Eco-Social Policy and the Risk of Concept Stretching

In the context of international processes of addressing climate change where we are increasingly seeing negative social impacts of climate policy, the concept of the ‘eco-social' has been seen as critical as it both addresses social and environmental goals. However, it suffers from concept stretching as discussed by Sartori. First, environmental politics, across different waves and ideologies, has incorporated both social and environmental benefits into proposed policies and practices, making all such policies effectively “eco-social” based on the consensus definition. Furthermore, as political domains are increasingly expected to address the environmental question due to the rising salience of climate change, social policies were increasingly asked to incorporate environmental and climate considerations. To address the problem of concept stretching, we turn to Sartori's ladder of abstraction (1970) and present two solutions: intension increase and rung descension. This chapter argues that the latter is the best way to avoid concept stretching for eco-social policy.