Natalie Koch (Syracuse University) - Authoritarian state power and green nationalism in the UAE

Abstract. The shifting geopolitical and ecological circumstances surrounding climate change are contributing to the strengthening of “green nationalisms” around the world – including in authoritarian states. This talk explains the rise of green nationalism in the UAE, where state-led discourse now uses sustainability tropes to reframe the country’s national identity and values as “green.” Based on research about the UAE’s sustainability agenda since 2018, I show how top-down green nationalist storylines are transmitted through institutional, policy, and events landscapes in the years leading up to and including the UN COP28 climate talks in Dubai in December 2023. Emirati political elites are now using green nationalism to cultivate symbolic capital domestically and internationally and, in so doing, legitimate their authoritarian hold on state power – a growing global challenge, as authoritarian countries are more motivated by regime durability than joining the global community for urgent climate action.

Based on this Open Access article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nana.13042

Biography: Natalie Koch is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She is a political geographer who works on geopolitics, authoritarianism, identity politics, and state power in hydrocarbon-rich countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. In addition to editing several collections, including most recently Spatializing Authoritarianism (Syracuse University Press, 2022), her monographs include The geopolitics of spectacle: Space, synecdoche, and the new capitals of Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018) and Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia (Verso, 2022).