The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty / Edition 1

by Robyn Eckersley

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262550567
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	03/05/2004
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 8.97(h) x 0.67(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robyn Eckersley is Reader/Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (MIT Press, 2004).

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
1	Introduction	1
1.1	Why the Green State?	1
1.2	Aims and Method: Critical Political Ecology	8
1.3	Working toward the Green State: A Provisional Starting Point	11
1.4	Three Core Challenges	13
2	The State and Global Anarchy	19
2.1	Environmental Realpolitiks and the Tragedy of the Commons	19
2.2	Neoliberalism, Environmental Regimes, and the Limits of Problem Solving	28
2.3	Critical Constructivism and Social Learning	33
2.3.1	Not One but Many "Cultures of Anarchy"	43
2.3.2	Toward Structural Transformation?	48
3	The State and Global Capitalism	53
3.1	The Decline of the State?	53
3.2	Eco-Marxism, the Welfare State, and Legitimation Crisis	54
3.3	From the Welfare State to the Competition State	65
3.4	Ecological Modernization: Just a New Competitive Strategy?	70
3.5	Globalization, Sustainability, and the State	79
4	The Limits of the Liberal Democratic State	85
4.1	The Liberal Democratic State: Not Reflexive Enough?	85
4.2	The Ecological Critique of the Administrative State	88
4.3	The Ecological Critique of Liberal Democracy	93
4.4	An Immanent Ecological Critique of Liberal Dogmas	104
5	From Liberal to Ecological Democracy	111
5.1	Ecological Democracy: An Ambit Claim	111
5.2	The Intuitive Green Appeal of Deliberative Democracy	115
5.3	Representing "Excluded Others": The Moral and Epistemological Challenges	119
5.4	Representing "Excluded Others": The Political and Institutional Challenges	127
6	The Greening of the Democratic State	139
6.1	From Ecological Democracy to the Green Democratic State	139
6.2	The State, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere	142
6.3	A Green Critique and Reconstruction of the Habermasian Democratic State	150
6.3.1	Realizing the Potential of the Public Sphere	153
6.3.2	From Pragmatic to Moral Deliberation (and Back Again)	164
7	Cosmopolitan Democracy versus the Transnational State	171
7.1	Principles of Democratic Governance: Belongingness versus Affectedness	171
7.2	Communitarian or Cosmopolitan Democracy	179
7.3	The Transnational State as a Facilitator of Ecological Citizenship	190
7.4	Unit-Driven Transformation and the Power of Example	198
8	Green Evolutions in Sovereignty	203
8.1	Green Evolutions in Sovereignty	203
8.2	New Developments in Global Environmental Law and Policy	211
8.2.1	Environmental Multilateralism: General Developments	211
8.2.2	State Responsibility for Environmental Harm	217
8.2.3	The Right to Develop: Economic versus Environmental Justice?	221
8.2.4	Ecological Security and New Norms of Intervention?	224
8.3	Ecological Harm, Nonintervention, and Ecologically Responsible Statehood	228
	Conclusion: Sovereignty and Democracy Working Together	241
	Notes	255
	Bibliography	297
	Index	317

What People are Saying About This

Andrew Dobson

A magnificent achievement which will be a key point of reference for years to come.

Andrew Linklater

In this compelling book Robyn Eckersley challenges much green pessimism about the state's capacity to contribute to ecological reform. She draws on an extensive literature in critical theory, political philosophy, international relations and the global environment to develop 'a cautiously optimistic assessment' of the prospects for 'ecologically responsible statehood.' The Green State is certain to alter the terms of the debate about the state and world politics. It will be the first port of call for analysts of the state and the global environment for years to come, but its influence will almost certainly extend beyond these confines to many other areas of contemporary social and political inquiry.

Endorsement

In this compelling book Robyn Eckersley challenges much green pessimism about the state's capacity to contribute to ecological reform. She draws on an extensive literature in critical theory, political philosophy, international relations and the global environment to develop 'a cautiously optimistic assessment' of the prospects for 'ecologically responsible statehood.' The Green State is certain to alter the terms of the debate about the state and world politics. It will be the first port of call for analysts of the state and the global environment for years to come, but its influence will almost certainly extend beyond these confines to many other areas of contemporary social and political inquiry.

—Andrew Linklater, Woodrow Wilson Professor, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

From the Publisher

Although the question of the state is unavoidable for green political theory, a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the state in a green context has until now been lacking. That gap is admirably filled by Robyn Eckersley's The Green State, which works through contending theories of the state, both in domestic and international contexts, to fashion a powerful and original argument. This is a major and important contribution.

—Douglas Torgerson, Department of Political Studies, Trent University

A magnificent achievement which will be a key point of reference for years to come.

—Andrew Dobson, Department of Government and Politics, Open University, UK

Eckersley's book will be a significant contribution for those in several subfields of politics—theory, comparative, international—for those concerned about green politics, and for those who work on theories of the state.

—Ronnie Lipschutz, Department of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

In this compelling book Robyn Eckersley challenges much green pessimism about the state's capacity to contribute to ecological reform. She draws on an extensive literature in critical theory, political philosophy, international relations and the global environment to develop 'a cautiously optimistic assessment' of the prospects for 'ecologically responsible statehood.' The Green State is certain to alter the terms of the debate about the state and world politics. It will be the first port of call for analysts of the state and the global environment for years to come, but its influence will almost certainly extend beyond these confines to many other areas of contemporary social and political inquiry.

—Andrew Linklater, Woodrow Wilson Professor, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Douglas Torgerson

Although the question of the state is unavoidable for green political theory, a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the state in a green context has until now been lacking. That gap is admirably filled by Robyn Eckersley's The Green State, which works through contending theories of the state, both in domestic and international contexts, to fashion a powerful and original argument. This is a major and important contribution.

Ronnie Lipschutz

Eckersley's book will be a significant contribution for those in several subfields of politics—theory, comparative, international—for those concerned about green politics, and for those who work on theories of the state.