation in the New Spirit of Conservation
For thirty years, advocates of the economic valuation of nature have been claiming that it contributes to making the ecological crisis more tangible. The valuation framing fosters a shared vision of nature as capital amenable to management and protection. Yet, this approach has scarcely been applied in practice and has therefore not yielded tangible conservation outcomes. Why is economic valuation of nature consistently presented as a panacea in …
Accounting for whom? The financialisation of the environmental economic transition
Accounting standard-setters including the International Financial Reporting Foundation have recently begun to revisit the relationship between accounting and sustainability to address issues of environmental economic transition. How has sustainability become an issue of interest to accounting standard-setters? And how do accounting standards intend to contribute to the environmental economic transition? Scholars of international political economy…
Is the sky or the earth the limit? Risk, uncertainty and nature
Dealing with uncertainty has become a matter of great concern for policy makers and scientific research in a world facing global, epochal and complex changes. But in essence, you cannot entirely predict the future. This article aims at conceptualizing the limits to anticipate the future – or what is often referred as the substitution of risk for uncertainty. In contrast to most theories examining risk and uncertainty, we start from the assumption…
Accounting for whom? The financialisation of the environmental economic transition
Accounting standard-setters including the International Financial Reporting Foundation have recently begun to revisit the relationship between accounting and sustainability to address issues of environmental economic transition. How has sustainability become an issue of interest to accounting standard-setters? And how do accounting standards intend to contribute to the environmental economic transition? Scholars of international political economy…
Is the sky or the earth the limit? Risk, uncertainty and nature
Dealing with uncertainty has become a matter of great concern for policy makers and scientific research in a world facing global, epochal and complex changes. But in essence, you cannot entirely predict the future. This article aims at conceptualizing the limits to anticipate the future – or what is often referred as the substitution of risk for uncertainty. In contrast to most theories examining risk and uncertainty, we start from the assumption…
Valuing Nature to Save It? The Centrality of Valuation in the New Spirit of Conservation
For thirty years, advocates of the economic valuation of nature have been claiming that it contributes to making the ecological crisis more tangible. The valuation framing fosters a shared vision of nature as capital amenable to management and protection. Yet, this approach has scarcely been applied in practice and has therefore not yielded tangible conservation outcomes. Why is economic valuation of nature consistently presented as a panacea in …
Fixing the ecological crisis: The promises and pitfalls of green accounting infrastructures
Accounting was designed to facilitate economic growth and, as such, tends to reinforce dynamics that are harmful to the environment. Promoted today as a corrective, green accounting is often portrayed as a pioneering intervention. Yet, green accounting is not new. This paper situates it within a genealogy of initiatives developed since the 1980s and assesses their potential to establish an infrastructure capable of supporting a post-growth transi…
Climate change governance by central banks in an era of interlocking crises
In this article, we survey the literature on central bank action on climate change, focusing particularly on how the combined crises of COVID-19, inflation, and Ukraine have affected this action. We argue that the current situation is a critical juncture in which recent crises have created a highly indeterminate situation regarding what central banks might do regarding climate change. To date, some central banks have used these crises as opportun…
Uncertainty in times of ecological crisis: A Knightian tale of how to face future states of the world
How do we face uncertainty in times of crisis? Debates in International Relations often struggle to disentangle the processes involved in turning the uncertainty of a crisis into decisions and actions. Drawing on the analysis of Frank H. Knight, we argue that decisions and actions taken by international actors in times of crisis are underpinned by the way that information is accessed, interpreted, and evaluated in order to claim reliable knowledg…
Globalize IPE, not just the syllabi! Virtual classrooms interactions and the making of the Atlantic Diagonals glossary
How do we as scholars and instructors globalize International Political Economy (IPE) teaching beyond the syllabi? This pedagogical intervention proposes a concrete way to globalize IPE teaching in the classroom and through student-led activities based on courses taught during two semesters at the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia). We present the making of a multilingual glossary of IPE drafted by groups of s…
Is the sky or the earth the limit? Risk, uncertainty and nature
Dealing with uncertainty has become a matter of great concern for policy makers and scientific research in a world facing global, epochal and complex changes. But in essence, you cannot entirely predict the future. This article aims at conceptualizing the limits to anticipate the future – or what is often referred as the substitution of risk for uncertainty. In contrast to most theories examining risk and uncertainty, we start from the assumption…
Accounting for whom? The financialisation of the environmental economic transition
Accounting standard-setters including the International Financial Reporting Foundation have recently begun to revisit the relationship between accounting and sustainability to address issues of environmental economic transition. How has sustainability become an issue of interest to accounting standard-setters? And how do accounting standards intend to contribute to the environmental economic transition? Scholars of international political economy…
Performing Nature’s Valuation: The art of natural capital accounting
Accounting for nature as capital is touted as a promising way of aligning environmental conservation with global capitalism by valuing nature like economic assets. Both its proponents and detractors speculate on what its promises might achieve if they were fully realized, i.e., if nature were actually accounted for, capitalized or commodified. There is, however, an enduring disjunction between vision and execution in this field: the promises simp…
Valuing Nature to Save It? The Centrality of Valuation in the New Spirit of Conservation
For thirty years, advocates of the economic valuation of nature have been claiming that it contributes to making the ecological crisis more tangible. The valuation framing fosters a shared vision of nature as capital amenable to management and protection. Yet, this approach has scarcely been applied in practice and has therefore not yielded tangible conservation outcomes. Why is economic valuation of nature consistently presented as a panacea in …
Globalize IPE, not just the syllabi! Virtual classrooms interactions and the making of the Atlantic Diagonals glossary
How do we as scholars and instructors globalize International Political Economy (IPE) teaching beyond the syllabi? This pedagogical intervention proposes a concrete way to globalize IPE teaching in the classroom and through student-led activities based on courses taught during two semesters at the Universities of Lausanne (Switzerland) and Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia). We present the making of a multilingual glossary of IPE drafted by groups of s…
Uncertainty in times of ecological crisis: A Knightian tale of how to face future states of the world
How do we face uncertainty in times of crisis? Debates in International Relations often struggle to disentangle the processes involved in turning the uncertainty of a crisis into decisions and actions. Drawing on the analysis of Frank H. Knight, we argue that decisions and actions taken by international actors in times of crisis are underpinned by the way that information is accessed, interpreted, and evaluated in order to claim reliable knowledg…
Green transition fallacies and hurdles - Brett Christophers, The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet, Verso, 2024
Solar panels have become so cheap that they are being used to build garden fences', reported a Financial Times article (Chu et al., 2024).In his latest book, The Price is Wrong, Brett Christophers demonstrates that this form of information serves as an inadequate gauge for the success of renewable energies, which hinges not on their price but on their expected profitability, which is 'the measure according to which investment decisions are made' …
Failure-proof or failure-prone? The paradoxes of global biodiversity institutions
The number of global environmental institutions has increased dramatically over the past decade. Yet environmental governance is widely seen as failing. Focusing on biodiversity politics, we argue that many key governance institutions, particularly those advancing market solutions, are themselves deeply implicated in this persistent failure. Drawing on the sociology of expertise, we show how two recently established institutions – the European Bu…
Fixing the ecological crisis: The promises and pitfalls of green accounting infrastructures
Accounting was designed to facilitate economic growth and, as such, tends to reinforce dynamics that are harmful to the environment. Promoted today as a corrective, green accounting is often portrayed as a pioneering intervention. Yet, green accounting is not new. This paper situates it within a genealogy of initiatives developed since the 1980s and assesses their potential to establish an infrastructure capable of supporting a post-growth transi…
Climate change governance by central banks in an era of interlocking crises
In this article, we survey the literature on central bank action on climate change, focusing particularly on how the combined crises of COVID-19, inflation, and Ukraine have affected this action. We argue that the current situation is a critical juncture in which recent crises have created a highly indeterminate situation regarding what central banks might do regarding climate change. To date, some central banks have used these crises as opportun…
The nature that green finance can see: Nature-related risk and the climatization of biodiversity
This article examines why and how biodiversity enters finance through its alignment with the climate risk agenda, a process I conceptualize as the climatization of biodiversity. I argue that this development is rooted in the historical failure to financialize biodiversity due to its misalignment with the logics of finance, namely profitability and calculability, to which climate is more readily compatible. Drawing on expert interviews and analysi…
Economics (8 works) · Political science (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Corporate governance (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (3 works) · Accounting (2 works) · Astrobiology (2 works) · Astronomy (2 works)