Sincerity as Strategy: Green Movements and the Problem of Reconciling Deliberative and Instrumental Action

ABSTRACT

Social movements seek to influence views on environmental issues and put pressure on policy-makers in a range of related areas. But alongside their specific goals, they also often strive to create space for genuine deliberation about the need for societal transformation. This ‘dual orientation’ places them theoretically between social movement studies’ focus on strategic considerations and the ‘sincere’ (truthful) communication envisioned by democratic theorists to be a condition for ‘authentic’ deliberation, in which actors genuinely seek to understand each other’s views. Engaging with both fields of theory, a framework is developed for separating actions that are strategic, sincere and employ sincerity as strategy. Actors choose sincerity as a strategy when they practice truthful reasoning as a means to advance their interests in the public sphere. As illustrated by green movements, the concept captures how activists may handle three risks in public discourse: commercialization, politicization and idealization.     

Sociopolitical ideology and the morality of green behaviour

Combating climate change and protecting the environment is a significant topic amongst political leaders and concerned citizens across the globe. The degree to which individuals perceive green issues as important is connected to their politics, those subscribing to conservative ideologies being less supportive of pro-environmental initiatives and less concerned about climate change than those endsorsing liberal ideologies. Examining political ideology as a uni- and bi-dimensional construct, the present research investigated whether political liberals (vs. conservatives), those higher (vs. lower) in right-wing authoritarianism, and those higher (vs. lower) in social dominance orientation differ in their perceptions of the morality of green behaviours. In Studies 1 (n = 200) and 2 (n = 150), liberal (vs. conservative) ideologies related to perceiving pro-environmental behaviours as more moral. Further, in Study 2, the relation between ideology and perceptions of green behaviours as moral was explained by positive feelings associated with the self engaging in green behaviours.     

Adoption of environmental standards and a lack of awareness: evidence from the food and beverage industry in Vietnam

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Voluntary approaches to environmental policy can contribute to stemming environmental degradation in developing countries with weak institutions. We...     

The transformative power of commoning and alternative food networks

ABSTRACT

A commoning framework offers a critical lens to fully appreciate the scope and impact of alternative food networks (AFNs). Fieldwork from an AFN in southern China is drawn upon to show how commoning enacts changes in how members contextualise and anchor their social relations to one another with regards to sourcing food as a commons. A commoning framework gives a fuller picture of how the constitutive effects of AFNs reside not in their introduction of a new uniformity but in their navigation of the multiplicity of the social through its proposition and co-construction of a new ‘cognitive praxis’.     

The contested politics of the Asian atom: peripheralisation and nuclear power in South Korea and Japan

South Korea and Japan have been unwaveringly committed to a nuclear-focused energy supply system despite the contested nature of that technology and the Fukushima accident in 2011. The socio-political consequences of four nuclear-related facilities (Ulju, Gyeongju, Futaba, and Rokkasho) are explored through the lens of social peripheralisation. This framework suggests that nuclear facilities will migrate to communities that are geographically remote, economically marginal, politically powerless, culturally defensive, and environmentally degraded. Nuclear infrastructures in the four cases are imposed on peripheral regions, impairing not only the structure of local economies and political power, but also creating a discriminative structure in terms of social and environmental inequality. Peripheralisation suggests a deeper dynamic by which pro-nuclear attitudes become ‘locked in’ socially and culturally so that communities come to depend on the very processes that made them peripheral. Community dynamics, subnational struggles, and contests over local power relations may determine the future of nuclear power.     

Climate laws in small European states: symbolic legislation and limits of diffusion in Ireland and Finland

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen the introduction of framework climate change laws in several countries. The development of climate laws in two small European states, Ireland and Finland, both of which introduced national climate laws in 2015, are examined. Two questions are addressed. First, to what extent do later adopters of climate policy instruments draw on the examples of pioneering legislation? Second, how and why are pioneering climate policy instruments modified by later adopters? In both cases, the 2008 UK Climate Change Act was a source of inspiration in the early stages, particularly for civil society campaigns. Thereafter, domestic interests mobilised to remove from legislative proposals the most pioneering and ambitious parts of the UK model. The result, in both cases, was enactment of climate laws that resembled only very loosely the UK Climate Change Act.     

National identities,international roles,and the legitimation of climate leadership: Germany and Norway compared

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) confers an obligation on developed states to lead in mitigation. This obligation challenges traditional conceptions of the modern state by calling forth a more outward looking state that is able to serve both the national and international communities in the service of global climate protection. Yet, the more skeptical theories of the ecological state suggest that climate leaders will only emerge if they can connect their climate strategy to the traditional state imperatives of economic growth or national security. How the governments of Germany and Norway, both relative climate leaders with ongoing fossil-fuel dependencies, have legitimated their climate policies and diplomacy is examined through a comparative discourse analysis. While both governments rely heavily on discourses of Green growth, they also construct national identities and international role conceptions that serve purposes beyond themselves.     

Legitimating the environmental injustices of war: toxic exposures and media silence in Iraq and Afghanistan

During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US Department of Defense burned the majority of its solid waste in open-air pits or trenches, producing large amounts of potentially hazardous emissions. While journalists have covered stories of US service members who link their illnesses to these fumes, they have almost entirely ignored potential civilian impacts. However, satellite images demonstrate that pollution from open-air trash burning on US bases could not have impacted US personnel without also harming Iraqi and Afghan civilians living near bases, indicating that burn-pit pollution is an important, if unacknowledged, environmental justice issue. Content analysis of news articles shows the extent to which civilian impacts have been left out of mainstream US media reporting on burn-pit pollution. This selective attention is symptomatic of the way military violence is legitimated, which involves a complicit news media that typically overlooks the humanitarian impacts of war.     

Convergence in carbon dioxide emissions and the role of growth and institutions: a parametric and non-parametric analysis

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This paper examines convergence of per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emission for a panel of 124 countries taking into account the impact of economic...     

Religion and environmental politics in the US House of Representatives

Does religion affect legislators’ behavior on environmental policy in the US? Studies of environmental policy making have not examined this question, although the literature suggests that religion might affect legislative behavior on environmental policy. This study examines the relationship between US House members’ religion and roll-call voting on environmental legislation from 1973 to 2009. It finds significant differences across religious traditions. Legislators’ party and characteristics of constituencies relevant to environmental politics increasingly, but not entirely, mediate these differences.     

Support for environmental protection: an integration of ideological-consistency and information-deficit models

The divergent roles of education in predicting environmental support among liberals, conservatives, and moderates in the United States are explained by integrating ideological-consistency and information-deficit models. Increased political polarization among elites has led to divergent environmental positions advocated by liberal and conservative political and media leaders; it was predicted that education would increase public attention to these elite cues and, consistent with the ideological-consistency model, increased education would lead to attitudes in line with consensual positions endorsed by party elites. Across two nationally representative data sets, higher levels of education were associated with stronger environmental support among liberals and weaker environmental support among conservatives. Moderates were predicted to have fewer elite cues on which to base their attitudes; consistent with the information-deficit model, higher levels of education among moderates were associated with strengthened environmental support. A moderated-mediation model supported the differential application of these two theories.     

Geoengineering and sustainability

ABSTRACT

Geoengineering is regarded by advocates as a creative and responsible technological option in the face of a climate emergency. Critics often see it as a hubristic attempt to play God, with disastrous consequences for the planet and humanity. These antipodal perspectives are represented by the ideal types of Prometheans and Gaians. Prometheans and Gaians typically talk past each other. The geoengineering debate can be made more fruitful by well articulating their respective positions and subsequently situating them in the discourse of sustainability. A sustainability orientation does not answer the troubling question whether geoengineering should be developed and deployed. But it can foster a ‘fusion of horizons’ between Prometheans and Gaians, providing common ground in an otherwise polarized debate and making a more productive dialogue possible.     

Increasing food production and mitigating agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union: impacts of carbon pricing and calorie production targeting

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - This study focuses on the links between food production and greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. The analysis relies on two sets of...     

Unpacking the politics of natural capital and economic metaphors in environmental policy discourse

Economic metaphors – including natural capital, natural assets, ecosystem services, and ecological debt – are becoming commonplace in environmental policy discourse. Proponents consider such terms provide a clearer idea of the ‘value’ of nature, and are useful for ensuring the environment is given due attention in decision making. Critical discourse analysis highlights the ideological work language does; the way in which we think, write, and talk about the environment has important implications for how it is governed. Consequently, the widespread use of economic metaphors is politically significant. This article discusses how metaphors have been analysed in environmental policy research, surveys the use of prominent economic metaphors in environmental policy, and considers the politics associated with such terms. The uptake of various economic metaphors represents a form of reverse discourse, varies in politically significant ways, and narrows the terms of environmental debate.     

The impact of lynx and wolf on roe deer hunting benefits in Sweden

Large carnivores provide ecosystem and cultural benefits but also impose costs on hunters due to the competition for game. The aim of this paper was to identify the marginal impact of lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolf (Canis lupus) on the harvest of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in Sweden and the value of this impact. We applied a production function approach, using a bioeconomic model where the annual number of roe deer harvested was assumed to be determined by hunting effort, abundance of predators, availability of other game, and winter severity. The impact of the predators on the roe deer harvests was estimated econometrically, and carnivore marginal impacts were derived. The results showed that if the roe deer resource was harvested under open access, the marginal cost in terms of hunting values foregone varied between different counties, and ranged between 18,000 and 58,000 EUR for an additional lynx family, and 79,000 and 336,000 EUR for an additional wolf individual. Larger marginal costs of the wolf, in terms of the impact on roe deer hunting, were found in counties where the hunting effort was high and the abundance of moose (Alces alces) was low. If instead, hunters could exert private property rights to the resource, the average marginal cost was about 20% lower than it would have been if there was open access, and the difference in wolf impact between counties with high and low moose density was smaller. Together, results suggest that the current plan for expanding the wolf population in south Sweden can be associated with a substantial cost.

     

The power of environmental norms: marine plastic pollution and the politics of microbeads

Emerging environmental norms gain strength and diffuse more quickly when scientific evidence of harm is consolidating, when activism is intensifying, and when political and corporate resistance is relatively weak. The anti-microbead norm – that plastic microbeads should be removed from personal care products – has been gaining global influence since 2012; witness the upsurge in anti-microbead activism, public concern, voluntary corporate phasedowns and governmental bans. By 2018, the world was on track to eliminate microbeads from ‘rinse-off’ products within a decade, reducing microplastics flowing into oceans by 1–2%. This confirms the power of environmental norms, but how and why this phaseout is occurring – unequally across jurisdictions, with firms creating loopholes, missing deadlines and limiting the scope of reforms – also reveals innate weaknesses of bottom-up, ad hoc norm diffusion as a way of improving marine governance. These weaknesses are heightened when economic stakes are high, solutions are complex and costly, authority is fragmented across jurisdictions and corporate resistance is strong.     

Future energy: in search of a scenario reflecting current and future pressures and trends

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - Growing societal pressures, technological trends and government and industry actions are moving the world toward decarbonization and away from the...     

Australian Greens party members and supporters: their profiles and activities

In an era of widespread party membership decline, there is debate over the utility, within the ‘European’ tradition, of conceptualising party membership as the locus of individual party engagement, and of maintaining membership and supportership as distinct categories in analysing party activism. This debate is particularly relevant to Green parties, which, through their particular social movement origins and emphasis on grass-roots democracy, bring into question the assumption that the activities and profile of members and supporters are functionally different. Using original data gathered from two surveys of Australian Greens party members and supporters undertaken in 2012 and 2013, the political activity, associational membership, ideological position, and demographic characteristics of these two groups are compared. While active party members are distinctive in their party-specific political activities and their ideological positioning, there is much less difference between the rest of the formal party membership and the party’s active supporter base.     

Greening up: the effects of environmental standards in EU and US trade agreements

Can environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) foster an environmental race to the top? The ways in which different enforcement mechanisms in North–South PTAs affect the implementation of environmental standards in developing countries are examined. It is argued that environmental provisions in European Union (EU) and United States (US) PTAs will be effective in instigating policy change in partner countries, although the timing of the effect will vary significantly. Fines and sanctions in US PTAs incentivize partner countries to reform during the negotiation process. Reform in EU PTA partners is predicted to occur during agreement implementation as a result of the EU’s policy dialogue approach. Illustrative evidence is provided and the hypotheses are tested using statistical estimations of EU and US PTAs with environmental provisions on developing countries’ environmental policy reform.