The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty

by Robyn Eckersley

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 that of an ecological steward and facilitator of transboundary democracy rather than a selfish actor jealously protecting its territory.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Political Science, Research, Sustainability

348 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2004

About the author

Robyn Eckersley is a Professor of Political Science in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Reviews

[Dayton Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as exciting as her other book I read, and a bit dense, but the middle few chapters especially were insightful, engaging, and useful for my research. Some of the arguments toward the beginning, which made the case that the state is a capable institution to combat environmental problems, felt a bit dated and optimistic to current ears (not that she was all wrong, just I’m sure she’d write it differently 20 years later). The strongest stuff starts with chapter 4: she wants to build upon liberal democracy, with its emphasis on the rights of the atomistic individual, toward a green democracy that seeks to promote not only individual human rights but our interdependent ecological flourishing, respecting the interests of future generations, nonhumans and more. Such a green state feels far away, but she makes a good case for it.

[mkmk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eckersley claims that we can achieve a green future through the state. In other words, the author claims that we must not dissolve states but reform them in a way that serves the environment. I was very anti-establishment before but Eckersley has managed to pick my interest. I don't know if I'm convinced yet.

citations from the book:

By “green state” I do not simply mean a liberal democratic state that is managed by a green party government with a set of programmatic environmental goals, although one might anticipate that such a state is most likely to evolve from liberal or social democratic states. Rather, I mean a democratic state whose regulatory ideals and democratic procedures are informed by ecological democracy rather than liberal democracy. Such a state may be understood as a postliberal state insofar as it emerges from an immanent (ecological) critique, rather than from an outright rejection, of liberal democracy. (pg 2)

ECO-MARXIST CRITIQUE: As early as the 1970s, neo-Marxist theorists drew attention to the “fiscal crisis” of the welfare state stemming from the state’s contradictory imperatives to facilitate capital accumulation, on the one hand, and to iron out the harmful social and ecological consequences of capital accumulation by providing an expanding menu of protective welfare (and environmental) services, on the other hand. Now, in the new millennium, the growing intensity of economic regionalization and globalization is making it increasingly difficult for governments to solve a range of social and ecological problems within their territory and beyond. (pg 54)

PROBLEMS WITH 'ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION': […] the technical case for ecological modernization is primarily concerned with means (how to pursue greener growth) rather than with ultimate ends. As Christoff has argued, it is concerned with mere “technological adjustments” toward greater eco-efficiency at the level of the firm. This is essentially an economistic understanding that does not challenge existing institutions or dominant neoliberal economic policies. (pg 74)

POST-CAPITALIST ECONOMY: It is the character of the system (the mutual dependencies of the capitalist economy and the liberal capitalist state) that that set limits to the effectiveness of such state interventions. A deep and lasting resolution to ecological problems can therefore only be anticipated in a postcapitalist economy and postliberal democratic state. (pg 81)

GREEN CRITIQUE OF LIBERAL CAPITALISM: There is now an extensive and growing body of green political scholarship that argues that liberal democracy is not especially conducive to protecting long-range, public environmental interests (e.g., biodiversity and ecosystem integrity). This green critique also enlists and builds upon the longstanding critique of liberal democracy waged by social democrats, democratic socialists, and feminists to the effect that the class and gender inequalities generated by capitalism systematically undermine the conditions for the full enjoyment by all citizens of the political equality promised by the liberal democratic state. Thus the green critique adds further weight to the argument that the promise of liberal democracy is a false promise; while proclaiming to be universal, liberal democracy can be shown to be exclusionary in a variety of ways. (pg 87)

PRO-STATE ARGUMENT: Yet such an anti-statist posture cannot withstand critical scrutiny from a critical ecological perspective. The problem seems to be that while states have been associated with violence, insecurity, bureaucratic domination, injustice, and ecological degradation, there is no reason to assume that any alternatives we might imagine or develop will necessarily be free of, or less burdened by, such problems. As Hedley Bull warns, violence, insecurity, injustice, and ecological degradation pre-date the state system, and we cannot rule out the possibility that they are likely to survive the demise of the state system, regardless of what new political structures may arise.
→ Given the seriousness and urgency of many ecological problems (e.g., global warming), building on the state governance structures that already exist seems to be a more fruitful path to take than any attempt to move beyond or around states in the quest for environmental sustainability. Moreover, as a matter of principle, it can be argued that environmental benefits are public goods that ought best be managed by democratically organized public power, and not by private power. (pg 91)

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY: all those potentially affected by a risk should have some meaningful opportunity to participate or otherwise be represented in the making of the policies or decisions that generate the risk. (pg 111)

PUBLIC DELIBERATION: Public spirited political deliberation is the process by which we learn of our dependence on others (and the environment) and the process by which we learn to recognize and respect differently situated others (including nonhuman others and future generations). It is the activity through which citizens consciously create a common life and a common future together, including the ecosystem health and integrity that literally sustain us all. (pg 115)

ABOUT LIBERALISM: [...] the inability of the liberal democratic state to provide systematic environmental protection can be traced to the bourgeois origins of liberalism’s conception of autonomy and to a range of associated “liberal dogmas” that would not survive the critical scrutiny of a genuinely unconstrained and inclusive communication community in the contemporary, deeply interconnected world. Liberalism’s atomistic ontology of the self, its quest for mastery of the external world through the application of instrumental reason, and its corresponding denial of any noninstrumental dependency on the social and biological world have ultimately imperiled rather than enhanced human autonomy for many and environmental integrity for all. By sheltering these articles of faith from further critical questioning, liberalism has lost sight of the dependence of autonomy on critique and thwarted the realization of autonomy for a much wider constituency than is currently the case. (pg 242)

[Rianne Heartfilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am writing an essay about the idea of sovereignty for nonhumans. I picked up the book of Robyn Eckersley because she had a starting chapter of the Green Theory in my Uni book and she writes nicely, clear and I understood. I raced through this book because the essay deadline is the 14th of January already but it was no problem because I like her writing style and the way she explains things thoroughly and most of the time twice in different words so it is also easier to remember.

Especially chapter 5 and chapter 8 will be very helpful for my essay, I still have a few more things to read but I think The Green State is a great starter book for my research project all along.