Growth, Democracy or Climate Action?
The New Political Trilemma of Advanced Capitalism
Climate Policy · Democratic Legitimacy · Economic Growth
The Framework
Pick any two corners
Each strategy secures the two goals it sits between — and sacrifices the third. There is no point in the middle. Click a strategy to open it.
Climate Action
decarbonize in time
Democracy
electoral legitimacy
Bottom edge = Liberal Status Quo ·
Left edge = Big Green State ·
Right edge = Degrowth
The Liberal Status Quo
✓ Growth
✓ Democracy
Climate Action
Chapter 2
Green growth within liberal markets: incremental targets, carbon pricing, private investment. It keeps voters and capital onside — but renewables get layered on top of fossil fuels rather than replacing them, and laws are hollowed out by lobbying. The pace and scale never match the science.
↳ This is where almost every Western democracy sits today.
The Big Green State
✓ Climate Action
✓ Growth
Democracy
Chapter 3
A technocratic, sovereign state plans and directs the transition at speed — disciplining capital, allocating credit, hitting capacity targets. It can decarbonize key sectors fast and capture industrial dividends, precisely because it is freed from electoral responsiveness. The cost is democratic accountability, and it offers no guarantee of a just transition.
↳ Already emerging in China, Vietnam, Singapore — and perhaps the Gulf petrostates.
Degrowth
✓ Climate Action
✓ Democracy
Growth
Chapter 4
Planned contraction of high-impact sectors, shorter working weeks, steep redistribution and well-being over GDP. Normatively coherent and democratically deliberative — but no governing party in a competitive democracy can campaign on shrinking the economy. Growth is the currency of electoral legitimacy, so degrowth stays politically impossible.
↳ The most coherent, least plausible route — until it is suddenly the only one left.
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Empirical research
The Data
Interactive visualisations from the book's empirical research.
Figure 1
CO₂ emissions per capita vs. GDP per capita
Consumption-based CO₂ emissions per person plotted against GDP per capita. The chart illustrates how economic prosperity and carbon emissions have historically moved together — and where countries diverge from that pattern.
Source: Our World in Data
Figure 2
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[Short description of what this visualisation shows and why it matters for the book's argument.]
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Figure 3
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[Short description of what this visualisation shows and why it matters for the book's argument.]
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Visualisation coming soon
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The Authors
Four researchers from Oxford, Berlin, Dublin and Paris — bringing together comparative political economy, political sociology, and public policy.
Aidan Regan
University College Dublin
Aidan Regan is Professor of Political Economy at University College Dublin, where he leads an ERC-funded project on corporate tax avoidance, wealth inequality, and democracy. His research spans comparative and international political economy, with a focus on housing, climate politics, social class, and the transformation of welfare states. He is a regular contributor to Irish and international media and writes a monthly column for The Business Post.
Personal website
Hanna Schwander
Humboldt University Berlin
Hanna Schwander is Full Professor and Chair of Political Sociology and Social Policy at Humboldt University Berlin. Working at the intersection of comparative politics, political sociology, and political economy, her research explores how structural challenges — including welfare state transformation, labour market inequality, and climate change — shape political life. She is a founding member of the Progressive Politics Research Network and leads the Berlin Polarization Monitor.
Personal website
Tim Vlandas
University of Oxford
Tim Vlandas is Professor of Comparative Political Economy and Social Policy at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the European Studies Centre at St Antony's College, and an Associate Member of Nuffield College. His research examines the political determinants and consequences of social and economic policy in advanced capitalist democracies, and has been published in over 70 peer-reviewed articles and three books.
Personal website
Cyril Benoît
Sciences Po Paris / CNRS
Cyril Benoît is a CNRS Researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris. A unifying theme in his research is how political institutions shape economic outcomes — from regulatory design and pharmaceutical markets to the welfare–finance nexus and the political economy of the green transition. He teaches industrial policy, comparative politics, and public policy at Sciences Po's School of Public Affairs.
Personal website
Press & Reception
Podcasts, media coverage, and academic reviews of the book.
Podcast
Is meaningful climate action possible in a democracy?
Inside Politics Podcast - June 2026
Listen
Podcast
Growth, Democracy Or Climate Action? With Aidan Regan
Second Captains - April 2026
Listen
Article
Growth, Democracy, or Climate Action? The New Political Trilemma of Advanced Capitalism
The Irish Times - June 2026
Read
Book review
Growth, Democracy or Climate Action? The New Trilemma of Advanced Capitalism
Perspectives on Politics, Cambridge University Press — 2026
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Book review
New reviews will be updated here