The New Trilemma of Advanced Capitalism: Democracy, Growth, or Effective Climate Action? (with Aidan Regan, Hanna Schwander and Tim Vlandas). 

Agenda Publishing, forthcoming.  

This book contends that governments in advanced capitalist democracies now face a hard trade-off: liberal democracy, economic growth, and effective climate action are increasingly incompatible. At most, only two can be pursued simultaneously. This book introduces a bold new framework—the trilemma—to explain why democratic governments are failing to address the climate crisis with the urgency it demands. It reveals how democratic institutions, growth-driven economies, and short-term electoral incentives structurally obstruct the scale of decarbonisation required to prevent ecological collapse. Through an analysis of state capacity, political backlash, and distributive conflicts, the book issues a stark warning: unless a broad working- and middle-class coalition for climate action can be built within the next decade, liberal democracies may face rising authoritarianism, ecological breakdown, and economic turmoil. This is the defining political crisis of our time.