Green Politics

This paper offers a critical analysis and extension of dominant policy approaches on the transition to a low carbon economy, suggesting the need to embed that research within a much more political, politicised framework of socio-energy green transformation.

It suggests that as a central element socio-energy transformation is a clear recognition of the often ‘dirty politics’ involved in any transition from ‘dirty energy’. Energy transformations are political struggles, not simply technological, market-driven policy decisions. It also contends that they are characterised by biophysical/ecological, cultural, political economy and ethical considerations and choices. It argues that political contestation, struggle and antagonism are central to understanding and analysing, as well as effecting low carbon socio-energy transformations. In this the paper argues one cannot neatly separate the analytical from the normative. All seemingly descriptive analyses of energy transitions are also prescriptive, and always already political and ethical. 

The paper concludes with the suggestion that the key to energy transformation struggles we contend are strategies to actively delegitimise them (including such recent campaigns as the divestment one) as well as reframe ‘fossil fuels’ as ‘fossil resources’ with multiple, better uses than burning them for energy.

Keywords: energy transformation, socio-energy system, politicisation, political struggle, the good life.

The Green Party should be able to outline the contours of the future ecological society and map the path leading in its direction. This means translating principles, evidence and institutional and technical capacity into programmes and policies. In addition to initiatives at the political level, there is the importance of direct experience in mobilising action at the social level. The invisibility or intangibility of a problem is a serious issue. People are motivated and will act when they can see a connection between inputs and outputs, tangible results for practical efforts. The problem is that if people do not seen or feel a problem directly, it is difficult to persuade them that a response is necessary. This points to the need to innovate practices, institutions and policy frameworks which could help create the mentalities and modalities in which people are moved to change their lives. The abstruse issue and long range goal needs to be given a practical, tangible focus, brought into the here and now as an ecological and a cognitive praxis.

The question of political solutions to the environmental crisis is not a matter of formulating the right policy in line with existing political institutions, but of establishing new rules – a new regulatory regime or framework based on new principles for the direction and social use of production, new habits. A new mode of regulation which is built on new hopes and new projects.

This report argues that policy must be based on a number of key principles - policy must be effective, evidence based, experiential, efficient, and equitable.

Les marées noires font partie des catastrophes industrielles les plus spectaculaires et aux conséquences environnementales et économiques les plus visibles et directes. Au travers de trois marées noires majeures qui ont touché la Bretagne – celles du Torrey Canyon (1967), de l’Amoco Cadiz (1978) et de l’Erika (1999) – est souligné ici que, outre la pollution qu’elles génèrent, elles provoquent aussi des traumatismes et des conséquences normatives importantes. Elles jouent dès lors un rôle crucial dans l’histoire de l’écologie.

In this annotated bibliography towards the development of environmental politics, looking at issues of justice, Iris Young's Responsibility for Justice, argues that we should think about personal responsibility in relation to social justice. Whereas, Michael Sandel's  Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, discusses what makes a just and moral society in today's free-market. On economics, Ernest Schumacher's Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered gives an alternative view to economics which feature in today's free-market. Whereas, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism address how in today's free-market, disaster capitalism has destroyed peoples lives for the benefit for others. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger looks at whether health and social problems in some developed countries are related to income inequality. Michael Maniates' Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World, argues that by individualising responsibility on issues of environmentalism, this has restricted peoples “environmental imagination”.

Wall – a radical in my view in his integration of scholarship and Green political and movement activism in the UK – has written a book for other radicals – here I would humbly include myself in this category give my own academic-activist profile – a 'rule book for radicals' based on the ideas of a less than radical thinker (and non-activist) Elinor Ostrom. But then she, and neither Derek nor myself, have a Noble Prize in economics… and in many respects there is no contradiction in drawing radical implications and strategies from someone who themselves is not so inclined. This is the conundrum Wall covers in this admirably short, well-written and sharply observed book. As he puts it, his task is to " make her work accessible and to show those on the left, especially the ecosocialist left, can make productive use of her diverse and provocative thinking " (13).

The UTG Journal is the journal of the United Tasmania Group, the world’s first Green party. The UTG Journal Issue No. 2 covers the following topics: 1. Editorial: Dick Jones (founder of the United Tasmania Group) – with comments on Dick Jone’s legacy and how it is still relevant today 2. All political parties are responsible for our protected areas 3. Preventing child abuse and neglect 4. Hugh Dell: author of A New Ethic 5. Youth Justice: a Justice Reinvestment approach.

The intellectual debate between green political economy and neo-classical economics is one that lies partly within the framework of the academic production of knowledge, but is also a debate that goes far beyond the academy. This is also an ideological battle, only part of which occurs within the academy. Neo-classical economics supports a particular view of the economy and society, one which, with a few exceptions, is supportive of a capitalist organization of the economy, private ownership of the means of production, and production for profit; justifies an unequal distribution of income and wealth; promotes free trade, deregulation, and economic globalization; and above all is committed to promoting orthodox economic growth. By orthodox 'economic growth” is meant “undifferentiated, monetary/GDP measurements of economic growth as a permanent feature of the economy” (Barry 2012). In short, neo-classical economics supports the prevailing capitalist status quo, yet does not make this explicit, and therefore underpins actually
existing unsustainability: neo-classical economics sustains the unsustainable.

The primary goal of this volume has been to address two central questions: (1) Is the concept of party family applicable and relevant for the study of Green parties in Europe? and, (2) if it is, how can we characterise the Green parties family today? The concept of party family has been used as overarching analytical framework to allow for a multi-dimensional approach of Green parties. Indeed, the existing comparative exercises tend to focus on one specific dimension of Green party politics: their emergence (Müller) or relation to power (Müller-Rommel and Poguntke, 2002). This volume's ambition was to combine these dimensions, using the concept of party family as analytical framework. To examine these issues, this volume has brought together a group of prominent country experts as well as comparativists. The volume is organised in two distinct parts, one dedicated to case studies and the other to comparative perspectives. The case studies cover 14 Western European democracies and 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) democracies, as well as the European level. 1 The comparative chapters cover an additional 5 countries, 2 which brings the geographical scope to a total of 30 countries. In terms of parties, the volume mentions no less than 71 movements or parties and provides longer developments and analyses on 37 of them. This strategy has allowed for an analysis of Green parties through various angles and dimensions. More specifically, four dimensions have been systematically looked at: (1) the origins and the development of Green parties, including their life-cycle patterns, electoral developments and relationship to power; (2) the sociological composition of their electorates; (3) their ideological and program-matic positions and (4) their organisational structures. In this conclusion, we bring together the most important findings from the various chapters in an attempt to provide an answer to our overarching questions. The structure of the conclusion mirrors that which was adopted in the book.

This chapter demonstrates why green theory and green politics has become crucial for International Relations discipline, especially for critical theorists. The first section provides the historical background of green political thought and then shows the main principles and concepts of Green Politics. The second section concentrates on the theoretical extent of Green Theory as an International Relations Theory. The third section introduces the main assumptions of Green Theorists by referring to their enlightening works in the field. Relatively “new” themes like green state, green security, and green economy are explained. In the final section, main criticisms of the Green Theory are mentioned.

Cet article s’interroge sur les liens entre mouvement social et construction d’une identité culturelle et de l’image d’une région. Pour ce faire, il s’intéresse aux luttes écologistes qui ont marqué la Bretagne et ses habitants au cours des années soixante-dix. Il s’avère que, dès le début, la prise de conscience écologiste a pris un très fort caractère passionnel, que ce soit par rapport au remembrement, à la protection des rivières ou du littoral, aux marées noires. Mais ce sont les luttes antinucléaires, surtout à Plogoff, qui ont eu le caractère structurant le plus fort. Par leur ampleur elles ont mobilisé toute une région à la fin de la décennie. Ces luttes écologistes ont contenu aussi une forte remise en cause de la société qui a aboutit à la naissance d’un paradigme écologiste, autour de valeurs qualitatives et d’une interrogation sur le “progrès”. Or ce mouvement écologiste prend naissance, en Bretagne, dans un contexte de fort renouveau culturel, dont les acteurs participent massivement aux luttes écologistes, dont la dynamique catalyse le mouvement, lui donnant, presque naturellement, une dimension régionale. L’article essaie de souligner à quel point la forte conscience identitaire bretonne a contribué au succès des luttes écologistes en Bretagne. En contrepartie, ces dernières renforcent cette conscience identitaire, tout en transformant l’image de la Bretagne, contribuant à l’idée, nouvelle, d’une Bretagne dynamique, voire protestataire, revendiquant une culture progressiste et où il fait bon vivre.
This article focuses on the links between social movements and the construction of a cultural identity and the image of a region. In order to do that, it concentrates on the ecological struggles that have marked Brittany and its inhabitants in the seventies. It appears that, from the beginning, the waking up to the ecologist awareness has had a very passionate nature, through the struggles against the regrouping of lands, as well as through those to protect the rivers, the littoral, or against the oil slicks. However, the antinuclear struggles, especially against the project of Plogoff, are those that have had the most structuring effects. Because of their scale, they have mobilized a whole region at the end of the decade. Those ecological struggles have also strongly questioned the society, which has had for effect to create the ecological paradigm. The ecological movement raises, in Brittany, in the context of a strong cultural revival, whom the actors took massively part in the ecological struggles, whom the dynamics catalyses the movement, giving to it, almost naturally, a regional dimension. The article suggests that the strong Breton consciousness has contributed to the success of the ecological struggles in Brittany. On the other hand, it appears that those struggles strengthen the regional consciousness, while changing the image of Brittany, contributing to the idea of a dynamic, and even protester, Brittany, with a progressive culture; a region where life is pleasant.

Ecotopia is a quasi-ethnographic novel influenced by anthropology. Some of its fictional practices have been adopted in the actual world since publication in 1975. Set two decades after Green secessionists achieve national independence for the U.S. Northwest, an American journalist-fieldworker describes Ecotopians’ strange new ecological customs. Author Callenbach constructively criticized and influenced his un- sustainable culture by comparing it to an invented alternative. The case illustrates that a dialectic between cultural fact and fiction drives innovation.

Forthcoming in ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES
In this paper I present an analysis of those aspects of Karl Polanyi’s social and political thought that relate to environmentalism today. I discuss whether or not he prefigured the degrowth movement, before focusing on his understanding of the New Deal. At time of writing, the prospect appears likely of a return, at the global scale, of economic slump, mass unemployment, and ecological crisis, the background conditions to which, on the national scale, Roosevelt’s New Deal was responding. The paper concludes by drawing lessons for possible Green New Deals.
NB. This version is a final draft, not (quite) the definitive version.
KEYWORDS: Karl Polanyi, New Deal, Green New Deal, degrowth, embeddedness

Written version of remarks presented at Une Journée Karl Löwith, a workshop held at the Centre canadien d'études allemandes et européennes on May 9th, 2019, marking the publication of Karl Löwith, Essais américains (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2019), edited by Martine Béland.

The 20th Century revolved politically around competing interpretations of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and Fascism. These are all ways to organize the lives of people on a large scale. Are real alternatives or new interpretations likely to emerge in the challenging years ahead? What might they look like?

An examination of the 'classless' 'non-political' politics of the class that dare not speak its name; the techno-bureaucratic class of would-be planetary managers as the globalisation of Hegel's state bureaucracy as the 'universal class.' This class claims an independence of capital and labour but, in truth, derives its power and resources from both in seeking to impose a false universalism.

"Written in an engaging and accessible manner by one of the leading scholars in his field, Environment and Social Theory, completed revised and updated with two new chapters, is an indispensable guide to the way in which the environment and social theory relate to one another.

This popular text outlines the complex interlinking of the environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to contemporary social theorizing. John Barry:


examines the ways major religions such as Judaeo-Christianity have and continue to conceptualize the environment

analyzes the way the non-human environment features in Western thinking from Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Horkheimer

explores the relationship between gender and the environment, postmodernism and risk society schools of thought, and the contemporary ideology of orthodox economic thinking in social theorising about the environment.
How humans value, use and think about the environment, is an increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory. It has become clear that the present generation is faced with a series of unique environmental dilemmas, largely unprecedented in human history.

With summary points, illustrative examples, glossary and further reading sections this invaluable resource will benefit anyone with an interest in environmentalism, politics, sociology, geography, development studies and environmental and ecological economics.

"

In the mid-1990s, elements of the social justice movement joined growthists and religious conservatives in a veritable Greek chorus of opposition to the problematisation of population growth. This unlikely alliance was highly successful in mainstreaming population denialism as well as turning overpopulation into a taboo subject, especially in the West. In the quarter-century since, natural scientists, environmentalists, demographers, journalists and policy-makers have systematically avoided problematising population growth, with grave consequences to public awareness and debate as well as to interdisciplinary experts' ability to properly diagnose the causes of and most effective remedies for climate change and a plethora of other creeping catastrophes. In this chapter I trace the ideological roots of population denialism and the taboo to age-old growthist ideation in combination with the shaming discourse and idealised expectations of human behaviour from late-18 th-century utopian thought. The problem of overpopulation has become vastly worse over the last 200 years or so, but the rhetorical strategies for dismissing and shutting down discussion on the issue have hardly changed.

Although it is commonly held to constitute the dominant cleavage within green politics, the convention of dividing green politics into 'shallow' and 'deep' aspects is problematic. Exclusive reliance on it to map out green political theory can lead to a one-dimensional and incomplete ...

A l’instar des formations politiques européennes, les partis politiques français sont confrontés à plusieurs défis et soumis à nombre de tensions à l’aube de ce XXIe siècle, alors même que leur attractivité n’a jamais semblé aussi faible.

Longtemps dominée par un agencement autour du Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) et de l’Union pour la démocratie française (UDF) à droite, et du parti socialiste (PS) et du parti communiste français (PCF) à gauche, le système de partis a lui-même considérablement évolué sous l’effet de la recomposition de la droite parlementaire, de l’effondrement du parti communiste ou de la percée de nouveaux venus, tels le Front national ou Les Verts.

Après la séquence des élections présidentielles et législatives de 2012, cet ouvrage analyse en profondeur l’état de chacun des partis actifs dans le système politique. Comment chacun d’entre eux se positionne-t-il au regard des transformations du fait partisan ? Comment les partis interprètent-ils les mutations auxquelles ils font face ? Comment agissent-ils face à la désaffection qu’ils subissent ? Quelles évolutions idéologiques et organisationnelles connaissent-ils ?

Ces questions sont examinées dans ce livre de référence. Les auteurs présentent un tableau d’ensemble original, offrant de manière systématique une analyse des partis à l’œuvre dans le système politique français ; laquelle est complétée par une réflexion sur les grandes transformations de la géographie électorale.

In this book I shall develop the urban regional thought of Lewis Mumford in terms of a civic environmentalism concerned with the achievement of a public life fitted to the contours of an ecological civilization. I shall examine Mumford’s conception of ecological regionalism, democratic planning and the regional garden city as giving us both the ideal of a decentralized, balanced and humanly-scaled eco-public, and the means to achieve it. I shall show how Mumford sought to reconstruct public community aesthetically, politically and ecologically, integrating the urban and rural environments in the process. Defining Mumford’s view in terms of civic environmentalism, I connect the task of ecological restoration and preservation to a reinvigorated public life constituted by a democratic pluralism and civic mindedness. I will argue that the writings of Lewis Mumford on the garden city and regional planning suggest a conception of Ecopolis sustained by a vision of civic environmentalism. I will show how Mumford developed a planning intervention that not only countered the destructive consequences of over-urbanization but served also strengthen the civic capacity of the community and infuse political culture with an active democratic content. Mumford’s ecological regionalism  combines planning, design and a biocentric understanding of natural processes within a politically grounded and civic-minded environmentalism. His work expresses a commitment to restore the health of democratic public life in the process of tackling the problems of urban life. I will therefore develop Mumford’s idea of regional planning and ecological regionalism in terms of a political or civic concern with environmentalism, in the process lifting the question of the human relation to nature out of academic confines and locating it in the public realm. In fine. Mumford envisions an Ecopolis constituted and sustained by a civic environmentalism.

Ecologism or green political theory is the most recent of schools of political thinking.  On the one hand, it focuses on issues that are extremely old in politics and philosophical inquiry – such as the relationship between the human and nonhuman worlds, the moral status of animals, what is the ‘good life’, and the ethical and political regulation of technological innovation.  Yet on the other, it is also characterised as dealing with some specifically contemporary issues such as the economic and political implications of climate change, peak oil, overconsumption, resource competition and conflicts, and rising levels of global and national inequalities.  It is also an extremely broad school of political thought covering a wide variety of concerns, contains a number of distinct sub-schools of green thought (here sharing a similarity with other political ideologies) and combines normative and empirical scientific elements in a unique manner making it distinctive from other political ideologies. 

First a word about definitions.  There are a number of terms used to describe green political theory ranging from ‘ecologism’, to ‘environmentalism’ or ecological political theory or environmental political theory (Barry and Dobson, 2003).  This chapter uses the term ‘green political theory’ on the grounds that both ecological and environmental labels, while certainly conveying one of the key distinguishing features of green political theorising – namely its focus on both the material/metabolic dimensions of human-nonhuman relations as well as the ethical and political status of the nonhuman world – can offer a rather narrow understanding of green politics.  What I mean by this is that ecologism, or environmental political theory, as a way of categorising green politics is too focused on these issues of nature and human-nature relations and does not, at least in my view, allow sufficient scope for the ‘non-ecological’ and ‘non-nature related’ principles of green politics This is particularly the case in respect of understanding and appreciating the specifically intra-human dimensions of green political theory.

There is a common distinction often made in the literature between ‘environmentalism’ and ‘ecologism’ (Dobson, 2007), with environmentalism denoting a form of ‘single issue’ green politics solely concerned with, for instance, pollution and resource management, and ecologism denoting a fully fledged political ideology with views on non-resource and non-environmental concerns.  In this respect what is offered here is closer to ecologism than environmentalism, but nevertheless uses green political theory as the appropriate term since even ecologism conveys a definite sense (at least on first sight) that green politics is largely or exclusively concerned with the non-human world and human-nonhuman relations.  Thus while it may seem to be simply a pedantic issue, this chapter uses ‘green political theory’ instead of ‘ecologism’ as a more appropriate, inclusive categorisation of green politics, which fully acknowledges the uniqueness of its focus on nature while also stressing its radical approach to the organisation of human social, economic and political relations, consistent, but not exclusively tied to or derived from its focus on the metabolism between humans and nature.

Percy Shelley proposed a solution to mankind’s problems, to the diseases of unnaturalness; he proposed that man should adopt the natural diet in order to walk into a “paradise of peace” as depicted at the end of Queen Mab. The diet was based upon the principles of vegetarianism, of ethics and the rights of animals; however, the diet also had far reaching political implications. This dissertation explores how Shelley’s early discourse on diet was also a rejection of man’s systems, of his hierarchy, politics and of his religious establishments.  Shelley argued for social equality and a sustainable approach to the environment, ultimately recognising man’s ecological responsibility; thus, I claim Shelley as an early representor of green politics. By applying the ideas of contemporary ecocriticism to Shelley’s Queen Mab and its associated prose, these themes are highly thematic within his work and arguments for vegetarianism: he advocates a more sustainable approach to agriculture, one that would reduce the environmental impact of man’s diet. The discourse on the natural world that Shelley provides is a romantic utopian vision on how he thinks man should live his life; central to it, and unifying the rest, is vegetarianism: it makes man natural once more.

CONTENTS: Editorial (1) Analyses of the impacts of UTG – Pete Hay & Geoff Holloway - in two parts; (2) The Values Party (New Zealand) & UTG (Tasmania): a comparative analysis of the world’s first two ‘Green’ parties – Geoff Holloway; (3) Lake Pedder: Prince Philip’s visit to Tasmania (1973) - Geoff Holloway, Geoff Mosley & Charles Donnelly; (4) UTG’s Richmond Fair (1974) – Geoff Holloway & Bob Graham; (5) The Story of a Sticker (South West Tasmania World Heritage sticker) – Geoff Holloway; (6) You don’t know what you have lost until it is gone: the forest giants of kunanyi/Mt Wellington – Kevin Kiernan; (7) A New Ethic

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF WORLD’S FIRST GREEN PARTY, UNITED TASMANIA GROUP (UTG) POLICY COMPILATION, 1972 - 2020. This publication is principally a compilation of UTG’s policies from 1972 to 2020 as part of the celebrations of the 50th year of the world’s first ‘Green’ party (the term ‘Green’ had not been invented back then and, when it was it became a term of abuse, especially in Tasmania). UTG is the political party that invented green politics, with major impacts not only in Tasmania but the rest of Australia and globally. UTG’s policies are reproduced here with historical accuracy, i.e., no content editing and no grammar corrections.
It is sometimes said that the Tasmanian Greens evolved out of UTG.  However, that is not entirely accurate, if not misleading, for four main reasons.  First, very few UTG members went on to participate in the Green Independents (1989), who later became the Tasmanian Greens. The second reason is that UTG’s philosophy is based on ecocentrism - by contrast, the Greens are anthropocentric.  The third reason is that UTG’s policies are very different from those of the present Greens – as is demonstrated across its extensive policies reproduced here. The fourth reason is UTG’s foundational document called ‘A New Ethic’, which is a set of ethical principles, something much lacking in today’s politics. Errata: Page 3, UTG State Conference was in 1975 (not 1976); page 5, the last UTG election campaign was 1977 (not 1997).

More and more hotels nowadays have embedded green practices in their supply chain management, either due to environmental government regulations or pressure from stakeholder groups. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the views of hotel staff in order to determine whether they are implementing green supply chain management strategies, which practices they apply and what their advantages are. In the quantitative survey, a questionnaire was distributed to 62 hotels in Northern Greece. The results showed that most hotels have put in place strategies for green management of the supply chain that are being properly implemented, especially low energy light bulbs, with the administration emphasizing the benefits of green supply chain management. These practices are mainly driven by lobbying and are related to customer satisfaction and demand. However, the adoption of green logistics management practices is not very much related to corporate social responsibility.

The concept of “ecological democracy” has recently been the subject of an important French-language book by the political philosophers, Dominique Bourg and Kerry Whiteside. Bourg and Whiteside’s key argument is that representative democracy is the key obstacle currently preventing democracies from becoming ecological, in which case ecological democracy can only come about via various meta-representative paths, such as participative democracy or constitutional reform. In this paper, I draw on both historical and theoretical considerations to argue that Bourg and Whiteside do not adequately distinguish representative democracy from liberal democracy, and that it is in fact the latter that is currently preventing Western democracies from becoming ecological. This argument in turn opens the possibility that the transition to ecological democracy will also require change at the representative level of party politics and, more specifically, the emergence of a new political spectrum based on the three overlapping circles of sustainable development: economy, society, and ecology. Within this new framework, the party-political landscape will be dominated by three major parties: a centre-right party defending economic liberalism, a centre-left party defending social cohesion via the reduction of inequalities, and a new party, which I propose to call the “Ecological Democrats”, defending ecological interests and taking a centrist stance with respect to the traditional left-right political spectrum.