Tracing the contours of the ecosocial project: A review of policy proposals

Recent years have seen a growth in academic literature proposing a variety of ecosocial policies that seek to simultaneously advance environmental and social goals. However, the many proposals largely remain fragmented and scattered, making it difficult to see the ecosocial project as a broader coherent political agenda. This paper seeks to address this issue, through a systematic literature review, focusing on ecosocial proposals that directly or indirectly facilitate a downscaling of production and consumption in high-income countries. The review revealed 126 different policy proposals across 73 academic texts. These were categorized into five broad themes: democracy & participation, income & employment, redistributive taxation, consumption regulation, and social services. The categories illustrate the ecosocial project as consisting of unifying goals associated with these five themes. While the existing literature illustrates that the ecosocial project has much to offer in terms of addressing the socio-ecological and democratic crises in high-income countries, considerable gaps remain. Specifically, more research is arguably needed on (1) political strategy (2) detailing of individual policy proposals and (3) policy mixes.