Abstract
If the neologism “climatization” enables analysis to underline the importance of the climate issue on public agendas, it should be remembered that it is above all a political process. The climatizaton of public policies must therefore be questioned as regards its interplay between actors, their interests, conflicts and cooperation engaged to either resist or change public policies. Moreover, it is necessary to normalize its study by drawing upon the proven tools of the sociology of public action rather than isolating the object using singular conceptualisations of the political. Indeed, until now, this neologism has often led research to develop normative approaches to climatized public policies. Although, in the abstract, the problem of climate change is indeed a “super wicked problem”, in practice, this special issue dedicated to “differentiated climatizations” analyses the political processes by which climate change has become a “normal” problem of public policy. Having first analysed the obstacles that have often faced actors seeking to tackle climate problem by summarising the existing research on this point, this introduction sets out the different concepts and theoretical approaches from the sociology of public action that contribute to shedding light on the processes of integration of new problematisations on the political agenda. Finally, in presenting the articles that make up this special issue, we show that they share three findings. Firstly, over the long term, no actor can ignore the climate variable, which has become a norm of public action. Secondly, climatization is neither homogeneous nor unidirectional. Indeed, this process is not necessarily followed up with by actual effects on the practices, resources and interests of actors. Finally, the contributions presented here show that, beyond political rhetoric, from the point of view of contemporary public action, climate change is only one issue among others. Consequently, the actors who promote it as a public problem still have to “struggle” to impose themselves upon others.