Welcome Jesper Svensson - Mistra BIOPATH post-doc
Since 1 March, Jesper Svensson is a Mistra BIOPATH post-doc at the Department of Political Science, Lund university. He has a PhD from the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University, and his research will seek to shed light on the conditions under which market-based strategies promote or hinder biodiversity conservation.
“Markets have a dual role as (external) pressure and (endogenous) institutional response to resource scarcity or to address pollution and conservation objectives. In my thesis, I tried to explain why different types of water markets have developed in China as conflict-resolution mechanisms to address water scarcity”, explains Jesper Svensson.
In Mistra BIOPATH, Jesper Svensson will research the financial market as an external impact on common pool resources (biodiversity) and cooperative institutions in Sweden. This will be done in two ways - one is by compiling a systematic literature review on the status and trends of governance research on biodiversity integration and the financial market.
“With this knowledge, we hope to be able to identify leverage and decision points in the financial system that we in turn can bring up with relevant actors to thus steer the system in a different direction”., says Jesper Svensson and continues:
“In parallel, I am conducting an actor analysis on how the financial system in Sweden affects land use and management in the agriculture, forestry, and energy sectors. The study aims to understand: Which institutional and actor-configurations, and policy processes affect biodiversity in Sweden?”
What are the challenges and upsides of your research?
One difficult challenge, according to Jesper Svensson, is to simplify without compromising too much on the complexity of the research. For example, the agriculture, forestry, and energy sectors may not be isolated from each other but have a mutual impact.
Another challenge relates to the possibilities and limitations of changing a system. In short, realising how little one knows. Both Edmund Burke (1729-1797) and Karl Popper (1902-1994) understood the complexity of society and the limitations of human reason. Both stressed the importance of implementing reforms carefully and gradually, evaluating each step taken and monitoring its consequences.
“Unfortunately, in Sweden we have several examples where this reform strategy has been violated. The wave of large-scale privatisation after 1985 is such an example. Another one concerns the risks of the massive investments now being made to produce green steel in northern Sweden”, says Jesper Svensson.
He sees a big plus that the research in Mistra BIOPATH includes working together with private and state actors and he emphasises how lucky he is to have such good supervisors to work with.
Studying the relationship between financial markets and biodiversity is in line with the global analysis of human-nature relations made by Professor Danny Dorling. Jesper Svensson describes how he, in his book 'Slowdown', has shown that humans have reached the end of the great acceleration but not the end of history. He illustrates how fertility rates, GDP per capita growth and the rate of technological innovation have slowed down as well as the rate of change in species extinction.
Research profile: Jesper Svensson — Lund University
Jesper Svensson is a political scientist with a PhD from the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University (2016-2022). His primary research interests are twofold: (1) how market-based instruments can help manage public natural resources such as water markets in response to urbanization and sustainable development challenges; and (2) the global impacts of China's transformation in science, technology and environmental policy.