Follow the leader? Conceptualising the relationship between leaders and followers in polycentric climate governance

ABSTRACT

Existing scholarship on climate governance has not sufficiently considered the relationship between climate leaders/pioneers and followers. Because of the global commons nature of climate change, unilateral leadership or pioneership by one or a small number of actors will be insufficient to combat climate change effectively. The need to take seriously the relationship between leaders and followers is all the greater in the wake of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which emphasises diffuse, bottom–up action. The relationship between leaders and followers in polycentric climate governance is unpacked in this contribution. What types of actors can be climate followers? Through what pathways can followership emerge and how can we capture the essential characteristics of leader–follower relationships? What conditions facilitate (or hinder) followership? The utility of the approach is illustrated using cases of EU climate leadership and (non-) followership of other actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• leaders
• pioneers
• followers
• multi-level governance
• polycentric governance

Acknowledgements

I thank Duncan Liefferink, Rüdiger Wurzel, three anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts, and Louise FitzGerald for editorial assistance. I am grateful for helpful comments and suggestions to participants in a workshop at the University of Hull in September 2016 on ‘Pioneers and Leaders in Polycentric Climate Governance’, organised in the framework of the INOGOV Cost Action Network. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.