Niklas Harring

Senior Lecturer

Department of Political Science

Telephone

+46 31-786 12 23

Mail

niklas.harring@pol.gu.se

Visiting address

Sprängkullsgatan 19

41123 Göteborg

Postal address

Box 711

40530 Göteborg

About Niklas Harring

Presentation

Niklas Harring is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science. He is also affiliated with the Quality of Government Institute, the Centre for Environmental Political Studies, and Environment for Development.

Areas of interest

Harring’s research focuses on the relationship between citizens and the state, particularly public acceptance of and resistance to state interventions such as climate policy instruments. Building on classical questions about the state’s role in addressing collective action problems, he studies how citizens perceive and legitimate different forms of state coercion.

His research spans several major societal challenges that can be understood as collective action problems, including environmental protection, climate mitigation, antimicrobial resistance, pandemic response, and emergency preparedness. The overarching theoretical interest concerns when and why state intervention is perceived as legitimate. His work contributes both to the development of political science theory and to the design of effective and legitimate policy in response to today’s pressing societal challenges.

Keywords: collective action problems, environmental politics, climate politics, policy instruments, political trust, social trust, values, corruption, environmental and climate opinion.

Current research

Harring is currently involved in several research projects on public acceptance of environmental and climate policy, including two funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet):

• Flooded Fortunes: How Property Ownership and Likelihood of Climate Events Shape Preferences on Climate Adaptation and Compensation

This project starts from the observation that climate change is increasing financial risks for private homeowners while insurance markets are increasingly unable to cover these costs. It examines public views on how climate-related costs should be distributed and provides new insights into how awareness of local climate risks shapes preferences for adaptation and compensation. The project is carried out together with Frida Boräng (Dept of Political Science, University of Gothenburg)

• Framing Collective Action: Media Influence on Public Support for Environmental and Health Policies

This project investigates how journalistic framing affects people’s perceptions of fairness, responsibility, and policy measures in collective action problems such as environmental protection and public health. Through media analyses, natural experiments, and framing experiments in Sweden, the project generates new knowledge about how media influence shapes policy attitudes. The project is carried out together with Adam Shehata (JMG, University of Gothenburg)

Harring also participates in a research project on crisis preparedness led by Magnus Bergquist (Dept of Psychology, University of Gothenburg) and funded by Formas:

• Household Emergency Preparedness: What drives people to (not) prepare for future societal and environmental crises?

The project examines why individuals choose to prepare, or not prepare, for emergencies. Against the backdrop of increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, floods, and wildfires, it studies the psychological barriers and motivations that shape household preparedness.

Together with Fredrik Hedenus (Chalmers University of Technology) and Simon Matti (Luleå University of Technology), Harring also leads the project The Importance of Physical and Socio-Political Factors for Wind Power Deployment, part of the Swedish Graduate School in Energy Systems and funded by the Swedish Energy Agency. The project analyzes how socio-political and institutional factors influence the expansion of renewable energy. The project team includes doctoral students Milla Marzelius, Emma Pakkala, and Carin Lundqvist.

Teaching and tutoring

Harring teaches courses in political science, European studies, the interdisciplinary SMIL program, and the teacher education program at the University of Gothenburg. He currently serves as course coordinator for European Environmental and Energy Politics, Environmental Politics in Theory and Practice, and The Conditions of Environmental Politics. He also teaches the master’s course Environment, Lifestyles, and Individuals at Stockholm University.

He supervises and examines bachelor’s and master’s theses, as well as doctoral students. He is currently principal supervisor for Milla Marzelius and Sofia Henriks and co-supervisor for Sofia Skiipor.

In addition, Harring is involved in the capacity-building program Inclusive Green Economy, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), which trains civil servants in five East African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) in environmental transition work.