Backlash, Borders, and Bunkers: Critical Approaches for Research on Antidemocratic Politics and Climate Change Communication

In this introductory essay, guest editor Hanna E. Morris outlines the theoretical and methodological contributions of the Special Issue (SI) Backlash, Borders, and Bunkers: Antidemocratic Politics and Climate Change Communication. The essay begins with a reflection on the recent trend of climate policy rollbacks across borders since the start of “Trump 2.0,” despite most people wanting their governments to do more to address climate change. Predominant social science theories of polarization, populism, and disinformation are failing to adequately explain these rollbacks. This is because these theories, this essay argues, often deflect blame onto “the people” at the expense of reckoning with the deeply inequitable structures of power that effectively criminalize and delegitimize historically marginalized groups and activists. This deflection, in turn, sidelines justice-oriented responses to climate change that fundamentally question technocratic, market, and engineering “fixes” that keep asymmetrical structures of power in place. This SI showcases the kind of critical climate change communication scholarship that is needed to interrogate these “fixes” and move past limited theories to open paths for more nuanced scholarship and robustly democratic responses to climate change that see “the people” as they really are – as complex subjects with diverse knowledges, lived experiences, and expertise.