Theme Panel: Climate and Geopolitics: Power, Cooperation, and Social Change in the Anthropocene

July 17, 2025 APSA Annual Meeting, Theme Panels Comments Off on Theme Panel: Climate and Geopolitics: Power, Cooperation, and Social Change in the Anthropocene

In-Person Full Paper Panel

Participants:

  • (Chair) Debra Javeline, University of Notre Dame
  • (Discussant) Erin Sikorsky, Center for Climate and Security

Session Description:

The climate crisis is fundamentally reshaping how we will understand international relations and state behavior in the 21st century. Traditional frameworks for analyzing power, cooperation, and governance were developed in an era when environmental stability could be taken for granted. Yet as we enter deeper into the Anthropocene, climate change is transforming the material foundations of international politics – from critical resource supplies to the viability of human settlements. In line with the 2025 APSA theme of “Reimagining Politics, Power, and Peoplehood in Crisis Times,” this panel explores how the climate crisis intersects with and disrupts core dynamics of international politics. The papers examine how states are adapting their approaches to resource security, how the basis of international power may shift in a warming world, how climate cooperation is complicated by great power competition, and how climate-driven migration could reshape democratic governance. Together, they reveal the importance of rethinking many concepts and relationships in an international system facing new constraints and imperatives as the climate crisis unfolds.