Planetary Politics
The Planetary Politics initiative at the European University Institute is hosted at the STG’s Transnational Democracy Programme. The initiative advances interdisciplinary research, teaching, and policy engagement on how political authority, democratic legitimacy, and collective responsibility can be organised in an era defined by ecological interdependence, technological transformation, and global systemic risks. Building on the Institute’s strengths in transnational governance and democracy, comparative politics, law, and political economy, the initiative brings together scholars, practitioners, and institutional partners to examine how governance can operate simultaneously across local, national, transnational, and planetary scales. Rather than proposing a single institutional blueprint, the project positions planetary politics as an analytical and practical framework for understanding how political communities, public institutions, and global cooperation must evolve to address shared challenges that exceed the capacities of individual states.
Within this framework, several thematic streams contribute to its intellectual architecture. Together, they support the EUI’s broader effort to position Florence as a laboratory for political innovation linking European governance experience with emerging planetary challenges. Through research programmes, executive education, global policy dialogues, and partnerships with European and international organisations, the Florence Project on Planetary Politics seeks to strengthen the analytical tools, institutional capacities, and public conversations necessary for governing an increasingly interconnected world.
International Thinking and Planetary Futures - EUI-wide Research Cluster
The Planetary Politics initiative is part of the EUI Cluster on International Thinking and Planetary Futures, a cross-departmental platform for collaboration on long-term global governance questions. Its specific focus is on the ‘planetary’ as an emerging point of analytical and methodological orientation. While International law has, since its inception, tinkered with different categories to capture global governance beyond inter-state relations, from the notion of a ‘family of civilised nations,’ to the common heritage of humankind, this last category is now being genealogically linked to the rise of ecological perspective, and the planetary. In international economic law, the planetary is increasingly of interest as a means of rethinking multilateral solutions to global problems and opportunities.
Writing the Earth (with EUI Law and Tilburg University)
In 2025-26, the project has become part of a collaborative research agenda entitled “To Write the Earth” in cooperation with the EUI Law Department, Tilburg Law School, and Edinburgh University (Committee: Nikolas M. Rajkovic (Tilburg), Arnulf Lorca (EUI), Tim Lindgren (EUI), Kalypso Nicolaidis (EUI), Francisco J. Quintana (Edinburgh) & Sofia Ranchordas (Tilburg/LUISS), which investigates how legal reasoning, political imagination, and public narratives can help articulate new normative foundations for governing shared planetary resources and responsibilities. Cartography literally means “to write the earth.” If maps write rather than mirror the earth, they function as world-making texts that narrate space, distribute authority, and normalise particular orders under the guise of spatial precision. Modern international law and international relations are deeply shaped by this cartographic inheritance: sovereignty, territory, and jurisdiction rest on a vision of the earth as a continuous surface partitioned into polygonal units under human control. That this image appears natural is itself a political achievement. It is a way of writing the world that has come to stand in for the planet itself. The first “To Write the Earth” Workshop will take place 26-27 June 2026, EUI at STG premises. Abstracts here.
The Arrival of Planetary Politics, Lund University
The initiative is also involved with an ongoing project on “The Arrival of Planetary Politics”, coordinated by Professor Ian Manners (Lund University) in cooperation with David, Maxine; Guerrina, Roberta; Pace, Michelle; Wright, Katharine; Nicolaidis, Kalypso. See first publication: JCMS 20th Anniversary Symposium on “What does the Arrival of Planetary Politics tell us about normative power and the European Union?”, as well as Nicolaidis' contribution on the EU as a laboratory for Planetary Politics.
People, State and Planet Project
The initiative is one of the contributors to "People, State and Planet”, a project conducted in cooperation with the Berggruen Institute, New America, and the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford in which a number of the Florence STG faculty are involved (Professors Fabbe, Flockhart, Lempereur, Mair, Nicolaidis, Stone, Tassinari). It aims to re-orient how we teach world politics in an era of escalating transnational challenges and under ever-hardening transactional conditions. It explores the evolving relationship between democratic representation, state authority, and planetary stewardship across levels of governance. A second workshop was held at STG in January 2026.