Green Theory
Kutay AYTUĞ
providing green
energy
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Learning outcomes
After this lecture you should be able to:
Understand the concerns and contributions of
green theory
Appreciate the challenge this presents to
traditional IR theory
Recognise that there are internal tensions
regarding the role of the state
Appreciate the benefits of green IR theory in the
case study of climate change
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Great debates
• The history of IR has often been narrated in
terms of great debates, although this notion is
not unproblematic
• There are four key debates generally
recognised in the discipline:
Idealism vs. Realism – pre and post-WW I
Science vs. Traditionalism – 1960s
The Interparadigm debate – 1970s and 1980s
Fourth debate – late-1980s and 1990s. Present?
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Fourth debate
• Generally seen as the currently dominant debate
• This debate can be characterised in many ways:
as a debate
- between explaining and understanding
- between positivism and postpositivism
- between rationalism and reflectivism
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Rationalism vs. Reflectivism: The fourth ‘great
debate’
• The so-called rationalists and reflectivists
disagree on epistemological and
methodological terms of how best to gain
knowledge about world politics
Rationalism vs. Reflectivism
• Rationalists tend to be foundationalist and
positivist. They may marginalize
reflectivist, non-positivist approaches to
world politics
• However, students of the discipline need to
appreciate that there are many theories
outside of the mainstream approaches that
need to be reckoned with
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Green Theory
• Emerged in the social sciences and humanities
• Green scholarship has grown apace with:
o increasing global economic and ecological interdependence
o the emergence of uniquely global ecological problems such as:
• climate change
• the thinning of the ozone layer
• the erosion of the Earth’s biodiversity
• Main assumptions of Green Theory in
international Relations are challenging the
traditional understanding of
o state,
o security,
o development and so on
First Wave
1960s Criticised ‘side-effects’ of rapid economic growth
1970s Emergence of ‘limits to growth’ debate
1980s Emergence of green parties
1990s Challenge to liberalism and socialism
• Called into question human chauvinism
- the idea that humans are the only beings that
possess moral worth
• Embraced a new ‘ecocentric’ philosophy
- this seeks to respect all life-forms for their own
sake not merely for their instrumental value to
humans
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Second Wave
• More transnational and cosmopolitan
• Produced new global conceptualisations of:
- Environmental justice - Environmental rights - Environmental citizenship
- Environmental activism - Green states - Environmental democracy
Debates on relationship between capitalist
development and environmental protection:
Highlighted sustainable development paradox
Environmental protection through (albeit Generation of more aggregate
more environmentally efficient) growth environmental problems (albeit at a
slower rate)
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Green IR theory
• Seeks to promote global environmental justice:
- Reduce ecological risks across the board
- Prevent unfair extension and displacement onto innocent third
parties
• Articulates the concerns of those at the margins of IR
• Sought to transcend state-centric framework of IR
• Subdivisions:
IPE: Alternative analysis of Normative: Articulates new
global ecological problems to norms of environmental justice
that of regime theory and green democracy at all
levels of governance
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Green IR theory – challenges to mainstream
rationalist approaches
• Exposed the problematic environmental
assumptions and ethical values in neorealism and
neoliberalism
• Added to the critique of ‘positivist’ IR theories
based on rationalist regime theories
• Highlighted social agents and social structures that
have systematically blocked the negotiation of
more ecologically enlightened regimes
• Explored the role of non-state forms of
‘deterritorialised’ governance
• However internal disputes remain in terms of the
role of the state in a greener world
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Case Study – Climate Change
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) was signed at the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro
in 1992.
• Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries agreed to
reduce their aggregate levels of greenhouse gas emissions
below 1990 levels by an average of 5.2.
• Disputes between developing and developed countries are
regarded a major obstacle in the advances of
environmental policies.
• In light of such difficulties, most observers agree that the
upcoming Paris Agreement will most likely take the form of
‘soft law’ obligations and modest ambition.
• Yet, the international climate negotiations have been
accompanied by significant developments in climate policy
at the regional, national, and subnational levels.
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Case Study continued
• Neorealists and neoliberals fail to adequately
understand developments in negotiations.
• Green IR theorists give prominence to the role of
justice norms in their analysis
• Therefore, it uniquely contributes to IR theorizing
in that it offers alternative analyses of the
political problems and international negotiating
processes compared to mainstream rationalist
approaches and has generated alternative policy
proposals.
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Conclusions
• Introduced new green discourses
o environmental justice
o sustainable development
o reflexive modernisation
o ecological security
• Recast the roles of the state, economic actors
and citizens
• Offers new analytical and normative insights into
global environmental change
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