Les dossiers 

Bringing together the concepts of austerity and sobriety provides a timely opportunity to think comparatively between the governance choices promoted during the financial crisis of 2008 and those promoted during the energy crisis (2021), labelled as “sobriety” measures. The main objective of the roundtable was to better understand the specificity of the emergence of the political discourse and policy tools around “sobriety” as a response to the energy crisis, in a context where austerity was far from being out of the picture. 

These two concepts, which have different philosophical and political roots, were brought together to question governance choices in the context of crises and strategies for dealing with limits (planetary boundaries; budgetary constraints) and possible contradictions or tensions within given choices. This approach also provided an opportunity for the roundtable participants to examine how political perceptions and narratives of limits/boundaries are constructed, how they are translated into policy, and with what results in terms of effectively addressing the crisis. 

A presentation of the roundtable and its participants is available here, along with the recording and some additional references. 

The following summarises the discussions.

The war in Ukraine and the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic have put pressure on energy supply and demand, plunging the world into a major energy crisis. Energy prices, especially for oil and gas, are soaring at a time when calls for a shift away from fossil fuels to mitigate the climate crisis continue and have become more urgent. Thirteen years after the financial crisis, the energy crisis of 2021 is putting significant pressure on countries and highlighting several political and social issues that have shaken up national, regional and international agendas. The confluence of these crises (the climate crisis, the war and the energy crisis, the recovery from the Covid crisis, the ongoing debt issue...) has indeed forced governments to implement new agendas and policy tools, in which “austerity” and “sobriety” play a key role both as narrative settings and as frameworks for rules, actions, sectoral investments and/or budget cuts.

In Europe, the 2008 subprime crisis also exposed the weaknesses of the European economy and led to the European debt crisis. The political response was the implementation of austerity policies. This was hardly the first time that the term austerity had been used to describe economic policy; in fact, its conceptual roots can be traced back to the conceptions of the role of the state of the first “liberals” in the 19th century1. In more recent history, the term was used during the Second World War, the 1950s and the 1970s. Some governments' budget cuts began before the financial crash of 2008. However, after the crisis, the term became prominent in public debate. Austerity was seen as a response to the "over-consumption" of public goods. Significant cuts in government budgets and tax increases were implemented in several countries, some with great reluctance. The term austerity has been used with a degree of caution and resistance by some governments, who have refused to use it to describe their crisis response policies. This is also a reflection of the unpopularity of these policies, the social damage they have caused as public and social services have been cut back, and the limitations on transformative policies (especially those required by the green transition) that they have led to.

• 1. Blyth, M. (2015). Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

In the context of the climate crisis, the energy crisis not only challenges our economies and political systems, but also demands a political response from governments. It is in this context that the notion of sobriety has come to the fore on the political scene, particularly in France and within the European Union. This political choice has paved the way for numerous discussions on policy definition, framing and communication. The concept of sobriety deserves to be explored. Similar to the notion of “austerity”, but with different and perhaps contradictory meanings, the conceptual origins of “sobriety” can be traced far back to the Aristotelian vision of the “good life”. It refers to notions of sufficiency, autonomy, rejection of excess, accumulation and vain luxury, with a subtext referring to fairness. Since then, other writers - especially ecological thinkers - have used the notion of sobriety as a key concept to refer to a society freed from the treadmill of growth and respectful of environmental and social equilibria. The emergence of this notion as a policy framework to be used by capitalist, growth-dependent states to address the energy crisis of 2021 (with a variety of new policy instruments, regulations and individual injunctions to change consumption habits...) operates a significant semantic shift that requires further analysis. 

Comparing the choice of austerity and sobriety policies provides an interesting way to address the following questions: Why refer to notions of austerity and sobriety? How do these notions fit into different capitalist models and political regimes? What are the respective challenges - political, economic and social? To what extent is the word austerity accepted in the public sphere? What are the implications of these choices in terms of justice and social contributions? To what extent should the notion of austerity be seen as an uneven governmental response to the climate crisis, and how does the continuation of austerity fit into - or contradict - this dynamic? 

In other words, bringing these two concepts together offered the opportunity to examine the political dynamics at play, as well as the use of the notion of coercion and control mechanisms within the different policy spheres.

Claire Lejeune 

Claire Morgane Lejeune, a graduate of ENS Lyon and the Master’s program in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Sciences Po, has worked in various institutions, including the European Parliament, focusing on climate and migration policies. As a PhD candidate at the CEE, her research explores planning through the lens of ecological and democratic challenges, using a historical and environmental approach. In 2024, she was elected as a Member of Parliament for France’s 7th constituency of Essonne, pausing her doctoral studies to fulfil this mandate.

Claire Morgane Lejeune, ancienne élève de l’ENS de Lyon et diplômée du Master Human Rights and Humanitarian Action de Sciences Po, a travaillé au sein de plusieurs institutions, dont le Parlement européen sur les questions liées aux politiques climatiques et migratoires. Doctorante au Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée (CEE) de Sciences Po, ses recherches portent sur la planification, examinée sous l’angle des enjeux écologiques et démocratiques, avec une approche historique et environnementale. En 2024, elle est élue députée de la 7ᵉ circonscription de l’Essonne en France, mettant son doctorat en pause pour exercer ce mandat. 

Meryem Bezzaz 

Meryem holds a Master’s in Political Science from McGill University and a Bachelor’s in Economics and Politics from the University of Montreal. Specializing in international political economy and social statistics, she has worked as a research analyst and assistant in various Quebec research centres (CÉRIUM, CIRANO, and IREC). Now pursuing a PhD in International Relations at the CEE at Sciences Po, where she also serves as a teaching assistant (ATER), her research focuses on the evolution of energy policies in the European Union, building on prior work examining how oil price changes affect the bargaining power of OPEC member states.

Meryem est titulaire d’une maîtrise en science politique de l’Université McGill et d’un baccalauréat en économie et politique de l’Université de Montréal. Spécialisée en économie politique internationale et en statistiques sociales, elle a travaillé comme analyste et assistante de recherche dans plusieurs centres québécois (CÉRIUM, CIRANO et IREC). Aujourd’hui doctorante en relations internationales au CEE à Sciences Po, où elle est également assistante d’enseignement (ATER), ses recherches portent sur l’évolution des politiques énergétiques au sein de l’Union européenne, après avoir étudié l’impact des variations des prix du pétrole sur le pouvoir de négociation des membres de l’OPEP.