Conclusions

We have tried to suggest that Greens should be wary of eco-anarchist views that the state is always and everywhere unreformable and therefore to be bypassed, rejected or otherwise seen not just as part of the problem, but the problem.

One way of responding to this question is to emphasize the strategic nature of greens’ orientation towards the state. Doherty for example suggests that, ‘The greens have responded to new conditions and issues with a distinctively modern strategy based on accepting the limits of the state in guaranteeing social and political change’ (1992: 102). In other words, if Greens would democratize, decentralize and downsize the state (but not in the way in which neo-liberalism conceives of this), then it would be less reliant on capital accumulation and orthodox economic growth.

In this strategic orientation to the state, green states are made by green citizens gathered within civil society (both within and outside the state) forcing states (and the state system internationally) to change. States will not become green by themselves, or at least not in the full sense of ‘green’ - as we suggest, the most we can expect of endogenous state transformation is some form of ‘weak’ ecological modernization, as discussed above. In the struggle for more sustainable, just and democratic societies, we need civil disobedience before obedience and more than ever, we need critical citizens and not just law-abiding ones.

In this way considerations of strategy and the potential transformation/s of the state, lead to issues of political economy and the need for greens to focus more explicitly than they have in the past on the political economy of the state within a globalizing capitalist world economy. Here greens have much to learn from Marxist and other forms of critical political economy in the development of their strategies of engagement and disengagement with and from the state and the state system.

An interesting example of the state in green strategy thinking is provided by Alex Begg, who, writing from an activist’s perspective and employing Foucauldian and Marxist analyses, describes the existing state as embod­ying ‘power-over’ rather than a more emancipatory ‘power to’. According to him,

working at the interface between systems of power is effectively opening up a conduit between the two. You are allowing a flow of energy or resources from one to the other (or more often a combination of both)...Anyone seeking to work for empowerment, equality or social change will have relationships with many bodies shaped and governed by power-over... However, it is not the case that every connection with the dynamics of power-over weakens the process of social change. (Begg 2000: 211)

And as he pragmatically concludes, ‘At the end of the day, the question is not whether or not to sup with the devil, but rather whether the spoon is long enough’ (Begg 2000: 214).

The real issue for radical social change, according to Begg, is the assessment on a case by case basis of the ‘terms of trade’ of any ‘ethical compromise’ one makes between the two systems of power - that is, is the overall impact of the compromise to increase, strengthen the system of ‘power to’ and/or weaken the system of ‘power-over’? This is all the more complex and irre­deemably resistant to ‘universal’ or ‘grand theories’ and therefore only adequately analysed in terms of an iterative process of specific points of engagement/disengagement - because the practices and institutions of ‘power-over’ and ‘power-to’ are not neatly demarcated in the state and capitalist system on the one hand and ‘civil society’ on the other.

Cautioning against those in the green movement who would simply seek to ‘by-pass’ the state, the world of liberal democratic politics, and the market and consumer society, Begg has this to say (2000: 223):

There is no ‘middle way’ when one side in the contest is so dominant.

There is no way to remain above the grubby worlds of politics and commerce when to abstain from power altogether is to cut oneself off from the means of life. Connections have to be made... It is not about being in the mainstream which gets results, nor about being revolu­tionary; it is the connection between the two, the ability to have a foot in both camps and your heart in empowerment.

Further reading

Begg, Alex (2000) Empowering the Earth: Strategies for Social Change (Totnes: Green Books).

Bookchin, Murray (1980) Toward an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose Books).

Dryzek, J., Downes, D., Hunold, C., Schlosberg, D., with Hernes, H. K. (2003) Green States and Social Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Eckersley, Robyn (2004) The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Ecologist, The (1993) Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons (London: Earthscan).

Sachs, Wolfgang (1999) Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Develop­ment (London: Zed Books).

Torgerson, Douglas (1999) The Promise of Green Politics: Environmentalism and the Public Sphere (London: Duke University Press).