Burchill: Green Politics

- Newest
- Significant political force in many countries from the mid-1970s
- Analysis of the dynamics of global politics and normative visions concerning the restructuring of world politics
- Two main sets of literature:
1. Green Political Theory (Dobson, Eckersley)
2. Global Ecology (The Ecologist, Sachs, Chatterjee, Finger)
• Key standards: ecocentric ethics, limits to growth, decentralization of power
• Explanation of the destruction of the rest of nature by human societies and a normative foundation for resisting this destruction and creation sustainable societies
- Green politics X environmentalism
• Environmentalism
• Accept the framework of the existing political, social, economic and normative structures of the world politics
• Ameliorate environmental problems within those structures
• No distinctive environmentalist position on IR - compatible with the liberal institutionalism
• Response of the state system to environmental problems
• Focus on the emergence of international environmental regimes
• State system can respond effectively to environmental problems
• Greens
• Structures as the main origin of the environmental crisis
• Structures need to be challenged and transcended
• Skeptical about the claim that the state system and other structures of world politics can provide effective response to environmental problems
• Need for global-scale political transformation