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Granting rights to nature has become increasingly common in disparate parts of the world: from the rights of nature (RoN) provisions written into the Ecuadorian Constitution to the legal entity status granted to Te Urewera in Aotearoa/New Zealand and, for example, the rights recently accorded to Mar Menor in Spain. They have been promoted not only by specialized networks such as the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) but also by judges and, for instance, religious leaders like Pope Francis. As RoN are becoming a “go-to tool of emancipatory politics” (p. 14), Understanding the Rights of Nature provides a welcome reflection on the fundamental questions “what the rights of nature mean” and “how and why they are used” (p. 15).

This chapter analyses the participation and contribution of the EU to international environmental negotiations. It gives an overview of the EU’s status as a partner in these negotiations and as a party to multilateral environmental agreements. In order to grasp how the EU acts as a negotiator at the international level, it is important to understand the internal division of legal competences, the external representation arrangements and the internal coordination process in the EU. This chapter also reviews the role of the EU in international environmental negotiations, the impact that the EU can have on their outcomes and the future challenges confronting the EU as it seeks to exert greater international leadership. It concludes that the EU’s impact on the outcome of global environmental politics is still rather limited. In order to increase its impact, several important challenges will have to be confronted, not least the increasing political contestation of the multilateral system.

In the contemporary ‘culture wars’, battle lines are frequently drawn in the areas of gender, sexuality and environmental politics. At the same time, progressive politics is conflated with commitments to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual and/or ally (LGBTQIA+) issues and ethical consideration of the natural environment. It is within this context that this chapter discusses the inter-relationship between LGBTQIA+ politics and the environmental movement. While one might assume that these two apparently progressive positions would be inevitably complementary – that there would be a crossover of activists and their beliefs – this chapter begins by demonstrating the tensions between LGBTQIA+ and environmental/ecological politics. The latter have firmly committed to a valorisation of nature and the natural (as well as being partial to invoking normative gender ideals), while the former have problematised concepts of naturalness that have historically marginalised non-normative and non-conforming sexualities and gender identities. The second part of the chapter explores examples of where environmentalism/ecologism and LGBTQIA+ politics have merged, through the academic lens of queer ecology and the practical collaborations between green organisations. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates the radical potential of an authentically LGBTQIA+ inclusive ecological/environmental politics.

This chapter focuses on public-policy analyses through the lens of agenda-setting. Approaches in this tradition assume that no objective fact is a problem in itself and that any problem needs to be constructed. Problems are necessary preconditions to policy change, but decision-makers’ attention is limited and the competition for attention is fierce. Kingdon has proposed the most useful framework to think about the conditions for reaching the political agenda: feasibility, acceptability in the policy community, costs, public support and receptivity among decisionmakers. Baumgartner and Jones’ research program has developed an influential coding system to classify attention by topics. This has allowed for the study of agenda-setting dynamics. They have shown that policy change tends to be characterized by Punctuated Equilibria: most policies are stable most of the time and when they finally change, they will tend to change radically. This program has been extended to more than 20 countries within the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), providing a unique opportunity to compare agenda-setting dynamics across various institutional settings and situations. To illustrate the possibilities of CAP data, this chapter studies in detail the role of media and lawmaking in France, the UK and the US. We compare, in particular, environmental issues and issues related to police and justice. In line with classical media studies, we look at the extent to which the media may influence agenda-setting and lawmaking. The analysis shows that the relation between media and lawmaking in the area of environmental politics present no clear pattern. They feature attention peaks at different times, while following no clear trend. Police and justice present higher average levels of attention in the three countries, but – again – do not present univocal patterns. While attention has increased in France and the UK, the correlations with the lawmaking agenda are at best temporary. Overall, our quick analysis confirms that the driving forces of media and lawmaking diverge and that their relation, where it exists, is conditional on other factors that we do not observe here. This type of agenda-setting perspective provides the possibility to look at system-level dynamics and to understand the interaction between different topics. This chapter has illustrated some of the possibilities of this type of data that has allowed a renewal of the study of agenda-setting.

Critical political economy approaches to the study and practice of global environmental politics take a range of different forms, but often have as their starting point a set of questions about who governs and how, what is to be governed and on whose behalf. Less concerned with governance per se, other critical political economy approaches from ecological Marxism questioned the premise of ecological modernization and other liberal approaches such as liberal environmentalism, which argued that capitalist growth could be compatible with responding to the ecological crisis. They suggested instead that a second contradiction of capitalism was its tendency to destroy its own ability to reproduce the ecological conditions necessary for its own survival. Academics then sought to develop theoretical approaches to explain the way in which challenges to capitalism were muted and managed by powerful actors and interests to protect the prevailing economic order.

This chapter offers a genealogy of sustainability as, at various times, a parallel, divergent, and intersecting concept to environmental justice. Specifically, the chapter summarizes the intellectual history of the sustainability concept, emerging from sustainable development discourse in the 1980s. Although sustainable development and environmental justice concepts developed contemporaneously, they diverged ideologically, specifically around the role of the market. Early conceptions of sustainability/sustainable development and environmental justice appeared to share little common ground. This early conception implies that sustainability and environmental justice are at odds with one another, specifically around whether or how market fundamentalism and developmental ideologies predominate. However, through refinements such as just sustainabilities and, more recently, critical and situated sustainabilities, synergies between sustainability and environmental justice have re-emerged. This intellectual history demonstrates why and how sustainability and environmental justice are co-constitutive with one another. This overlapping is not automatic. Tracing a convergence narrative is important, as sustainability grows in symbolic and material terms. The terms of their reconnection are grounds for synergies around a justice-oriented environmental politics.

Until the end of the 1960s environmental degradation in the formerly socialist countries was of a pattern very similar to that in the rest of the industrialized world. As in the West, the environment was thought of as a free good; natural resources were drastically underpriced, and their consumption was generously encouraged. Environmental awareness among high-level officials did accomplish some preservation of natural sites. Official socialist environmental ideology combined sharp criticism of market economies' environmental failures with deep secrecy or falsified statements about the situation at home. During the socialist regime public participation in environmental activities was channeled only through controlled institutions such as the National Committee for Protection of Nature and through professional associations of environmental scientists and naturalists. The Environmental Protection Act specified that the new ministry would be the country's primary institution charged with environmental protection and with conservation and rehabilitation of water, air, soil, and other such regulated resources.

The 2nd edition of Global Politics: A New Introduction continues to provide a completely original way of teaching and learning about world politics. The book engages directly with the issues in global politics that students are most interested in, helping them to understand the key questions and theories and also to develop a critical and inquiring perspective. Completely revised and updated throughout, the 2nd edition also offers additional chapters on key issues such as environmental politics, nationalism, the internet, democratization, colonialism, the financial crisis, political violence and human rights. Global Politics: •Examines the most significant issues in global politics – from war, peacebuilding, terrorism, security, violence, nationalism and authority to poverty, development, postcolonialism, human rights, gender, inequality, ethnicity and what we can do to change the world •Offers chapters written to a common structure which is ideal for teaching and learning and features a key question, an illustrative example, general responses and broader issues •Integrates theory and practice throughout the text, by presenting theoretical ideas and concepts in conjunction with a global range of historical and contemporary case studies Drawing on theoretical perspectives from a broad range of disciplines including international relations, political theory, postcolonial studies, sociology, geography, peace studies and development this innovative textbook is essential reading for all students of global politics and international relations.

This chapter explores the dynamic terrain of mass media and environmental politics. Through time, mass media coverage has proven to be a key contributor-among a number of factors-that has shaped and affected ongoing interactions within environmental politics. Mass media representations frame environmental issues for policy, politics and the public, and draw attention to salient actors negotiating the spaces of environmental politics. Following on from this work, Burgess put forward a foundational and conceptual work regarding the production and consumption of environmental meaning via the media, and commented on the emerging need to examine aspects of the intersections between mass media, science, environmental politics and public citizens. The chapter focuses on movements in environmental politics in the public sphere, there is a rich literature that addresses facets of individual understanding and engagement with media and an environmental issues. Interactions between media and environmental politics are complex, dynamic and messy.

Since the 2008 financial crash the expansion of neoliberalism has had an enormous impact on nature-society relations around the world. In response, various environmental movements have emerged opposing the neoliberal restructuring of environmental policies using arguments that often bridge traditional divisions between the environmental and labour agendas. The Right to Nature explores the differing experiences of a number of environmental-social movements and struggles from the point of view of both activists and academics. This collection attempts to both document the social-ecological impacts of neoliberal attempts to exploit non-human nature in the post-crisis context and to analyse the opposition of emerging environmental movements and their demands for a radically different production of nature based on social needs and environmental justice. It also provides a necessary space for the exchange of ideas and experiences between academics and activists and aims to motivate further academic-activist collaborations around alternative and counter-hegemonic re-thinking of environmental politics. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and activists interested in environmental policy, environmental justice, social and environmental movements.

The political dynamics of the global economy are central to determining both responses to specific environmental challenges, and the possibility of pursuing sustainability more broadly. The chapter elaborates the central debates about environmental politics when one views it from the focus on the global political economy and the debates within the academic field of IPE. The political dynamics of the global economy are central to determining both responses to specific environmental challenges, and the possibility of pursuing sustainability more broadly. A second key question in the IPE of the environment concerns the relationships between states on the one hand and private firms on the other. The key problematic here is the power of business to shape and constrain the pursuit of sustainability. People from this perspective tend to suggest that the ‘corporate greening’ discussed above is little but ‘greenwash’, since the underlying dynamics of the system within which corporations operate drive continuing ecological degradation.

1. Introduction Chukwumerije Okereke 2. Globalization: The Environment and Development Debate J. Timmons Roberts 3. The State, International Relations and the Environment Hugh Dyer 4. International Political Economy and the Environment Matthew Paterson 5. International Organizations and the Global Environment Hannes R. Stephan and Fariborz Zelli 6. Environmental Movements Brian Doherty 7. Mass Media and Environmental Politics Maxwell T. Boykoff 8. The Politics of Climate Change Tim Rayner and Chukwumerije Okereke 9. The Ethical Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Chukwumerije Okereke.

The notion of ‘silence’ in Politics and International Relations has come to imply the absence of voice in political life and, as such, tends to be scholastically prescribed as the antithesis of political power and political agency. However, from Emma Gonzales’s three minutes of silence as part of her address at the March for Our Lives, to Trump’s attempts to silence the investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, along with the continuing revelations articulated by silence-breakers of sexual harassment, it is apparent that there are multiple meanings and functions of political silence – all of which intersect at the nexus of power and agency. Dingli and Cooke present a complex constellation of engagements that challenge the conceptual limitations of established approaches to silence by engaging with diverse, cross-disciplinary analytical perspectives on silence and its political implications in the realms of: environmental politics, diplomacy, digital privacy, radical politics, the politics of piety, commemoration, international organization and international law, among others. Contributors to this edited collection chart their approaches to the relationship between silence, power and agency, thus positing silence as a productive modality of agency. While this collection promotes intellectual and interdisciplinary synergy around critical thinking and research regarding the intersections of silence, power and agency, it is written for scholars in politics, international relations theory, international political theory, critical theory and everything in between.

From industrial pollution to deforestation, Brazil has the environmental problems of both wealthy industrialized countries and poorer agrarian economies. As a result, a comparatively large number of problems challenge its environmental institutions. This chapter focuses on two critical areas of Brazilian environmental politics. One is environmental impact assessment, the process of trying prospectively to assess and reduce the environmental harms of economic activity. The second is the intersection of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, energy choices, and deforestation. These are three of Brazil’s most important environmental challenges, with significant links among them.

Introduction: the origins and evolving nature of ecological modernisation Stephen C. Young 1. Ecotaxes on the Belgian agenda, 1992-95 and beyond: environment and economy at the heart of the power struggle Benoit Rihoux 2. The role of the green movement in ecological modernisation: a British perspective Peter Rawcliffe 3. A 'sustainable' impact on the EU? An analysis of the making of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme Annica Kronsell 4. Ecological modernisation capacity: finding patterns in the mosaic of case studies Mikael Skou Andersen 5. Structural change and environmental policy Martin Janicke, Harald Monch and Manfred Binder 6. Patterns and correlates of environmental politics in the Western democracies Detlef Jahn 7. Sustainable development in the UK Neil Carter and Philip Lowe 8. Paradise postponed: an assessment of ten years of governmental participation by the German Green Party Charles Lees 9. Ecological modernisation, ecological modernities Peter Christoff 10. Disciplining the market, calling in the state: the politics of economy - environment integration Robyn Eckersley

This chapter begins with the assumption that political organisations are stable institutions which contain biases to benefit certain issues and actors in society. The European Union’s Fifth Environmental Action Programme was finally adopted by the Council in February of 1993. The programme is entitled Toward Sustainability and will guide the European Union’s environmental legislation into the next century. Since the Fifth Environmental Action Programme was heavily influenced by the Dutch National Environmental Plan it was also natural that the key participants in the networks which developed were Dutch. The temporal sorting model was developed as a theory about decision-making. Agenda setting is a matter of making a decision about which issues are important. The chapter considers the political climate in which the streams flow. Since social movements are dispersed in society they do not have the same type of political impact as organised political forces.

This chapter offers a historical and analytical overview of international environmental justice. It focuses on international relations scholarship there are also important contributors to the development and debates about IEJ from other disciplines such as economics, sociology, philosophy, and geography. The chapter describes that the notion of justice is an important and applicable concept in global environmental politics. It refers to a distinctive body of thought and set of perspectives which originated in and spread from Europe from the 18th century onward. The chapter examines the ramifications of this 'liberal'–'neoliberal' distinction further in the literature review which follows. It focuses on the neoliberal economics it propounds, because of the ways in which the views differ from the classical liberal approach, and because of the global dominance of neoliberal views over the past three or so decades. The chapter explains the specific activities of global trade and investment are seen by many as principal barriers to ecological justice in the South.

Anthropocene has become an environmental buzzword. It denotes a new geological epoch that is human‐dominated. As mounting scientific evidence reveals, humankind has fundamentally altered atmospheric, geological, hydrological, biospheric, and other Earth system processes to an extent that the risk of an irreversible system change emerges. Human societies must therefore change direction and navigate away from critical tipping points in the various ecosystems of our planet. This hypothesis has kicked off a debate not only on the geoscientific definition of the Anthropocene era, but increasingly also in the social sciences. However, the specific contribution of the social sciences disciplines and in particular that of political science still needs to be fully established.This edited volume analyzes, from a political science perspective, the wider social dynamics underlying the ecological and geological changes, as well as their implications for governance and politics in the Anthropocene. The focus is on two questions: (1) What is the contribution of political science to the Anthropocene debate, e.g. in terms of identified problems, answers, and solutions? (2) What are the conceptual and practical implications of the Anthropocene debate for the discipline of political science?Overall, this book contributes to the Anthropocene debate by providing novel theoretical and conceptual accounts of the Anthropocene, engaging with contemporary politics and policy-making in the Anthropocene, and offering a critical reflection on the Anthropocene debate as such. The volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, global environmental politics and governance, and sustainable development.