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KEY ISSUES Is there a distinct and coherent green ideology? What would a ‘green’ society look like? What are the distinguishing principles of green political theory? How have traditional political doctrines responded to the green challenge? Where does green politics lie on the left-right spectrum? Is ecologism a distinct and coherent ideology? Do the two core ideas underpinning the ecological imperative – the need to reassess human-nature relations (discussed in Chapter 2) and the existence of ecological limits to growth – supplemented by a set of principles drawn from other doctrines, justify talking about ecologism as an ideology in its own right? If so, can it accommodate the broad range of competing perspectives and discourses within contemporary green political thought? This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part examines the central themes of ecologism. It starts by assessing the significance of the ‘limits to growth’ thesis as a green principle. As all ideologies need a vision of the ‘good society’ different from our own, the next section outlines the main features that characterise the dominant model of a green sustainable society. The following sections assess whether the driving idea behind green politics – the ecological imperative that we need to save the planet – requires that a green polity be built on the core political principles that characterise most versions of a green society, namely grassroots democracy, decentralisation , social justice and non-violence. The second part of the chapter focuses on the way traditional political doctrines have responded to the environmental challenge.

Key issues ◗ What is the ‘new politics’? ◗ How can the emergence of green parties be explained? ◗ Who are the green voters? ◗ Why do people vote green? ◗ What factors explain variations in the electoral success of green parties? Green parties have become a familiar feature of the political landscape, particularly in Europe. The first green parties were formed in Tasmania and New Zealand in 1972, and the Swiss elected the first green to a national assembly in 1979. By the late 1990s, green parties were sufficiently established to have joined national coalition governments in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany and Italy, to have deputies in several other national parliaments, and to be represented in sub-national chambers in many countries. In 2004, thirty-four Green MEPs from eleven countries were elected to the European Parliament. Several individual Green politicians have held high office, notably Joschka Fischer as German Foreign Minister and Michele Schreyer as the first Green European Commissioner between 1999 and 2004. The Greens have clearly arrived, and their message seems to have sufficient coherence and resonance to exert an electoral appeal that transcends national borders. How do we account for the rise of green parties? Do they simply reflect a specific public concern about the state of the environment, or are they part of a general shift towards a postmaterialist ‘new politics’? To whom does the green message appeal? Why have green parties performed better in some countries than in others? Can green parties extend their appeal beyond a handful of rich industrialised nations?

KEY ISSUES What are the core characteristics of environmental problems? What theories and models explain environmental policy-making? Where does power lie in environmental policy-making? What are the structural and institutional barriers to policy change? Why does policy change? Policy-makers have been slow to recognise or acknowledge that environmental problems might require special treatment. When new environmental imperatives emerged during the 1960s, forcing policy-makers to confront the environment as a broad policy issue for the first time, all governments adopted a technocentric perspective which regarded environmental problems as the unfortunate side-effects of economic growth (see Box 3.8). It was assumed that most environmental problems had solutions and that there was no need to question the underlying commitment to economic growth or to the political-institutional structures of the modern liberal democratic state. The standard approach to environmental problems – here called the ‘traditional policy paradigm’ – was reactive, tactical, piecemeal and end-of-pipe. This traditional paradigm has been found wanting, unable to stem long-standing problems of pollution and resource depletion or to deal with the new tranche of global problems that have emerged in recent years. Consequently, during the 1980s the traditional paradigm was increasingly challenged by the alternative paradigm of sustainable development. However, despite the mounting environmental crisis and the rhetorical commitment of policy elites to sustainable development, many elements of the traditional model remain firmly entrenched, even in those countries that have pioneered progressive environmental policies (Andersen and Liefferink 1997a). Why has this traditional paradigm proved so resilient?

KEY ISSUES What is sustainable development? Why is it such a complex and contestable concept? What are its core principles? What is ecological modernisation? What are its strengths and weaknesses? The tension between economic growth and environmental protection lies at the heart of environmental politics. The concept of sustainable development is a direct attempt to resolve this dichotomy by sending the message that it is possible to have economic development whilst also protecting the environment. Not surprisingly, policy-makers the world over, told that they can have their cake and eat it, have seized on the idea. Almost every country is now committed, at least on paper, to the principles of sustainable development. Yet sustainable development is an ambiguous concept, with a meaning that is contested and complex. This elusiveness is both a strength and a weakness: it allows a multitude of political and economic interests to unite under one banner, while attracting the criticism that it is an empty slogan with little substance. Policy-makers have also found it difficult to turn this loose set of ideas into practical policies. Indeed, in those industrialised countries that boast the most progressive environmental policies, the narrower concept of ecological modernisation has acquired increasing resonance. Sustainable development and its half-sister, ecological modernisation, offer an alternative policy paradigm to the traditional model of environmental policy. The first part of this chapter examines the various meanings attributed to sustainable development and identifies five core principles underpinning most definitions of the concept.

Part I examines how political theorists think about environmental issues. Specifically, it asks the question: is there a sufficiently comprehensive, coherent and distinctive view of environmental issues to justify talking about a green political ideology which, following Dobson (2000), can be called ecologism? There has been a phenomenal growth in the literature on environmental philosophy and political thought in recent years. The distinction between reformist and radical approaches provides a useful shorthand means of categorising two quite different ways of thinking about environmental problems. Broadly speaking, reformist approaches adopt ‘a managerial approach to environmental problems, secure in the belief that they can be solved without fundamental changes in present values or patterns of production and consumption’ whereas radical positions (i.e. ecologism) argue that ‘a sustainable and fulfilling existence pre-supposes radical changes in our relationship with the non-human natural world, and in our mode of social and political life’ (Dobson 2000: 2). In short, reformist and radical approaches represent qualitatively different interpretations of environmental problems. Dobson also makes the bigger and bolder claim that ecologism should be regarded as a distinct political ideology. To cohere as an ideology, ecologism must have three basic features: (1) a common set of concepts and values providing a critique of the existing social and political systems; (2) a political prescription based on an alternative outline of how a society ought to look; (3) a programme for political action with strategies for getting from the existing society to the alternative outline.

Part II examines the question of green agency; or how do we get from here to there? Whether we are pursuing the radical green utopias envisaged by ecocentrics or a more moderate environmentally benign world, it is important to examine how we might achieve that sustainable society. One distinction to be made is that between collective action and individual lifestyle politics. The focus in Part II is on the main forms of collective action in environmental politics, namely green parties, the ‘greening’ of established parties and environmental groups, leaving the discussion of selected individual strategies, such as green consumerism, to Part III. A second distinction arises from the familiar reformist versus radical dilemma that underpins environmental politics. A broad strategic choice facing any political movement is whether to seek change through legislative institutions and the use of conventional forms of political activity or whether to adopt a more confrontational strategy that breaks the law and challenges the dominant rules and values of the political system. This tension lies at the heart of practical environmental politics: it underpins debates within green parties, colours their relationships with established parties and cuts across the environmental movement. It is also important to place the rise of environmental politics within broader debates in political science about the trend towards a ‘new politics’ in western industrialised societies. To understand the ‘new politics’, we need first to understand what is meant by the ‘old politics’ that the ‘new politics’ is supposedly replacing.

The discussion of environmental policy in Part III is in many respects a long way away from some of the abstract debates covered in Part I, or even the ambitious aspirations of some forms of environmental activism examined in Part II. It focuses on the practical challenges facing governments today. The interdependence of environmental issues poses a distinctive set of problems for policy-makers. Few other policy areas can match it for sheer complexity. Nor are failures in most other policy areas likely to be as catastrophic or irredeemable as those affecting the environment, especially if the more pessimistic harbingers of environmental doom are correct. The belief that economic growth must be given priority over environmental protection continues to govern the way many policy-makers approach environmental issues. This traditional policy paradigm has proved inadequate for resolving the intractable problems posed by contemporary environmental issues. Consequently, since the late 1980s, the alternative policy paradigm of sustainable development has gradually come to dominate thinking about environmental policy. The central premise of sustainable development is that there need not be a trade-off between economic growth and environment; no longer need policy-makers think in terms of the environment versus the economy. This message has made sustainable development politically appealing, with most governments, international institutions, political parties, business organisations and environmental NGOs now keen to proclaim their commitment to sustainable development. The broad aim of Part III is to examine the difficulties facing governments seeking to make the transition to sustainable development.

The continuous rise in the profile of the environment in politics reflects growing concern that we may be facing a large-scale ecological crisis. The new edition of this highly acclaimed textbook surveys the politics of the environment, providing a comprehensive and comparative introduction to its three components: ideas, activism and policy. Part I explores environmental philosophy and green political thought; Part II considers parties and environmental movements; and Part III analyses policy-making and environmental issues at international, national and local levels. This second edition has been thoroughly updated with new and revised discussions of many topics including the ecological state, ecological citizenship, ecological modernisation and the Greens in government and also includes an additional chapter on 'Globalisation, Trade and the Environment'. As well as considering a wide variety of examples from around the world, this textbook features a glossary, guides to further study, chapter summaries and critical questions throughout.

KEY ISSUES What are the main environmental policy instruments? What are the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory and market-based instruments? How do national regulatory styles differ? Why are there so few market-based instruments? What policy instruments can be used to prevent climate change? Chapter 10 assessed progress towards sustainable development by examining various ways in which governments have tried to build environmental considerations into the policy-making process. Another way of judging progress towards sustainable development is to examine the policy outputs that emerge from that process. A key element in the policy-making and implementation processes concerns the choice of policy instrument, or levers, by which a government tries to achieve its policy objectives. Policy instruments should be enforceable, effective and educative: they should change the behaviour of target groups, achieve the stated policy objectives and help spread environmental values throughout society. It is conventional to distinguish four broad types of policy instrument available for a government to use in pursuing its environmental objectives: regulation, voluntary action, government expenditure and market-based instruments (MBIs). Trends in the use of different policy instruments provide some clues about progress towards sustainable development and ecological modernisation. A distinguishing characteristic of the traditional environmental policy paradigm was its reliance on regulatory, or ‘command and control’, instruments. During the 1970s and 1980s, new environmental legislation created an extensive regulatory framework in most countries, but as many environmental problems continued to worsen despite this growing regulatory ‘burden’, the use of regulation was increasingly criticised, particularly by economists, industrialists and right-wing politicians.