Linda Westman
Biographic Data
| ID | 4082216 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Linda Westman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Linda |
| FAMILY NAME | Westman |
| SIGNATURE | WESTMAN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4599-4996 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 148 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 26 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Life bio-graphics
Individual actions of practitioners and activists are crucial to achieving carbon emission reductions and improving resilience to climate change impacts. However, policy narratives have overlooked people’s complex engagements with climate change in professional settings. Few scholarly accounts of individual experiences of working to address climate change in cities inform climate policy because ethnographic and sociological accounts of climate ch…
Theorisation of environmental justice in Chinese political philosophy
The discursive construction of urban climate policy
Recently, a change in the international climate policy debate elevated cities as integral to achieving global climate targets. How did this shift occur? This paper mobilizes the concept of discourse coalitions to showcase how cities were framed as an arena of intervention in the context of international climate policy, placing emphasis on three dimensions. First, a focus on new alliances reveals how the urban, which emerged as a fringe topic, was…
Harnessing social innovation for a just transition
Governing climate change in a changing world
This commentary reflects on a longstanding interdisciplinary exchange across geography and political science, which has crystallised into the scholarship on climate governance. This debate has fundamentally shaped ideas on how climate change can be managed as a societal challenge and with what consequences. The analysis briefly maps the emergence of climate governance as a concept and its progressive embedding in climate policy discourse. Next, t…
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
Sustainability discourses influence the practices of urban climate action by establishing objectives and ways of doing things. Key concepts such as ‘risk’, ‘resilience’ and ‘efficiency’ have been central in the history of sustainability discourses, but their influence has changed over time. The use of these terms is analysed in policy narratives of urban climate action, exploring how they are deployed in policy and practice. A document database (…
The Homogenization of Urban Climate Action Discourses
The diversification of actors in global climate governance may entail risks, but it is also linked to enhanced democratic performance and opportunities for innovation. To what extent has this diversification fostered a parallel multiplication of perspectives in urban climate policy? To answer this question, we analyze the evolution of urban narratives based on 463 international policy documents issued between 1946 and 2020. Our analysis shows tha…
Redefining the role of urban studies Early Career Academics in the post-Covid-19 university
We are an international collective of Early Career Academics (ECAs) who met throughout 2020 to explore the implications of COVID-19 on precarious academics. With this intervention, our aims are to voice commonly shared experiences and concerns and to reflect on the extent to which the pandemic offers opportunities to redefine Higher Education and research institutions, in a context of ongoing precarity and funding cuts. Specifically, we explore a…
Urban Transformations to Keep All the Same
The concept of urban transformations has gathered interest among scholars and policymakers calling for radical change towards sustainability. The discourse represents an entry point to address systemic causes of ecological degradation and social injustice, thereby providing solutions to intractable global challenges. Yet, so far, urban transformations projects have fallen short of delivering significant action in cities. The limited ability of th…
Compound urban crises
The crises that cities face—such as climate change, pandemics, economic downturn, and racism—are tightly interlinked and cannot be addressed in isolation. This paper addresses compound urban crises as a unique type of problem, in which discrete solutions that tackle each crisis independently are insufficient. Few scholarly debates address compound urban crises and there is, to date, a lack of interdisciplinary insights to inform urban governance …
Beyond the North-South divide
Transcending existing paradigms
Justice dimensions are integral to research on climate change planning in cities. In this comment piece, we engage with a recently published paper by Hess and McKane [2021. “Making Sustainability Plans More Equitable: An Analysis of 50 US Cities.” Local Environment, 1–16], which examines the integration of equity considerations into sustainability plans in cities in the US. By reflecting on this article, we draw attention to three assumptions tha…
The political effects of emergency frames in sustainability
China's imaginary of ecological civilization
The field of science, technology and society (STS) calls for greater geographical diversity that draws attention to ‘the rich mosaic of non-Western cultures.’ This perspective provides cultural insights into the construction of the imaginary of ecological civilization in China. From the lens of sociotechnical theory, this perspective presents the discourses and practices constitutive of ecological civilization. We argue that ecological civilizati…
Motivations and Intended Outcomes in Local Governments' Declarations of Climate Emergency
Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of th…
Bridging the governance divide
A culture‐led approach to understanding energy transitions in China
Transformations of the energy system are unfolding in China at an unprecedented scale and pace. The dynamics of China's energy transitions impact global trends of energy decarbonisation. Transition theories within the Anglophone academic tradition have been used to examine this process, but they tend to misrepresent the social, cultural, and political structures that shape energy transitions in China. This paper proposes a move from an analysis o…
A ‘correlative’ turn for transition studies on China
Advancing urban transitions and transformations research
Ten years after Copenhagen
In this review, we take stock of the last decade of research on climate change governance in urban areas since the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Using a systematic evaluation of academic publications in the field, we argue that the current moment of research has been shaped by two recent waves of thought. The first, a wave of urban optimism , which started in 2011 and peaked in 2013, engaged with urban areas as alternative sites for governance i…
Political participation of businesses
Private sector actors both enable and inhibit sustainability-oriented policies at multiple scales. Yet, research on business sustainability predominantly emphasizes large corporations, while contributions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are downplayed. Consequently, there is a dearth of conceptual tools to explain how SMEs construct and advance collective sustainability goals. The aim of this paper is to identify how SMEs participat…
Transformative capacity and local action for urban sustainability
There is a consensus about the strategic importance of cities and urban areas for achieving a global transformation towards sustainability. While there is mounting interest in the types of qualities that increase the capacity of urban systems to attain deep transformations, empirical evidence about the extent to which existing institutional and material systems exhibit transformative capacity is lacking. This paper thereby seeks to determine the …
Revisiting multi-level governance theory
Techno-economic rationalities as a political practice in urban environmental politics in China
This article argues that techno-economic rationalities dominate urban environmental policy interventions and sustainability discourses in China. This is so despite recent trends toward diversification of actors and participatory approaches in environmental governance. The paper is based on material collected through interviews with public officials, urban planners, researchers, companies, and nongovernmental organizations working with sustainabil…
Climate governance through partnerships
Transformative capacity and local action for urban sustainability
There is a consensus about the strategic importance of cities and urban areas for achieving a global transformation towards sustainability. While there is mounting interest in the types of qualities that increase the capacity of urban systems to attain deep transformations, empirical evidence about the extent to which existing institutional and material systems exhibit transformative capacity is lacking. This paper thereby seeks to determine the …
Climate governance through partnerships
Urban Transformations to Keep All the Same
The concept of urban transformations has gathered interest among scholars and policymakers calling for radical change towards sustainability. The discourse represents an entry point to address systemic causes of ecological degradation and social injustice, thereby providing solutions to intractable global challenges. Yet, so far, urban transformations projects have fallen short of delivering significant action in cities. The limited ability of th…
China's imaginary of ecological civilization
The field of science, technology and society (STS) calls for greater geographical diversity that draws attention to ‘the rich mosaic of non-Western cultures.’ This perspective provides cultural insights into the construction of the imaginary of ecological civilization in China. From the lens of sociotechnical theory, this perspective presents the discourses and practices constitutive of ecological civilization. We argue that ecological civilizati…
Beyond the North-South divide
A culture‐led approach to understanding energy transitions in China
Transformations of the energy system are unfolding in China at an unprecedented scale and pace. The dynamics of China's energy transitions impact global trends of energy decarbonisation. Transition theories within the Anglophone academic tradition have been used to examine this process, but they tend to misrepresent the social, cultural, and political structures that shape energy transitions in China. This paper proposes a move from an analysis o…
The political effects of emergency frames in sustainability
Advancing urban transitions and transformations research
Compound urban crises
The crises that cities face—such as climate change, pandemics, economic downturn, and racism—are tightly interlinked and cannot be addressed in isolation. This paper addresses compound urban crises as a unique type of problem, in which discrete solutions that tackle each crisis independently are insufficient. Few scholarly debates address compound urban crises and there is, to date, a lack of interdisciplinary insights to inform urban governance …
Revisiting multi-level governance theory
The Homogenization of Urban Climate Action Discourses
The diversification of actors in global climate governance may entail risks, but it is also linked to enhanced democratic performance and opportunities for innovation. To what extent has this diversification fostered a parallel multiplication of perspectives in urban climate policy? To answer this question, we analyze the evolution of urban narratives based on 463 international policy documents issued between 1946 and 2020. Our analysis shows tha…
Motivations and Intended Outcomes in Local Governments' Declarations of Climate Emergency
Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of th…
Redefining the role of urban studies Early Career Academics in the post-Covid-19 university
We are an international collective of Early Career Academics (ECAs) who met throughout 2020 to explore the implications of COVID-19 on precarious academics. With this intervention, our aims are to voice commonly shared experiences and concerns and to reflect on the extent to which the pandemic offers opportunities to redefine Higher Education and research institutions, in a context of ongoing precarity and funding cuts. Specifically, we explore a…
Governing climate change in a changing world
This commentary reflects on a longstanding interdisciplinary exchange across geography and political science, which has crystallised into the scholarship on climate governance. This debate has fundamentally shaped ideas on how climate change can be managed as a societal challenge and with what consequences. The analysis briefly maps the emergence of climate governance as a concept and its progressive embedding in climate policy discourse. Next, t…
Techno-economic rationalities as a political practice in urban environmental politics in China
This article argues that techno-economic rationalities dominate urban environmental policy interventions and sustainability discourses in China. This is so despite recent trends toward diversification of actors and participatory approaches in environmental governance. The paper is based on material collected through interviews with public officials, urban planners, researchers, companies, and nongovernmental organizations working with sustainabil…
A ‘correlative’ turn for transition studies on China
Political participation of businesses
Private sector actors both enable and inhibit sustainability-oriented policies at multiple scales. Yet, research on business sustainability predominantly emphasizes large corporations, while contributions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are downplayed. Consequently, there is a dearth of conceptual tools to explain how SMEs construct and advance collective sustainability goals. The aim of this paper is to identify how SMEs participat…
Top-Down, Bottom-Up and Beyond
This chapter addresses how environmental governance arrangements affect urban resilience and environmental justice in the context of an industrializing city in China. This chapter indicates that certain aspects of top-down management approaches can have a positive impact on responsiveness to environmental pressures, and that certain forms of co-production strategies can contribute towards adaptive and innovative capacity. This chapter also finds …
Techno-economic rationalities as a political practice in urban environmental politics in China
This article argues that techno-economic rationalities dominate urban environmental policy interventions and sustainability discourses in China. This is so despite recent trends toward diversification of actors and participatory approaches in environmental governance. The paper is based on material collected through interviews with public officials, urban planners, researchers, companies, and nongovernmental organizations working with sustainabil…
Climate governance through partnerships
Transformative capacity and local action for urban sustainability
There is a consensus about the strategic importance of cities and urban areas for achieving a global transformation towards sustainability. While there is mounting interest in the types of qualities that increase the capacity of urban systems to attain deep transformations, empirical evidence about the extent to which existing institutional and material systems exhibit transformative capacity is lacking. This paper thereby seeks to determine the …
Revisiting multi-level governance theory
Ten years after Copenhagen
In this review, we take stock of the last decade of research on climate change governance in urban areas since the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Using a systematic evaluation of academic publications in the field, we argue that the current moment of research has been shaped by two recent waves of thought. The first, a wave of urban optimism , which started in 2011 and peaked in 2013, engaged with urban areas as alternative sites for governance i…
Political participation of businesses
Private sector actors both enable and inhibit sustainability-oriented policies at multiple scales. Yet, research on business sustainability predominantly emphasizes large corporations, while contributions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are downplayed. Consequently, there is a dearth of conceptual tools to explain how SMEs construct and advance collective sustainability goals. The aim of this paper is to identify how SMEs participat…
Transcending existing paradigms
Justice dimensions are integral to research on climate change planning in cities. In this comment piece, we engage with a recently published paper by Hess and McKane [2021. “Making Sustainability Plans More Equitable: An Analysis of 50 US Cities.” Local Environment, 1–16], which examines the integration of equity considerations into sustainability plans in cities in the US. By reflecting on this article, we draw attention to three assumptions tha…
The political effects of emergency frames in sustainability
China's imaginary of ecological civilization
The field of science, technology and society (STS) calls for greater geographical diversity that draws attention to ‘the rich mosaic of non-Western cultures.’ This perspective provides cultural insights into the construction of the imaginary of ecological civilization in China. From the lens of sociotechnical theory, this perspective presents the discourses and practices constitutive of ecological civilization. We argue that ecological civilizati…
Motivations and Intended Outcomes in Local Governments' Declarations of Climate Emergency
Near 1,500 governments worldwide, including over 1,000 local governments, have declared a climate emergency. Such declarations constitute a response to the growing visibility of social movements in international politics as well as the growing role of cities in climate governance. Framing climate change as an emergency, however, can bring difficulties in both the identification of the most appropriate measures to adopt and the effectiveness of th…
Bridging the governance divide
A culture‐led approach to understanding energy transitions in China
Transformations of the energy system are unfolding in China at an unprecedented scale and pace. The dynamics of China's energy transitions impact global trends of energy decarbonisation. Transition theories within the Anglophone academic tradition have been used to examine this process, but they tend to misrepresent the social, cultural, and political structures that shape energy transitions in China. This paper proposes a move from an analysis o…
A ‘correlative’ turn for transition studies on China
Advancing urban transitions and transformations research
The Homogenization of Urban Climate Action Discourses
The diversification of actors in global climate governance may entail risks, but it is also linked to enhanced democratic performance and opportunities for innovation. To what extent has this diversification fostered a parallel multiplication of perspectives in urban climate policy? To answer this question, we analyze the evolution of urban narratives based on 463 international policy documents issued between 1946 and 2020. Our analysis shows tha…
Redefining the role of urban studies Early Career Academics in the post-Covid-19 university
We are an international collective of Early Career Academics (ECAs) who met throughout 2020 to explore the implications of COVID-19 on precarious academics. With this intervention, our aims are to voice commonly shared experiences and concerns and to reflect on the extent to which the pandemic offers opportunities to redefine Higher Education and research institutions, in a context of ongoing precarity and funding cuts. Specifically, we explore a…
Urban Transformations to Keep All the Same
The concept of urban transformations has gathered interest among scholars and policymakers calling for radical change towards sustainability. The discourse represents an entry point to address systemic causes of ecological degradation and social injustice, thereby providing solutions to intractable global challenges. Yet, so far, urban transformations projects have fallen short of delivering significant action in cities. The limited ability of th…
Compound urban crises
The crises that cities face—such as climate change, pandemics, economic downturn, and racism—are tightly interlinked and cannot be addressed in isolation. This paper addresses compound urban crises as a unique type of problem, in which discrete solutions that tackle each crisis independently are insufficient. Few scholarly debates address compound urban crises and there is, to date, a lack of interdisciplinary insights to inform urban governance …
Beyond the North-South divide
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
Sustainability discourses influence the practices of urban climate action by establishing objectives and ways of doing things. Key concepts such as ‘risk’, ‘resilience’ and ‘efficiency’ have been central in the history of sustainability discourses, but their influence has changed over time. The use of these terms is analysed in policy narratives of urban climate action, exploring how they are deployed in policy and practice. A document database (…
Harnessing social innovation for a just transition
Governing climate change in a changing world
This commentary reflects on a longstanding interdisciplinary exchange across geography and political science, which has crystallised into the scholarship on climate governance. This debate has fundamentally shaped ideas on how climate change can be managed as a societal challenge and with what consequences. The analysis briefly maps the emergence of climate governance as a concept and its progressive embedding in climate policy discourse. Next, t…
Life bio-graphics
Individual actions of practitioners and activists are crucial to achieving carbon emission reductions and improving resilience to climate change impacts. However, policy narratives have overlooked people’s complex engagements with climate change in professional settings. Few scholarly accounts of individual experiences of working to address climate change in cities inform climate policy because ethnographic and sociological accounts of climate ch…
Theorisation of environmental justice in Chinese political philosophy
Political science (22 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Geography (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Corporate governance (12 works) · Economics (11 works) · China (9 works) · Climate change (9 works) · Law (9 works)