The political economy of car dependence: A systems of provision approach

By Giulio Mattioli, Cameron Roberts, J. Steinberger, Andrew Brown. Energy Research & Social Science, 2020

488 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Research on car dependence exposes the difficulty of moving away from a car-dominated, high-carbon transport system, but neglects the political-economic factors underpinning car-dependent societies. Yet these factors are key constraints to attempts to ‘decouple' human well-being from energy use and climate change emissions. In this critical review paper, we identify some of the main political-economic factors behind car dependence, drawing together research from several fields. Five key constituent elements of what we call the ‘car-dependent transport system’ are identified: i) the automotive industry; ii) the provision of car infrastructure; iii) the political economy of urban sprawl; iv) the provision of public transport; v) cultures of car consumption. Using the ‘systems of provision’ approach within political economy, we locate the part played by each element within the key dynamic processes of the system as a whole. Such processes encompass industrial structure, political-economic relations, the built environment, and cultural feedback loops. We argue that linkages between these processes are crucial to maintaining car dependence and thus create carbon lock-in. In developing our argument we discuss several important characteristics of car-dependent transport systems: the role of integrated socio-technical aspects of provision, the opportunistic use of contradictory economic arguments serving industrial agendas, the creation of an apolitical facade around pro-car decision-making, and the ‘capture’ of the state within the car-dependent transport system. Through uncovering the constituents, processes and characteristics of car-dependent transport systems, we show that moving past the automobile age will require an overt and historically aware political program of research and action.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/257dd7f1c40f1b9d530274329ab00f877d83e2e1

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In Environmental Engineering

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

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Citations in the corpus

A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018 (2021, background): “This suggests a key role for more stringent policies and efforts to tackle car dependence, including demand management policies alongside technological innovation (Creutzig et al 2018, Mattioli et al 2020, Milovanoff et al 2020).”
The unequal distribution of household carbon footprints in Europe and its link to sustainability (2020, background): “Giving further attention to the ways in which to overcome social and political barriers to low-carbon consumption patterns and living is key (Ivanova et al., 2020; Mattioli et al., 2020; Roberts et al., 2020).”