Environment, Lifestyles and Individuals

The course offers deepened insight into current research on the role of individuals and consumers in solving environmental and natural resource problems. Environmental behavior in terms of collective actions - as well as the conditions and obstacles for actors to act rationally as a collective - are some of the topics discussed. The course deals with current research on learning, attitudes, actions and consumption. It highlights: the role of the individual in environmental politics through research on learning and knowledge; the implications or presuppositions for environmentally friendly actions, and; decision-making over environmental resources. As such it brings up research on attitudes, values, resources and motivations for environmentally friendly actions. An important focus is how the knowledge of consumers on sustainable and political consumption as well as the attitudes and values ofcitizens affect (and are a precondition for) political instruments.