Land use, Sustainability, and Democratic Backsliding

2026-07-22

Land use and land systems, i.e. how human societies manage and interact with land through social-ecological systems, are at the core of sustainability issues. Democratic backsliding, i.e. the decline or degradation of the institutions and social norms that sustain democratic societies, is a widespread and impactful trend, with strong but understudied two-ways linkages with land use dynamics. In LUDEMO, we will make key contributions to understanding the linkages between these issues, with (i) explicit articulation and embedding of democratic backsliding concerns and knowledge within land system and sustainability science – moving beyond a focus of democratic backsliding research on social, economic and political aspects, and beyond a focus of sustainability science on policy rather than politics – ; (ii) spatial, quantitative causal analyses of linkages between multiple forms of democratic backsliding and land use changes and related environmental impacts – moving beyond mostly qualitative, political analyses – ; (iii) syntheses and theory building on these two-way interactions. We will investigate these issues through cross-country studies as well as the three focal cases of reactionary forces and agrarianism in Europe’s consolidated rural areas, extractive populism in Canada’s Northern frontiers, and agrarian authoritarianism in Mozambique’s smallholder landscapes.

Belgium

2025-10-01