Introduction to Political Theory

Lecture – 28

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Politics & Environmental ethics – I: Intro;
T Edoom & gloom;
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democracy and environmental crisis

Dr. Mithilesh Kumar Jha

Dept. of HSS, IIT Guwahati
Intro
 Environmental crisis and global climate change pose serious challenges to political theory. It has become a recognizable part
of the political landscapes in many countries. In conventional political theory, the notion of nature and the relationship
between men and nature are thoroughly discussed such as in the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau. In their writings, state
of nature was seen as something that needs to be overcome in order to establish the rule of law and to do that natural law or
the principles of natural justice were seen as guides. What comes out is an understanding that nature is something that needs
to be tamed and without mixing human labor nature is like ‘waste’ or ‘without value’.

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 The idea that nature might be vulnerable to humanity would have seemed strange to most thinkers in this tradition. It is to
the credit of George Perkins Marsh, who in his book Man L II and Nature (1864) argued about the the potential of humans
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profoundly affecting environment. In the post industrial society, there were the growth of romantic environmentalism and
idea of ‘going back to nature’ was widely discussed. In the contemporary discourse on environmentalism, Rachel Carson’s
Silent Spring (1962) proved to be a turning point. And since then there have been phenomenal growth of environmental
movements, formations of green parties, concerns for ecology, environmental laws in many countries.
 Environmental crisis also pose serious challenges to communities and modern democracies. The magnitude of the crisis is
such that it requires revisiting some of the core values and preferences of modern lives and politics. It puts enormous
pressure on democratic political institutions to alter the ways in which we consume; think of development and growth and so
on. Environmental ethics focus upon individual convictions, consciousness, and actions towards non-human world and
environment protection as a whole. It was believed that these new set of values would lead to the creation of a new new set
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of social and political order.
 There are arguments that most of environmental problems are result of anthropocentrism. It refers to the fact that our moral and
political systems are human-centered which result in present day’s environmental crisis. Although, there are many versions of
anthropocentrism – from weak to strong, they all give preference to humans over non-humans. Ecological modernization is seen as a
response to environmental challenges. It basically argued that ‘as countries modernize economically, politically and socially,
environmental challenges are internalized into the prevailing systems of governance and production’. Thus modernization is seen as
ultimate solution to environmental problems.
 However, many scholars are skeptical about the anti-democratic tendencies lurking behind the idea of ecological modernism and
therefore they argue for a new kind of politics and democratic institutions which would be more sensitive to environmental issues.

I TG we will discuss later in the lecture.

They also argue for environmental citizenship and green virtue which
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Gloom and doom
 Academic writings on environmental challenges seriously began to come out in late 1960s and and early 1970s. These writings were
full of doom and gloom. Paul Ehrlich in his book The Population Bomb (1968) argued that hundreds of millions of people would die
of starvation due to overpopulation. A group of researchers at MIT argued in The Limits of Growth (1972) that humanity would soon
exhaust the resource base of the planet. Garret Hardin in Tragedy of the Commons argued how ‘individual benefits from acts that
pollute, degrade the land, change the climate, and stress fisheries, but the costs are spread over the entire population. Each of us act
in our immediate self-interest, but, together, we produce outcomes that are worse for all of us’. According to Harding there are two
possible solutions to counter this. One is to appeal to conscience and second is coercion. However, he rejects the idea of appeal to
conscience on several grounds and argued that only possible alternative to tackle environmental problems is ‘mutual coercion,
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mutually agreed upon’.
Green utopianism
 Some theorists in the 1970s began to argue that environmental problems require a new system of political
organizations that are based on new set of values. They argued that solving the environmental challenges require
newer and fresh approach such as ‘deep green version of anarchism’. Still, many others argued that this
challenge of climate change can be tackled within the existing political organizations and set of values. These
discussions turned into greater urgency when Green Party in Germany entered federal parliament in 1983. There,
the political discourse on climate change and environmental crisis was divided between ‘realos’ (realists) and
‘fundis’ (fundamentalists). Former wanted the power within G the existing political structure while the latter
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challenged the existing political system. They dominated IT the discourse and popularized the slogan – ‘neither left
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nor right but ahead’. They were committed to NPfour pillars of - Ecology; Social responsibility; Democracy; and,
non-violence.

 Since then, environmental laws in Germany and many other countries of the world developed rapidly. Germany
is seen as the most strict country in terms of implementing environment protection laws. Since 1991, it functions
on the principle of ‘polluter pays’ requiring manufacturers or retailers to take responsibility for recycling or
disposing of the products that they sell or produce. It has also led to a number of green utopian thinking and
theorizations of state, politics, democracy, and citizenship.
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Environmental crisis
 Climate change is a long term problem. Global warming, resource depletion, depletion of ozone layers,
localized pollution, decline in the species are some of the major characteristics of contemporary environmental
crisis. The climate change that is underway is to a great extent caused by emission of greenhouse gases,
particularly carbon dioxide. While, to some extent everyone has contributed in it the role of advance industrial
society are far more greater. It is a global problem beyond the purview of a single society or nation. It can only
be addressed collectively as the behavior of one country may affect the efforts of another countries in mitigating
climate change. Climate change has both local and global dimension. And tackling it requires efforts from both
local as well as at global level.
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TEthat the effects of climate change are probabilistic rather than
 The main challenge in curbing climate changePis
N of people who are apprehensive about whole climate change
deterministic. And therefore, there are a number
discourse. In fact there are some who actually deny the theory of climate change.
 Climate change can cause floods or drought, heat waves or colds snaps. It can also have some indirect impacts
such as in causing wars or famines, and also refugee flows. Thus, often its impacts are invisible. However, its
effects are felt across the globe both locally and internationally. And there are various efforts and campaigns
launched to confront it. And that put enormous stress on democratic structures and institutions to respond to it in
positive and effective manners.

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Democratic Responses
 Environmental crisis and climate change pose a serious challenges to the democratic system as it exist today.
Politics which is understood as ‘who gets what, when, where, and how’ and is based on interest groups may not
address the problem of global climate change adequately. One of the reason for that is many who will be most
affected by it do not participate in the reigning political systems. They are non-human natural world, future
generations, citizens of other countries, and even the disenfranchised and alienated citizens of one’s own country
 Political campaigns in most of the modern democracies have become more of a ‘branding’ which is less likely to
promote civilized and rational debates on any issues of
I T Gpublic interest. It basically tries to hit the deep rooted
L I serious rational debates on issues of national and global
emotions of citizens and thereby it hardly allow Eany
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political interests such as climate change. N
 It is often argued that a deliberative democracy which is guided by reason and free speech and citizens are
driven by certain core values may help people become more concerned about climate change and global
warming. This is one kind of response to climate change or environmental challenges. However, some theorists
have argued that instead of deliberative democracy we should focus more on changing our conception of
citizenship. Instead of a thin notion of citizenship that is about – paying taxes, obeying laws, defending the
nation, and voting, they argue about a thick notion of citizenship which would govern a much broader set of
relationships. So the notion of environmental citizenship would make people aware about and responsive to
climate change. It would include the welfare of people across the national boundaries, future generations,
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 So the idea is to have environmentally responsible citizen, who would engage deliberatively in a democratic
society in such a way that would contribute meaningfully to confront challenges like climate change. In order
to have an environmentally responsible citizens, some of the following ‘green virtue’ need to be inculcated. a.)
To develop a love of nature and living lightly on earth. b.) Self restraint and moderation will help people
minimize their consumption or over-consumption. They should develop the value of living simply and
moderately so that others may also live simply and moderately. c.) Mindfulness is anti-dote to some of the ill of
modern capitalist societies. A mindful person shall be conscious of the consequences of his/her actions and
behavior which may be remote in time and space. S/he will
G not thoughtlessly emit climate changing gases.
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 Now, if we bring these three democratic responsesL – deliberative democracy, environmental citizenship, and
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green virtue together, we get a fair idea of what kind of society is required to confront the global climate
change. However, it also require some kind of modifications of many of our social, political, cultural values
and preferences. Whether liberal democracy in its present forms with many of its premises are helpful in
creating such society? What would be the model of development? Should it also include ‘sustainability’
keeping in mind the demands and needs of the future generation? What is justice? Is it just about distribution of
economic resources or should it also include the notion of environmental justice? Should it always be
anthropocentric i.e. always giving preference to human over non-human? These are some of the questions
which require deeper and critical engagements by the individuals, communities, state, market and global
institutions. Some of these concerns, we will discuss in the next lecture.
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Reference

1. Goodin Robert E. (1992) Green Political Theory, Polity Press.

2. Dryzek, John S., Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (eds.) (2006). The Oxford Handbook of
Political Theory, New York: Oxford University Press.
3. Catriona McKinnon, Issues in Political Theory, Oxford University Press, 2012.
4. John Hoffman and Paul Graham (eds.), Introduction to Political Theory, New York: Routledge,
2015. I T G
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