The states-markets-decarbonization nexus: reviewing an emerging political economy agenda

Daniel Driscoll and Mathias Larsen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The problem of climate change further confounds the already complex relationship between states and markets in modern capitalism. In this state of the art article, we argue that current political economy scholarship is making sense of this occasion by incorporating decarbonization into the “return of the state” and “financialization” literatures and thus creating a “states–markets–decarbonization nexus.” We categorize this nexus into three core topic areas: international financial subordination, industrial policy, and comparative capitalisms. In each, we review key insights and provide an overview of the main scholarly contributions on how states and markets intersect with decarbonization. From there, we discuss how current scholarship can be more policy relevant, appreciate the coming realities of climate adaptation, and benefit from integrating the three core topics to capture a rapidly evolving global order.

Keywords: interdisciplinarity; markets; the state; climate change; environment; finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E00 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2026-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Socio-Economic Review, 1, June, 2026. ISSN: 1475-1461

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/138762/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:138762

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().