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Karin Bäckstrand

Karin Bäckstrand

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Political Science
Sweden
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Political Science

D-Index
36
Citations
9034
World Ranking
671
National Ranking
9

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Political Science in Sweden Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Political Science in Sweden Leader Award

Overview

Karin Bäckstrand is affiliated with Stockholm University in Sweden and primarily works within the social sciences, with significant contributions to business, management and accounting, as well as environmental science. Their research spans multiple subfields including strategy and management, economics and econometrics, sociology and political science, global and planetary change, and development.

The scientist's academic output includes papers published in prominent venues such as Earth System Governance, International Environmental Agreements Politics Law and Economics, Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, and the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

Recent publications by Karin Bäckstrand highlight a focus on governance and democracy in environmental contexts. These include:

  • From collaboration to contestation? Perceptions of legitimacy and effectiveness in post-Paris climate governance (2021, Earth System Governance)
  • Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus (2020, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning)
  • Democratising sustainability transformations: Assessing the transformative potential of democratic practices in environmental governance (2022, Earth System Governance)
  • Enhancing the achievement of the SDGs: lessons learned at the half-way point of the 2030 Agenda (2023, International Environmental Agreements Politics Law and Economics)
  • Multistakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Promises and Pitfalls (2024, Annual Review of Environment and Resources)

Bäckstrand has frequently collaborated with other scholars, notably Naghmeh Nasiritousi and Oscar Widerberg, each with 10 joint works, as well as Faradj Koliev, Jens Marquardt, and Jakob Skovgaard, each contributing to five coauthored publications.

The researcher has contributed to book publications, including a title under Cambridge University Press titled International Public Administrations in Environmental Governance (2024).

Their main research topics cover:

  • Climate Change Policy and Economics
  • Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
  • International Development and Aid
  • Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy
  • Human Rights and Development
  • Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
  • Public Procurement and Policy

Best Publications

  • Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Rethinking Legitimacy, Accountability and Effectiveness

    Karin Bäckstrand

  • Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance

    Karin Bäckstrand

  • Planting Trees to Mitigate Climate Change: Contested Discourses of Ecological Modernization, Green Governmentality and Civic Environmentalism

    Karin Bäckstrand;Eva Lövbrand

  • Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance

    F. Biermann;F. Biermann;K. Abbott;S. Andresen;Karin Bäckstrand

  • Accountability of Networked Climate Governance: The Rise of Transnational Climate Partnerships •

    Karin Bäckstrand

  • Democratising Global Governance? Stakeholder Democracy after the World Summit on Sustainable Development

    Karin Bäckstrand

  • Governing climate change transnationally: Assessing the evidence from a database of sixty initiatives

    Harriet Bulkeley;Liliana Andonova;Karin Bäckstrand;Michele Betsill

  • The EU's role in climate change negotiations: from leader to ‘leadiator’

    Karin Bäckstrand;Ole Elgström

  • Non-state actors in global climate governance: from Copenhagen to Paris and beyond

    Karin Bäckstrand;Jonathan W. Kuyper;Björn-Ola Linnér;Eva Lövbrand

  • Transforming governance and institutions for global sustainability: key insights from the Earth System Governance Project

    Frank Biermann;Frank Biermann;Kenneth Abbott;Steinar Andresen;Karin Bäckstrand

  • Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy: Examining the Promise of New Modes of Governance

    Karin Bäckstrand;Jamil Khan;Annica Kronsell;Eva Lövbrand

  • Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy

    Karin Bäckstrand;Jamil Kahn;Annica Kronsell;Eva Lövbrand

  • Climate governance beyond 2012. Competing discourses of green governmentality, ecological modernization and civic environmentalism

    Eva Lövbrand;Karin Bäckstrand

  • The Road to Paris: Contending Climate Governance Discourses in the Post-Copenhagen Era

    Karin Bäckstrand;Eva Lövbrand

  • Scientisation vs. Civic Expertise in Environmental Governance. Ecofeminist, Ecomodernist and Postmodernist Responses

    Karin Bäckstrand

  • The democratic legitimacy of orchestration: the UNFCCC, non-state actors, and transnational climate governance

    Karin Bäckstrand;Jonathan William Kuyper

  • The Promise of New Modes of Environmental Governance

    Karin Bäckstrand;Jamil Khan;Annica Kronsell;Eva Lovbrand

  • The politics and policy of carbon capture and storage: Framing an emergent technology

    Karin Bäckstrand;James Meadowcroft;Michael Oppenheimer

  • Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus

    Jonathan Pickering;Karin Bäckstrand;David Schlosberg

  • Rethinking the Green State. Environmental governance towards climate and sustainability transitions

    Annica Kronsell;Karin Bäckstrand

  • Not seeing the forest for the trees? The environmental effectiveness of forest certification in Sweden

    Peter Schlyter;Ingrid Stjernquist;Karin Bäckstrand

  • Old Wine in New Bottles? The Legitimation and Delegitimation of UN Public–Private Partnerships for Sustainable Development from the Johannesburg Summit to the Rio+20 Summit

    Karin Bäckstrand;Mikael Kylsäter

  • Research Handbook on Climate Governance

    Karin Bäckstrand;Eva Lövbrand

Frequent Co-Authors

Eva Lövbrand
Eva Lövbrand Linköping University
Philipp Pattberg
Philipp Pattberg Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Diana Liverman
Diana Liverman University of Arizona
Michele M. Betsill
Michele M. Betsill University of Copenhagen
Frank Biermann
Frank Biermann Utrecht University
Peter Newell
Peter Newell University of Sussex
Joyeeta Gupta
Joyeeta Gupta University of Amsterdam
Harriet Bulkeley
Harriet Bulkeley Durham University
Heike Schroeder
Heike Schroeder University of East Anglia
James Meadowcroft
James Meadowcroft Carleton University

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