This article analyses the social construction of climate change mitigation as a policy issue at the hands of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). IPCC models and scenarios, play a key role in constructing and legitimising political visions of pathways towards Net Zero. IPCC scenarios have important and real socio-ecological consequences that are crucial for the politics of tackling climate change, profoundly shaping what are seen as viable futures and mitigation policy options. We problematise five key assumptions that are fed into modelling, showing why and how they matter politically. These contestable assumptions built into IPCC IAMs undermine their credibility and usefulness for planning mitigation strategies. We find that, ironically, although IPCC efforts stress just how urgent political action is, their models and scenarios undervalue today’s actionable mitigation policies, leaving us prisoners of our climate polluting past.

A team of political scientists from VUB and the University of Warwick has won the Frank Cass Prize for the best article of 2023. Kamil Bernaerts, affiliated both with the Department of Political Science of the VUB and of the University of Warwick wrote the article “Institutional design and polarization. Do consensus democracies fare better in fighting polarization than majoritarian democracies?” together with Benjamin Blanckaert (VUB) and Didier Caluwaerts (VUB). The article was published in the leading journal Democratization and has made an important contribution to understanding democratisation and political polarisation.

Joseph Haigh’s article ‘‘Every one (re)membered’: Anxiety, family history, and militarised vicarious identity promotion during Britain’s First World War centenary commemorations’ has just been published open access in the Review of International Studies. The article explores how during the 2014-18 First World War Centenary key national custodians encouraged Britons to emotionally buy into militarised revisionist narratives about the First World War by vicariously identifying with military ancestors. The article can be accessed here https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210524000160

Joe wishes to thank PAIS colleagues who provided invaluable feedback on the paper and guidance on approaching the revisions.

In this interview with faculti, Ben Clift summarises key insights and themes from his recent OUP book about the Office for Budget Responsibility. These include the politics of technocracy, the fiscal politics of tackling climate change, and how the rise of populism threatens the foundations of expert-led economic governance.

Many congratulations to Sam Pordale who has been recognized for his work on the national campaign ‘lift the ban’, which advocates for asylum seekers to be given the right to work, and his service as youth advocates for Refugee Education UK