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Enough to transform? Sufficiency as a normative source for change in German Climate- and Energy-Model-Regions. A critical discourse analysis.

This PhD project is situated within the nexus of climate and energy policy and the governance of sustainable production and consumption systems, as well as in the empirical context of German climate and energy model regions. It examines whether and to what extent the sustainability principle of sufficiency serves as a normative source of transformation in the empirical cases studied. To this end, the project generates a differentiated perspective on possible normative-descriptive understandings of sufficiency in the context of scientific sustainability discourses and reflects these with regard to the sufficiency norms existing in the respective regions. By means of discourse analysis, a critical perspective on established sufficiency norms and the associated contradictions and omissions is being applied. The research project provides important insights into the obstacles and opportunities for a more far-reaching socio-ecological sustainability transformation at local and regional levels of governance.