Green Political Thought : Introduction

Professor Andrew Dobson

‘Climate change. Deforestation. Acid Rain. Species loss. Ozone depletion. Pesticide poisoning. Genetically modified food. These are the issues that invigorated political life in the late twentieth century and will continue to do so in the twenty-first. This is an extraordinary circumstance and it has happened extraordinarily quickly. Even thirty years ago, the development of a political movement around these issues would have been unimaginable.’
Green Political Thought 2007:1

Well the task we all agree is urgent. Getting to a green world is going to be difficult it involves cultural, economic and political change. Power is not in one place where it can be captured. Globalisation has shifted it from the national state to some extent.

The old Green Party strategy of elect a green government in 2046 which then saves us is simply too naïve. Electoral politics is not the only show in town, direct action, use of culture/education, even a measure of lifestyle change helps.

For the electoral the Green Party needs to win at Westminister but without pr, outside of a few seats this is going to be very challenging. PR does make it easier to win at an EU level and lets face it the EU drives much legislation. The Greater London Assembly is already an example, two Green Party members, have a strong influence and can get eco action into Ken’s budgets.

How we win demand and get change is the big question. We need to think hard but act. So lets move on as promised to Andrew Dobson’s Green Political Thought..incidentally he is an active member of the Green Party of England and Wales, you can read his party bio here.

Incidentally he has written a good article for open democracy on how to help to get change on climate change, well referenced drawing upon strong social research he puts many members to shame. No quick fix answers here.

Green Political Thought Introduction
Well he notes that there is a whole academic industry looking at green politics from studies of green parties in power, environmental sociology, international relations and the environment…I might add eco theology or ecocriticism in literature (would love personally to look at the Green Shakespeare title published a year or two back).

One thought that comes to my mind is how Andy’s book produces a bridge between this literature (well may be not Green Bill and the mousetrap) and green activists, it’s a very good way into identifying some literature that is relevant. For example, do I ever meet green party members who have looked at the books which examine Green Parties in ‘power’, how they won seats (leaders necessary?), where they succeeded and where they failed?

Environmental sociology sounds esoteric but it explains how and why individuals accept or reject the green message, something Andy covers in the open democracy article, as well.

This title is a good start: Hannigan, J. A. (1995). Environmental sociology: A social constructionist perspective. London: Routledge Press.

Andy doesn’t get very stuck into social movement theory, which is one mild criticism I have of the book, at its best the American-European fusion, provides a very nuts and bolts approach to where movements succeed and fail.
He does name check my social movement book and indeed was my phd examiner for the thesis it was based on Wall, Derek (1999). Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements. Routledge,
Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Collective Action, Social Movements and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1994 is a classic text and there is a way in via the wiki oracle here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_movement.

I am not familiar with the international relations and ecology literature.

By now you are getting one of the central ideas of the Dobson book, which is that environmental problems created by humanity are the produce of human society, so sociology, politics, etc must be understood to solve them.

Right lets move on Dobson argues that ecologism/green politics is an ideology just like liberalism, socialism or conserativism
‘my principal objective […] is […] to describe and assess that set of ideas regarding the environment which can be properly regarded as an ideology’ p.2

Dobson argues that environmentalism is different from green political thought. Green political thought ‘holds that a sustainable and fulfilling existence presupposes radical changes in our relationship with the non-human natural world, and in our mode of social and political life’ p.3

‘so government minister do not suddenly become political ecologists by trading in their limousines for hybrid (electric/petrol) cars’. P. 3

It brings to my mind the statement from Jonathon Porritt and his co-writer in ‘The Coming of the Greens’ The most radical [green aim] seeks nothing less than a non-violent revolution to overthrow our whole polluting, plundering and materialistic industrial
society and, in its place, to create a new economic and social order which will
allow human beings to live in harmony with the planet’ which Andy refers to later.

Porritt although still a Green Party member cannot be really said to adhere to this now.. charasmatic Green Party figures burn brightly and then work for the status quo.

Green Parties and even Porritt tend to start green in this sense and fade a little with office, this is the big question, how to remain green and become effective.

Dobson argues because green political though is subversive of the common sense of society and prevailing institutions it is interesting and important….politicians generally are more interested in lunch than radical social change.

The argument is that without radical social change, changing our lifestyles and the way we think we will not have a world.

Dobson debates the very many meanings of ideology and looks at the contribution of light green as well as more ideological green politics.

(Green politics is the war against sleep, to my mind, so when I see greens giving out the aspirins or saying how easy our project is, I get a little tetchy).

Ideology is a loaded word, may be it is not so much we have an ideology as an ideology has us (see Althusser) but while being more than sophisticated enough to acknowledge this Andrew Dobson uses an active approach, for his functions taking the following definition from Donald and Hall who define ideology as ‘the concepts, categories, images and ideas by menas of which people make sense of their social and political world, form projects, come to a certain consciousness of their place in the world and act in it’

Ideology is not a dirt word here, you know how it goes I have common sense, she is just being ideologically…in fact I could quote Jim Killock rallying against ideology at many a Green Party Executive meeting.

Next chapter after the intro when I can!

Hall, S. & Donald, J. (1986) Politics and Ideology: a reader. Milton Keynes: Open University Press by the way….

Here is a bit more from his open democracy essay where he think green not just environmentalism:

The problem is that the "can market capitalism be reformed?" question shows little sign of being debated in wider media discussions of climate change: technology, lifestyles and green taxes crowd it out. Even when it does make a cautious entrance on to the political stage, the liberal-capitalist culture gives it short shrift. Leave it to the market! Leave it to consumers! Mobilise self-interest!

So far, so ideological. But is this good social science? Recent work suggests that it isn't, and that there is a much deeper reservoir of social, political and economic possibilities available to us than the technology, lifestyles and green-tax mantras would have us believe. This research work suggests that now is the time to rescue the habits and practices of pro-social behaviour: behaviour that aims at the common good rather than the maximisation of individual self-interest. This is a tender plant that has been battered mercilessly over the past thirty years of market liberalism, but it is still there, and it is extremely important to the climate-change debate. The tragedy is that the very solutions that the governments of some of the countries most responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions could almost be designed to extinguish the remaining remnants of pro-sociality.

Incidentally here are a list of Jonathon Porritt's flights
JP Flights: July 2006-June 2007 from here.

UK
Aberdeen x3
Belfast x4
Edinburgh x2

Europe
Oslo x1
Amsterdam x2
Zurich x1
Crete x2
Malaga x1
Berlin x1

International
Hong Kong / Beijing x1
Houston x1
Vancouver x1
Cape Town x1


Incidentally here are a list of Derek Wall's flights: July 2006-June 2007
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
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UK
none

Europe
none

International
none.

to give his slightly soiled establishment due, he has been annoying the NFU with his discussion of veganism.