Abstract
This article discusses two ostensibly antagonistic themes: right-wing populism (RWP) and the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). European politics has seen a sharp increase in right-wing populist influence over the last few election periods. More recently, such political influence has led to questions about right-wing populism’s impact on environmental and sustainable development policy. This paper takes a novel approach to understanding the potential connections between the rise of RWP in Europe and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs in two ways. First, the paper is based on two workshops, informed by a preceding literature review on the topic of RWP in Europe, requested and organised by the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN). Secondly, the results from the workshops are used to discuss and interpret the role of potentially differing worldviews (ontology, axiology, epistemology and societal vision) and how these relate to specific policy and governance responses, thereby impacting upon the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs in European countries.
Highlights
The rise of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) in Europe, their increased political traction, and their potential impact on policy and politics is a widely covered topic in academia and popular media [1]
Regardless of the increased attention directed towards the impact of RWPPs on climate policy, less is known about the linkages between the United Nations Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [5], and right-wing populism (RWP) in Europe
Rather than discerning individual responses, the analysis focused on commonalities of discourse and larger narratives of policy and governance that could be linked to a discussion on diverging or converging worldviews regarding the 2030 Agenda and RWP influence in European politics as identified by the policymakers attending the workshops
Summary
The rise of right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) in Europe, their increased political traction, and their potential impact on policy and politics is a widely covered topic in academia and popular media [1]. With RWPPs gaining increased voter support in Europe, attention has further been directed toward RWPPs’ impact upon and influence over pressing societal issues, such as climate change [2]. Regardless of the increased attention directed towards the impact of RWPPs on climate policy, less is known about the linkages between the United Nations Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [5] ( referred to as the 2030 Agenda and SDGs), and RWP in Europe. Addressing this gap, this article draws on the experiences and expertise of a policymaker network engaged with sustainable development (SD) policy across Europe to explore policy and governance implications of RWPP influence on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda through an analytical starting point of ontological, axiological, epistemological and visionary expressions constituting differing or similar worldviews
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