Green critiques of the state
Despite the general neglect of the state in much green theory and practice, yet it is possible to discern therein a number of accounts of the state. They are all more or less united in their highly critical stance, but the nature of this critical account varies widely.
When surveying the green literature since the 1960s, broadly four distinct elements in critiques of the state can be discerned. These are:1. the spatial disjuncture between the territorially-organized state and the spatial characteristics of ecological problems;
2. the predominant mode of rationality in states which is bureaucratic;
3. the nature of the state as a centralizing institution of domination and violence, and which promotes accelerated throughput of resources as a consequence;
4. the way in which the liberal democratic state underwrites a very ‘thin’ and disempowering version of democratic citizenship and democratic governance.
These critiques entail a proposition that the environmental crises are, in effect, provocations to look anew at the purposes of the state and the state system.
More on the topic Green critiques of the state:
- The green state
- A green anarchism?
- Chapter 7 Green Theory
- The so-called ‘new institutionalism’ is a relatively recent addition to the pantheon of theories of the state and, like some of the other perspectives considered in this volume, it is by no means only a theory of the state
- Like Henry Higgins who, through his work changed the object of his studies into something other than what it was, the purpose of the Marxist theory of the state is not just to understand the capitalist state but to aid in its destruction. (Wolfe 1974: 131)
- For students of politics, the state has always assumed central importance.
- Greening the state?
- What is the state?
- The concept of the state
- The state and environment: spatial dysfunctions
- Beyond the state?
- Marxism and the state
- SANCTION AND THE STATE
- The state as institutional contextualization