SETBACK (2026-2030)

In a context of rising anti-democratic and anti-environmental tendencies, SETBACK explores the specific case of Environmental Justice Backsliding (EJB). After following a gradual institutionalization, EJ has become an explicit target of institutional and societal backlash. Drawing on the US as main empirical field, and following an extreme-case study approach, SETBACK pursues two objectives: (1) empirically, it will take stock, document, and trace the activist, scholarly, and institutional landscape of the ongoing EJB; (2) theoretically, it will conceptualize the implications of EJB for the study of environmental justice and for democratic societies at large. To meet these objectives, the project adopts a process tracing and ethnographic fieldwork methodological approach in three groups of actors - institutional actors, social movements, and researchers – combining interviews with document and archive collection. Building on an interdisciplinary team of promoters and colleagues, the project also intends to develop a prospective dimension by exploring how EJB in US finds resonance in other contexts, in particular in Europe where climate and environmental backlash are also on the rise. SETBACK seeks to contribute both to the empirical documentation of EJB as recent trend in environmental politics and to the theoretical work on the environment-democracy nexus.

Partners: ULB (Prof. Louise Knops) & UClouvain (Prof. Brendan Coolsaet)

Funding: Welchange project, FNRS