What’s wrong with research about ‘degrowth’?

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Supporters of so-called degrowth proclaim that without radical economic change — and falling GDP — ecological collapse is looming. Detractors, meanwhile, dismiss this as unwarranted techno-pessimism, infused with fuzzy language and untenable or vague policies. Some recent reviews assess this burgeoning area of research. What flaws do they find?

One by Ivan Savin of the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and Jeroen van den Bergh of the Autonomous University of Barcelona hands ammunition to the critics, analysing 561 studies containing “degrowth” or “post-growth” in the title. They complain about a plethora of degrowth definitions, and provocatively claim that researchers are “colonising” distinct areas by using the term to package work on, say, recycling.

They also grumble about weak methods, calculating that just over 5 per cent of papers they study perform quantitative data analysis, which they say is often “superficial and incomplete”. Another 4 per cent do qualitative data analysis, some of which is shaky. They offer examples, including an analysis of 14 interviews with Canadian environmental activists that is meant to shed light on “limited uptake of degrowth discourse in the English-speaking world”.

The reaction among degrowthers resembled their likely response to a coal-fired power plant in a nature reserve. One retort was that by limiting the study to research with degrowth in the title, the authors painted an unrepresentative picture of the field, one that was more likely to contain discussion and review than original empirical work. Another was that all fields contain at least some shoddy research.

Still, some of the substantive critiques are echoed in other reviews, even those by researchers friendlier towards the project. Others have also noted the inconsistency of definition: while some use the terms “degrowth” and “postgrowth” interchangeably, others distinguish degrowth as a more radical approach to scaling back production, and postgrowth as allowing for more incremental reform.

A review of modelling studies by Arthur Lauer, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez and Nathalie Wergles of the University of Valladolid argues that this ambiguity contributes to more substantive fuzziness, including over the desired path of GDP, whether degrowth is consistent with capitalism, and who exactly is supposed to be driving any change. And while there has been a surge in modelling efforts over the past few years, there are still gaps.

Others have also levelled the charge that for a movement advocating for change, degrowth research is not engaged enough with practical policymaking. A review by researchers mostly at the University of Lüneberg of 475 studies made the “baffling” calculation that around two-thirds neither contained nor discussed any concrete policy proposals.

Where there are ideas, details are often lacking. Another review identified 530 degrowth policy proposals but noted that “most” lack precision (“ecological reparations” or “transitioning businesses to not-for-profit co-operatives”). Reducing work-time is popular, but few studies specify how to do it. And researchers only rarely explore the interactions between different (major) policy changes.

A final gap is research looking into ways of getting people on board with radical economic change — and of sustaining it once they start to feel the pinch of falling consumption. This seems pretty urgent given the political obstacles to pro-environmental policies even without a wholesale change to our economic institutions.

Some of these gaps reflect the grand nature of the project. Another review describes it as “exiting economism, that is, decolonising the social imaginary and liberating public debate from prevalent discourses couched in economic terms, privileging growth”. (This doesn’t sound like a movement particularly fond of economics columnists . . . )

Timothée Parrique of Lund University argues that among 115 definitions analysed there is a consistent idea, which is that degrowth is “a downscaling of production and consumption to reduce ecological footprints planned democratically in a way that is equitable while securing wellbeing”. Even within that, there is a lot to unpack.

Degrowth contains two big ideas: that growth is or may be incompatible with sustaining the planet; and that radical economic change is required as a result. Since one can disagree with either or both of these, it is hardly surprising that there is controversy over what exactly “counts” as falling within the field. And given the scale of the change degrowthers want, it isn’t surprising that empirical evidence on the journey or the destination is a little thin.

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