The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden

Abstract

The dominant technocratic and neoliberal imaginary of a circular economy dependent on corporate leadership, market mechanisms, and changed consumer behaviour is here explored using the findings of deliberative stakeholder workshops examining diverse scenarios for the promotion of repair as part of a circular economy. Stakeholder responses to four scenarios—digital circularity, planned circularity, circular modernism, and bottom-up sufficiency—are described with reference to the ideologies, interests, and institutions involved. We distinguish two levels of discourse in the stakeholder discussions. The main narrative in which individualist and consumerist ideologies dominate, even within ideals of sustainability, reflects a conjunction of corporate, labour, and public interests in the market liberal social democratic state, with proposed interventions focused on the institutions of markets and education. A subaltern narrative present in the margins of the discussions challenges the consumerist and productivist presumptions of the market liberal political economy and hints at more transformative change. These conflicting responses not only cast light on the ways in which the political economy of contemporary Sweden (within the European Union) constrains and conditions current expectations and imaginaries of circularity, but also suggest ways in which the future political economy of circular economies might be contested and evolve.

Development of the Circular Product Readiness Method in Circular Design

“…The availability of professional repair services as a route to lifetime extension to meet the need for repair in cases where self-repair is impossible or not desired [56].…”

“…Awareness of the professional support services offered are necessary to close make such services truly operational [56]. The question was rephrased as a result of the company evaluation (Section 5).…”

Repair cafés in the Netherlands: Capitalist abstinence as a challenge to a linear capitalist economy

“…Several authors have discussed the potential role of community repair in the transition to a circular economy (Bradley & Persson, 2022;Moalem & Mosgaard, 2021;Niskanen & McLaren, 2023;Van der Velden, 2021). In a neoclassical approach to the market economy, production is a unidirectional process in which resources enter the production process and products come out of it; when objects are no longer functioning properly or have become obsolete, they are discarded.…”

Economía agroalimentaria circular: tendencias gerenciales para la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de producción

“…En este entorno organizacional, la participación de sectores sociales, incluyendo al sector público, empujan la transición hacia una economía circular desde la formulación de políticas, donde participan los usuarios de bienes y servicios (Niskanen & McLaren, 2021), y es aquí donde la innovación propone nuevas alternativas hacia el uso de energías renovables (Naidoo et al, 2021), con el desarrollo de estrategias que promueven la disminución de emisiones de gases con efecto de invernadero (GEI) y a su vez disminuyan los daños ambientales (Serrano et al, 2021).…”