The Green State
Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignt
Robyn Eckersley
The MIT Press
Cambridge Massachusetts
London, Englan
What would constitute a definitively "green" state? In this important new book, Robyn Eckersley explores what it might take to create a green democratic state as an alternative to the classical liberal democratic state, the indiscriminate growth-dependent welfare state, and the neoliberal market-focused state -- seeking, she writes, "to navigate between undisciplined political imagination and pessimistic resignation to the status quo." In recent years, most environmental scholars and environmentalists have characterized the sovereign state as ineffectual and have criticized nations for perpetuating ecological destruction. Going consciously against the grain of much current thinking, this book argues that the state is still the preeminent political institution for addressing environmental problems. States remain the gatekeepers of the global order, and greening the state is a necessary step, Eckersley argues, toward greening domestic and international policy and law.
The Green State seeks to connect the moral and practical concerns of the environmental movement with contemporary theories about the state, democracy, and justice. Eckersley's proposed "critical political ecology" expands the boundaries of the moral community to include the natural environment in which the human community is embedded. This is the first book to make the vision of a "good" green state explicit, to explore the obstacles to its achievement, and to suggest practical constitutional and multilateral arrangements that could help transform the liberal democratic state into a postliberal green democratic state. Rethinking the state in light of the principles of ecological democracy ultimately casts it in a new role: that of an ecological steward and facilitator of transboundary democracy rather than a selfish actor jealously protecting its territory.
Preface
This book reflects my attempt to reach beyond the horizons of existing environmental governance, using the current institutions of governance as the point of departure. I have long been inspired by critical theory, and in this project I have sought to enlist, and provide a distinctly green inflection to, critical theory’s method of immanent critique.
In placing the state at the center of the analysis, my argument is in some respects unashamedly revisionist given the current shift of academic political focus toward governance without government and the antistatist posture of many radical environmentalists. However, as green parties come in from the periphery and tilt toward the center of political power (e.g., there are encouraging signs in New Zealand and Australia that greens are on the rise), it seems timely to ask how the state might be rescued or perhaps reinvented as a site of democratic public power. Despite the huge transformations wrought by globalization, states still remain gatekeepers of the global order, which seems to me all the more reason to develop a fresh, practical vision of the “good state.” In this book I explore what it might take to produce a distinctly green democratic state as an alternative to the classical liberal state, the indiscriminate growth dependent welfare state, and the increasingly ascendant neoliberal competition state. This task also entails asking what kind of state or states might facilitate both more active and effective ecological citizenship and more enlightened environmental governance, both domestically and globally. At a minimum a good state would uphold the rule of law and the separation of powers, be free of corruption, and uphold those civil and political rights that are essential to the practice of ecological citizenship. But what else should a green state be? What other purposes and roles should it embody and perform? Those few political scientists who addressed this question in the aftermath of the limitsto-growth debate in the early 1970s came up with an eco-authoritarian state. Yet the idea of the state presiding over strict resource and energy rationing, and wide-ranging strictures on consumption, production, population, and technology, seemed anathema to everyone, including many environmentalists. What, then, might a green democratic alternative look like and to what extent, if any, would it differ from the liberal democratic state in terms of its role, rationale, and functions? And what are the prospects of green democratic states emerging in the current, rather inhospitable, global context? In tackling these and related questions, I have drawn on a wide range of disciplines and subdisciplines in the humanities and social sciences, ranging from political theory and sociology to international relations and global political economy, including their budding green offshoots .
This book was written over the past seven years during a transition in my own research focus from the cozy and secluded fold of green political theory to the much more sprawling and complex field of global politics. In making this transition, I am indebted to many colleagues and friends who, by their shining example rather than deliberate effort on their part, drew me into a range of challenging and stimulating intellectual debates that bear upon the future of environmental governance. I wish to single out, in particular, Chris Reus-Smit and Paul James. Chris I heartily thank for introducing me to the constructivist dimension of critical theory, and for his enthusiasm and wholehearted support in my academic journey. Paul I likewise thank for prompting me to think about the “nation” side of the “nation-state” equation, and for his general encouragement in my writing projects. And thanks to both Chris and Paul for serving as critical sounding boards and readers during the production of this manuscript.
Stephanie Trigg, Paul James, and Joel Trigg deserve very special mention as part of our extended family, sharing many meals and much childcare. John Dryzek always lent an ear, provided critical feedback when solicited, was an excellent climbing partner and even better beer brewer. And I thank Rob Watts for managing such incisive comments on top of his very hectic schedule.
I am grateful to the Reshaping Australian Institutions Project at the Australian National University, which enabled me to enjoy a period of research leave in 1996 as a visiting scholar, during which I lay most of the groundwork for this project. I am also indebted to Monash University for three successive Australian Research Council small grants in 1998 through 2000, which gave me the opportunity to continue research on this project. I thank my former colleagues and postgraduates in the Politics Department at Monash University for their friendship and wit over the past decade. I am particularly grateful to Gerry Nagtzaam for his very helpful research assistance over the years and for being such an excellent book scout and Nicole Boldt for library work and help with the bibliography. My academic and administrative colleagues in the Department of Political Science at Melbourne University have provided a friendly and supportive welcome.
It has been a pleasure to work with Clay Morgan at The MIT Press, just as it was when he saw me through Environmentalism and Political Theory when he worked for SUNY Press. I am especially grateful to the three anonymous reviewers who offered constructive and perceptive feedback on the manuscript.
Finally, and closer to home, I thank Peter Christoff, my central and most critical of critics on scholarly matters, my nearest and dearest on all other matters, and someone who understands even better than I the trials of completing large projects.
Full Text:
Or
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق