The Left Libertarianism Of The Greens [1 ed.] 3031392620, 9783031392627, 9783031392634, 9783031392658

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introductory Remarks About the Greens
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Organizational Structure of the Book
1.3 The Difference Between Environmentalism, Ecologism, and the Greens
1.4 A Brief Prehistory of the Development of Green Political Thought
1.5 Greens and Modernization
1.6 Greens and Industrialism
1.7 Greens and Science
References
Chapter 2: Environment Protection in a Left-Libertarian Political Philosophy
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Protection of the Environment Through Respect for the Right to Property
2.3 The Principle of Non-Aggression and the Protection of Nature
2.3.1 Application of the Principle of Non-Violence in Green Politics
2.4 Extreme Variants of the Libertarian Conception of Nature Protection
2.5 The Libertarian Explanation of the Way Nature Works
2.6 Environmental Protection and Eco Balance
2.7 The Attitude Toward the State
2.8 Differences Between Welfare State and Green State
2.9 Bioregionalism
References
Chapter 3: Green Political Thought
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Return to Nature
3.3 Human Nature
3.4 Environmental Justice
3.5 Green Ethics
3.6 Sustainability
3.6.1 Areas of Sustainable Development
3.6.2 Sustainability of Economic Growth
3.6.3 Limitation of Economic Growth
3.7 Green Citizenship
3.7.1 Green Citizenship in Practice
3.7.2 Green Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism
3.8 The Attitude Toward Animals
3.8.1 Peter Signer’s Utilitarianism
3.8.2 Tom Regan’s Animal Rights Theory
3.8.3 Animal Rights Protection Policies
References
Chapter 4: The Greens as a Social Movement
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Evolutionary Development of the Environmentalist Movement
4.3 Basic Characteristics of the Environmental Movement
4.4 Environmentalism and New Social Movements
4.5 Environmentalism Today
4.6 The Social Basis of Environmentalism
4.7 The Demographic Characteristics of the Environmentalist Movement
4.8 The Difference Between Movements and Parties (Why Movements Grew into Parties)
References
Chapter 5: The Green Parties
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Reason for the Emergence of the Green Parties (New Social Cleavages, Emancipatory, and Post-Materialist Values, Crisis of Established Political Parties)
5.2.1 Hierarchy of Needs
5.2.2 Reasons for the Change in Values
5.2.3 The Consequences of Changing Values
5.2.4 Critical Reviews of Post-Materialist Values
5.3 New Conflicts
5.4 Issues Politics
5.5 The Organizational Structure of the Green Parties
5.6 The Social Structure of the Green Parties
5.7 The Policies of the Green Parties
References
Chapter 6: The Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties
6.1 The Difference Between Ideology and Politics (Is Environmentalism an Ideology or a Policy)
6.2 The Ideological Direction of the Green Parties
6.3 Theoretical Determination of the Place of the Greens in the Political Spectrum
6.4 Neither Left nor Right, but Ahead
6.5 The Greens as a New Type of Parties
6.6 Concluding Observations Regarding Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties
6.7 The Response of the Mainstream Parties to the Emergence of the Green Parties
6.8 The Green Parties Family
6.8.1 The Greens in the European Parliament
References
Chapter 7: A Critical Review of the Green Political Ideology
7.1 The Greens and Democracy
7.2 Why the Greens Do Not Have the Success of the Populists
7.3 Criticisms Toward the Greens
7.3.1 Intellectual Incoherence
7.3.2 Scientific Unreliability
7.3.3 Difficulties in the Practicing of Politics
References
Index

Citation preview

The Left Libertarianism of the Greens k i r e sh a r l a m a nov

The Left Libertarianism of the Greens

Kire Sharlamanov

The Left Libertarianism of the Greens

Kire Sharlamanov Department of Political Sciences International Balkan University Skopje, North Macedonia

ISBN 978-3-031-39262-7    ISBN 978-3-031-39263-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39263-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introductory  Remarks About the Greens  1 1.1 Introduction  1 1.2 The Organizational Structure of the Book  8 1.3 The Difference Between Environmentalism, Ecologism, and the Greens 12 1.4 A Brief Prehistory of the Development of Green Political Thought 17 1.5 Greens and Modernization 21 1.6 Greens and Industrialism 23 1.7 Greens and Science 28 References 31 2 Environment  Protection in a Left-Libertarian Political Philosophy 33 2.1 Introduction 33 2.2 Protection of the Environment Through Respect for the Right to Property 39 2.3 The Principle of Non-Aggression and the Protection of Nature 44 2.3.1 Application of the Principle of Non-Violence in Green Politics 46 2.4 Extreme Variants of the Libertarian Conception of Nature Protection 47 2.5 The Libertarian Explanation of the Way Nature Works 48 2.6 Environmental Protection and Eco Balance 50 v

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2.7 The Attitude Toward the State 51 2.8 Differences Between Welfare State and Green State 54 2.9 Bioregionalism 57 References 61 3 Green Political Thought 65 3.1 Introduction 65 3.2 Return to Nature 66 3.3 Human Nature 68 3.4 Environmental Justice 69 3.5 Green Ethics 73 3.6 Sustainability 75 3.6.1 Areas of Sustainable Development 77 3.6.2 Sustainability of Economic Growth 78 3.6.3 Limitation of Economic Growth 80 3.7 Green Citizenship 83 3.7.1 Green Citizenship in Practice 85 3.7.2 Green Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism 86 3.8 The Attitude Toward Animals 87 3.8.1 Peter Signer’s Utilitarianism 88 3.8.2 Tom Regan’s Animal Rights Theory 89 3.8.3 Animal Rights Protection Policies 90 References 91 4 The  Greens as a Social Movement 95 4.1 Introduction 95 4.2 The Evolutionary Development of the Environmentalist Movement100 4.3 Basic Characteristics of the Environmental Movement105 4.4 Environmentalism and New Social Movements108 4.5 Environmentalism Today115 4.6 The Social Basis of Environmentalism116 4.7 The Demographic Characteristics of the Environmentalist Movement120

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4.8 The Difference Between Movements and Parties (Why Movements Grew into Parties)121 References123 5 The Green Parties127 5.1 Introduction127 5.2 The Reason for the Emergence of the Green Parties (New Social Cleavages, Emancipatory, and Post-Materialist Values, Crisis of Established Political Parties)130 5.2.1 Hierarchy of Needs132 5.2.2 Reasons for the Change in Values133 5.2.3 The Consequences of Changing Values134 5.2.4 Critical Reviews of Post-Materialist Values136 5.3 New Conflicts137 5.4 Issues Politics140 5.5 The Organizational Structure of the Green Parties144 5.6 The Social Structure of the Green Parties149 5.7 The Policies of the Green Parties150 References158 6 The  Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties161 6.1 The Difference Between Ideology and Politics (Is Environmentalism an Ideology or a Policy)161 6.2 The Ideological Direction of the Green Parties167 6.3 Theoretical Determination of the Place of the Greens in the Political Spectrum168 6.4 Neither Left nor Right, but Ahead169 6.5 The Greens as a New Type of Parties174 6.6 Concluding Observations Regarding Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties175 6.7 The Response of the Mainstream Parties to the Emergence of the Green Parties177 6.8 The Green Parties Family178 6.8.1 The Greens in the European Parliament180 References184

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7 A  Critical Review of the Green Political Ideology187 7.1 The Greens and Democracy187 7.2 Why the Greens Do Not Have the Success of the Populists197 7.3 Criticisms Toward the Greens201 7.3.1 Intellectual Incoherence203 7.3.2 Scientific Unreliability205 7.3.3 Difficulties in the Practicing of Politics208 References211 Index215

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 5.1

Characteristics of modernization Spheres of sustainable development The attitude toward green citizenship depending on the type of citizen List of organizational characteristics of Green parties

22 78 85 146

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CHAPTER 1

Introductory Remarks About the Greens

1.1   Introduction For many, environmentalism and green are a way of thinking, a lifestyle associated with the protection of nature. Green ideology implies a concern for the environment for two reasons. Concern over the connection between the fate of the environment and the fate of people. In that sense, concern for the environment is actually a concern for people, but not in the form of material survival, it is an issue that was closed in the most developed countries after the Second World War, but in the form of survival of the environment and people as part of it. At that level, people view the environment instrumentally and show concern about the possible disappearance of forests, not because of the forests themselves but because of the value they have for people. Thinking about the fate of people, their connection with the fate of the environment, inevitably led to feeling sorry for the environment regardless of its relationship with people. This is where the awareness of the ecocentricity of the world began to emerge. Humans, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, have always interacted with the environment, but not always in a wise way. Environmental awareness means doing many small things in everyday life such as recycling waste, consuming organic food, increasing awareness of the importance of clean air and water, as well as the problems related to climate change (Sargent, 2009: 278). When they initially appeared in the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Sharlamanov, The Left Libertarianism of the Greens, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39263-4_1

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form of social movements, and later as a political project, the Greens were seen as a political force of protest, popular discontent, as parties of one issue, as an ephemeral political force. Today, Green parties are established and legitimately participate in the political life of the most developed countries in the world. In the 50 or so years that they have existed, the Greens have established themselves and persisted as a relevant political ideology and parties that identify with it. The Greens matured ideologically, as parties that know how to exercise power, when the opportunity arises, but they never became the leading or at least one of the two leading parties in any country in Europe. However, there is no doubt that the Greens are a special political phenomenon. Their appearance on the political scene meant the emergence of a new type of political activism, organizational structure, and finally a new type of politics. They differed from other political parties in their commitment to the protection of the environment, in their focus on self-actualization, in their decentralized approach to party organization, in their insistence on participatory democracy, in giving the opportunity to citizens to be directly involved in the process of bringing of decisions, and by its connection with the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. At the level of political philosophy, the Greens deal with very old topics such as the relationship between the human and nonhuman world, the moral status of animals, what good life means, what quality of life means, and ethical and political regulation of technological innovations (Barry, 2014: 1). It has been known since Aristotle’s time that people are political animals, that is, zoon politikon. At the same time, the emphasis in this construct was always on “political” and not on “animal.” Habermas considers the process of modernization and rationalization as a process of separating nature from society, that is, denaturalization of society and desocialization of nature. With the advancement of technology, people began to see nature as an object, as an instrument to be used to the point of destruction in order to raise the standard of living, forgetting that in such a way the wider context is destroyed without which the standard of life loses its meaning. Green parties indicate that progress has gone too far to the level of self-destruction and that we need to return to the animal aspects of the political animal coinage. Greens as political parties are a reflection of society’s revolt against environmental pollution, which is based on the logic of industrialism. The emergence of the revolt was contributed by the development of post-materialist values among a part of society known in theory as the new middle class. Exponent of the revolt

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was environmentalism as a new social movement. Green parties were closely associated with the environmentalist movement and new social movements. They appeared as a political instrument, an infrastructure that should achieve environmental protection—as a desirable political goal. In that context, the Greens deal with important issues of the present day, such as the political implications of climate change, consumerism, the use of natural resources, and the growth of inequalities both at the global and national level. On the basis of environmental protection, the Greens began to develop their own vision and policies toward other social issues. They have developed such a detailed program that the question arises whether to prioritize environmental protection or social policies. The answer to this question can resolve the dilemma of whether Green parties are a reflection of a deep and new social conflict affecting all spheres of society, or whether they are issue parties that give priority to environmental protection, recycling, organic agriculture, animal protection, the prohibition of nuclear energy, the use of renewable energy choices, etc. There are no easy answers to major dilemmas in the social sciences. It seems that the Green parties are both at the same time. They are a reflection of a social conflict that can practically be perceived through the new post-materialist values, behind which is the emergence of the new middle class, which at the same time instigates the protection of nature, but does not stop there, but the principles on which the protection of nature is offered applies to different segments of society and to society as a whole. The political ideology of the Greens is one of the newest ones. In modern textbooks on political ideologies, it has become standard to devote one of the last chapters to social movements for the protection of nature such as environmentalism and ecologism, in the same way that one of the last chapters used to be devoted to feminism, which in the meantime has become an established and widely accepted political ideology. It seems that social movements for the protection of the environment are nearing the end of the process of their own legitimization as ideology, theory, and politics (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182). The legitimization process also meant a transformation from a social movement into political parties, which increasingly began to be identified as Green parties. If the Green parties were once considered parties of radical outsiders, today they are increasingly taking a place in mainstream politics in Europe. In the process Green parties have evolved from single-issue parties to parties that have a broad range of policies, capable of winning elections and being part of the highest levels of government (McBride, 2022). If the 1970s and 1980s

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were the years when new Green parties established themselves, sought their place on the political scene, achieved the first significant electoral results and began to enter national parliaments, in the 1990s the Greens were already established political parties that began to enter government coalitions, to abandon political idealism, at the expense of accepting political pragma. It can be said that with the trend of the Greens entering the government coalitions, the period of institutionalization of the Green parties has ended. Although Green parties have moderate electoral success in most European countries, Green ideology has become mainstream in politics. The influence of the Green ideology is also reflected in the fact that it is accepted, promoted, and implemented not only by the Green parties, but also by other mainstream parties. In that way, the environmentalist approach to politics, which starts from the idea of solving problems with the environment at the end of the twentieth century, began to become part of global politics. The appearance of environment protection as a political issue was imposed due to the growth of the standard of living of the citizens, so one layer of the population put aside the material-existential problems and began to deal with an issue that was not previously in the focus of public interest. The issue of the destruction and protection of the environment came into the focus of public interest, among other things, due to the fact that since the beginning of industrialization, the pollution of the environment became more and more intense until the moment when the environment began to become dangerous for the future of humanity. Hence, that topic could no longer be ignored. Raising the issue of environmental protection brought with it a new social conflict and a new political realignment. The established political parties have failed to integrate this challenge into their own political programs to the point of not leaving room for alternative policies on this issue, although there have been attempts to do so. A product of the emergence of the environment as a significant political issue is the emergence of Green parties. Environmentalism is compatible with left-leaning parties. It is an issue that increases the coalition capacity of the left-oriented mainstream parties. But the Green parties have the issue of the environment as their raison d’être. In the last period, the scientific interest in the study of the environment is growing, but usually this issue is analyzed separately from other political issues, and in that sense insufficient attention is paid to the complex political dynamics in which environmentalism is an integral part (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 114). The issue of nature protection is not a matter of social class, race, gender,

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nationality, or religious affiliation. It is an issue that transcends these divisions and if it is not addressed in the right way by changing values, habits, and behavior, everyone will feel the consequences. However, the most affected by the environmental crisis are usually the poorest, although pollution problems are mostly caused by the highest layers of the population. The highest strata of the population have the greatest capacity to pollute and the motive to do so to increase the profits of the companies that they run, and the lowest ranks of the population have the least resources available to deal with the consequences of environmental disasters. Such was the case with Hurricane Katrina, which hit the coast of Florida in 2005 and devastated New Orleans. The catastrophe affected everyone, but the wealthier ones coped with it more easily. Those who had cars left the city more easily than the rest. Also, those who had greater material resources at their disposal coped more easily with the consequences of the disaster. But the fact remains that the catastrophe spared no one regardless of his class, race, ethnic, or religious affiliation. In that sense, the Greens, as an ideology, are unique and different from the established political ideologies. A strand of the uniqueness of the Green political ideology is not only the uniqueness of the problem they point out, but also the approach they have chosen to deal with it. Greens did not choose any of the existing approaches developed by the established political parties, but indicated that this was a new, unique problem and a new and unique approach was needed, which they found in left-libertarian political philosophy. At the level of problem identification, the Greens are sympathetic to the view that the development of human society has become dangerously unbalanced. People have more “know how” than ever before in history, but no “know why.” Man knows how to realize his material ambitions, but he lacks the wisdom to judge whether those ambitions make sense. As Schumacher (1973) wrote, humans have become too smart to survive without wisdom. The search for wisdom, for the meaning of life, leads environmentalists very close to religious mysticism, to something approaching New Age ideas. Murray Bookchin (1989) called these tendencies anti-humanism. According to him, the mythologizing and sacralization of “nature” is the result of the loss of trust in humanity and the complete neglect of the needs and interests of nature, instead of those of humans. The Greens have a worldview that is quite different from traditional political thought in the West. They criticize the economic and technical development that degrades nature and try to make a “paradigm shift,” fearing that if they don’t they will get stuck in the mistakes of old

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policies, unable to move from their concepts and assumptions (Heywood, 2017; Gökpinar, 2019: 164). Greens are a very widespread phenomenon, both in Western and Eastern Europe. Today, there is no European country where the Green Party does not function. Recently, the Greens are more and more represented in the parliaments of many countries in Europe (Carter, 2013: 74). They are increasingly entering the government majorities, which are made up of both left-wing and right-wing parties. So for example in Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world, the Greens hold some of the highest government positions, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Given the position they hold on the political scene, the Greens are increasingly given the opportunity to shape public policy and decide the future of democracy. The entry of the Greens into parliaments and government majorities indicates a process of institutionalization of Green parties in party and political systems across Europe. Green parties are becoming a relatively small but stable and very significant part of the functioning of liberal democracy in many countries. Although their support in elections rarely exceeds 10%, they are a very significant factor in the composition of parliamentary majorities. At one point in 1999, Green parties were represented in 17 parliaments across Europe, and in 5 EU member states they were part of the national governments.1 If at the time of their founding, the Green parties offered a modest response to public concerns about the “ecological crisis” that began to haunt the public space in the early 1970s, today the Green parties have formed comprehensive political programs that are a challenge to the established political parties of the left and the right. They questioned some of the axioms of modern policies such as their anthropocentricity and their obsession with achieving economic growth. But the Greens show division on important issues such as the use of military force, some foreign policy issues, and cooperation with right-wing and populist parties (McBride, 2022). The divisions are the result of the crystallization of policies that began with the transformation of environmentalist movements into parties. The fact that the Greens emerged from a social movement that was decentralized contributes to the fact that there are divisions when it comes to specifying and putting into party molds specific policies. 1  In 1999, Green parties were in government coalitions in Italy, France, Germany, Finland, and Belgium (Williams, 1999: 2).

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Since its inception, the Greens represent a mix of science, ethical purity, ritual mysticism, and humanistic sensibility. As such the Greens have attracted significant support, especially among the younger population. Especially because they had an almost religious commitment to imposing a lifestyle consistent with the ideological principles they promoted. But it seems that the Green parties have made a lot of compromises in terms of their principles, which seems to be the case almost always when social movements grow into concrete political projects. Today, when the Green parties have established themselves in Europe, traditional materialistic issues such as the economy, taxation, public order, and welfare are still dominant in the election campaigns (Carter, 2007: 2). The question arises of the success of the Greens, compared to the populists as a political phenomenon that experienced much greater growth in politics than the Greens. There are several reasons for this. The population they address. While populists appeal to the entire population with the exception of a narrow circle of people who are considered part of the elite, Greens appeal to a much smaller circle of people who are aware of environmentalist problems. Question could be raised of how much it costs to be green, compared to being a populist. The cost of being green is much higher than being a populist. Greens demand from their followers self-­ renunciation, renunciation of the comfortable, consumerist way of life. The problem with the environment, among other things, is consumerism, that is, the behavior of each individual. Populists do not criticize people, but rather flatter them. Populists idealize people. The people are not to blame for social problems, but the elites. It seems that the number of people with post-materialistic values, who are ready to do something concrete, to give up a comfortable lifestyle, is not as large as the number of people who are ready to blame other people (the elites) for social problems, and not themselves and their own behavior. There are elements of mysticism in demanding personal sacrifice from followers. Just as Christianity imposes the assumption that all people are sinful from birth, because of the sin of Adam and Eve and they have to work all their lives to atone for their sins, so the Greens assert that all individuals are sinful because of the comfortable consumerist way of life. The punishment for not redeeming sins in Christianity is ending up in hell, while the punishment for not working on yourself, not giving up consumerism among the Greens is experiencing of certain ecological disaster. The reward for the cleansing of sins in Christianity is heaven, and among the Greens it is the preservation of nature, that is, attaining heaven on earth.

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The ethics of self-discipline, self-control, self-saving has elements of religious ethics. The Greens are much more critical of industrialism than the socialists. They actually constitute an essential critique of industrialism. Socialists are not essentially criticizing industrialism; they are dissatisfied with the distribution of the results of industrialism and blame it on capitalism. But when they were in a position to create and implement policies themselves, socialists encouraged industrial development. They retain the industrial way of production, but insist that the workers be given better working conditions and that the distribution of the results of the work be done in a fairer way. Greens, on the contrary, believe that industrialism in itself brings serial, mass production, consumerism, and destruction of nature. The Greens do not go into the question of how the results of industrial production are distributed according to a capitalist or socialist model. Both models are wrong, because both models are based on industrialism and stimulate consumerism that ultimately destroys nature. Greens started as protest, environmental movements to transform into a political project, becoming part of parliaments in many countries, and in certain cases also part of government coalitions. Dealing with environmental problems was something that was missing from political life. The awareness of this problem among a significant part of the population was growing, but the traditional political parties did not know how to deal with it in a satisfactory way. It can be said that the Greens managed to establish their own political niche, their own political narrative, their own interpretation of society, their own vision for future. In that way, they transformed the structure of politics more unconsciously than consciously. The establishment of the Green parties inevitably imposed the need to study them seriously at the level of ideas they have about politics, at the level of concepts that derive from those ideas, at the level of a social structure that is ready to support such ideas, at the level of an organizational structure that is used as an instrument for the implementation of environmentalist ideas, but also as a mechanism for their popularization and attraction of new voters. This study will address exactly those questions.

1.2  The Organizational Structure of the Book If they are not a new social phenomenon, then the Greens as we know them today are a relatively new political phenomenon. They began to appear first as a political movement, to later transform themselves into

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political parties implementing specific policies. In this book, we will try to show that the Greens are an authentic political phenomenon that has strong features of left libertarianism in terms of the social status of the supporters, the way of organizing the socio-political subjects, the values on which they base their policies. The thesis of a left-libertarian underpinning of Greens is not new and dates back to the late 1880s when it was first put forward by Kitschelt (1988), but our book is the first more systematic attempt since Kitschelt to show the tenability of this thesis on several levels of analysis. Since in the first chapter we will consider the basic assumptions on the basis of which a systematic analysis of the Greens can be made, in the second we will move on to the analysis of the political philosophy of the Greens, in the third chapter we will turn our attention to the political thought of the Greens, in the fourth chapter we will focus on the history, development, and characteristics of the Green parties, in the fifth chapter we will focus on the ideological orientation of the Green parties, and finally in the seventh chapter we will critically observe the Green political ideology. At all levels of analysis that will be presented, the symbiosis between left libertarianism and the Greens will be clearly seen. Many believe that libertarians do not have a friendly attitude toward nature (Wissenburg, 2019: 1), but this does not mean that libertarianism and the protection of nature cannot be reconciled. Left libertarians have done that successfully. At the level of political philosophy they reconciled the principles of property protection and environmental protection. A collective subject that was ready to accept their theses was the new middle class, which was created after the Second World War. These are people who do not have to worry about their material well-being and have post-­ materialist values. However, post-materialist values do not mean that they have given up on material goods, but only that they have achieved them and that is precisely why they have room to prioritize other more important things such as environmental protection. Left libertarians advocate the protection of nature from a position of protecting property rights. It usually takes some time to really understand social phenomena, to study them, to analyze them, to see the direction in which they are moving. About 50 years have passed since the emergence of the Greens as a party and a well-rounded ideology, and the time has come to make serious analysis of their characteristics, the direction in which they are moving and pushing society with them. Ideologies usually represent a set of values and ideas, a social structure that supports them, and a political organization that identifies with them and builds policies based on them. In the case of

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the Greens, all these things happened spontaneously, without being mutually coordinated in advance. The establishment of social movements, and later parties, on the one hand, and the conception of ideas that nourished and supported them complemented each other. It happened to promote ideas and concepts that cause social attention, as well as social and political collective action and conversely social reality created preconditions for the analysis and crystallization of certain unconventional ideas about politics. The basic idea of the Greens is dissatisfaction with the pollution of nature. It was an occasion for the development of a social philosophy. While people were engaged in bare subsistence, with survival they had no time to think about protecting the environment. Ever since a not small layer of people, after the Second World War, especially after the 1960s, solved their existential problems, began to deal with the environment and to place the issue of nature pollution in the center of attention. Somewhat later, in the 1970s and 1980s, this issue began to be drawn into the sphere of politics through the establishment of political parties which have the support of a specific layer of citizens who were looking for a specific policy, different from the previously known conventional politics. Green ideology can be considered at the level of political philosophy, a set of ideas about politics, at the level of values, at the level of social reality as socio-political structures in the form of social movements and political parties, as public policies implemented by parties, and at the level of policy concepts. In that sense, the Greens can be seen as a magnificent tree whose trunk is politics, philosophy and political thought, whose canopy rests on specific political values, which further have branches in political movements, political parties. They shape the Greens as a political ideology. That ideology, especially some of its elements, is subject to criticism. This is how the book “The Left Libertarianism of the Greens” will be structured. In order to give the reader an idea of the basic characteristics of the Greens, in the first chapter we will begin by looking at some of the basic issues related to the Green ideology, such as the distinction between the terms environmentalism, ecologism, and green, to further make a brief recapitulation of the development of the idea about the Green ideology. We will conclude the first chapter by considering the relationship between Greens and modernization, Greens and industrialization, and Greens and science. In the second chapter, we will address the question of the political philosophy of the Greens which is very specific. The policies and concepts of the Greens derive from it. The political philosophy of the Greens is a

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combination of two things, opposition to environmental pollution, which at the level of a negative concept began to develop during the time when the Greens were in the stage of a social movement and called themselves environmentalists. This idea was further combined with positive concepts on which the policies of the Green parties were built since their foundation, but also the broader ethical-political concept characteristic of the Green ideology. The protection of the environment is not derived by the Greens from the concept of class that would be characteristic of classical left-oriented socialist or social democratic parties, nor from the concept of free market economy that would be characteristic of liberals, neoliberals, and neo-conservatives,2 but it’s based on the concept of community found in left-libertarian political philosophy. Hence in the second chapter we will deal with the question of how the Greens used left libertarianism to develop their political philosophy. The basic ideas from the mix of left libertarianism and the Greens, such as the attitude toward nature protection, the attitude toward property, the attitude toward the state, the attitude toward the welfare state, the attitude toward the Green state, etc., are the basis of public policies and the ethical-political concepts of Greens. The third chapter is devoted to the analysis of the political thought of the Greens and its most significant concepts. Those concepts are drawn from and correspond to the political philosophy of the Greens, as well as to the public policies implemented by the Green parties. Unlike the political philosophy of the Greens, which relies on a series of basic values that determine the direction in which it moves and the goals that the Green political ideology wants to achieve, the ethical-political concepts are more concrete and represent a road map that leads to the desired goal. The ethical-political concepts of the Greens are aligned with the public policies that the Greens apply. It can be said that the public policies of the Greens in individual areas apply the principles established in the ethical-political concepts. Such concepts are the return to nature, human nature, sustainable development, green citizenship, etc. In the fourth chapter we consider the issue of environmentalism as a new social movement as the immediate predecessor of the Green parties. In addition to the idea of development of nature protection, an analysis of the social structure that supports such an idea is introduced here—the new middle classes, their values, as well as the organizational structure of the 2  Left libertarians do not deny the free market economy, on the contrary it is very important to them, but according to them it should be a function of the community.

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movement. According to all three points, the social structure, the values that drive it and the organizational structure, the new social movements are innovative and previously unseen on the public stage. The ideas themselves at this stage are scarce, defensive, aimed only at opposing pollution, but without offering their own vision for the development of society that occurs in the next stage when new social movements transition into political parties. The fifth chapter analyzes the process of formation of the Green parties in a historical perspective and their institutionalization. As a continuation of the previous chapter, we refer to the social structure and the political organization of the Green parties, which does not differ much from that of the new social movements, which is logical when it is known that the new social movements were the basis on which the Green parties were formed. In this chapter, the public policies of the Greens can be identified. Their origin is found in the political philosophy of the Greens, which is the subject of analysis in the second chapter. The sixth chapter analyzes the Greens as a political ideology, as well as the relationship with other political ideologies. In addition to defining the Green ideology, in this chapter we will determine the ideological orientation of the Green parties and the place of the Greens in the political spectrum. Here we will define the Green Policy as a new, authentic policy. At the end, the family of Green parties and the place and role of the Greens in the European Parliament will be presented. The seventh and final chapter of the book is titled “The Greens and Democracy: A Critical Review of Green Political Ideology.” This chapter covers three topics: The Greens and Democracy, The Greens and Populism, and A Critical Review of Green Political Ideology.

1.3  The Difference Between Environmentalism, Ecologism, and the Greens Ecologism and environmentalism are two sides of what was once called the Green Movement, which was later taken as the basis for the formation of Green parties and the conduct of Green policies. Although the term ecologism and environmentalism were once used as synonyms, today there is an increasing distinction between them. The differences between these two terms are not so small and are related to the meaning attributed to them. Those who favored the use of the term ecology consider that it

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implies a system of living organisms in nature, in contrast to environmentalism, which is a more superficial concept and implies raw materials and resources that surround people (Wissenburg, 2019: 292). The difference between these two concepts is particularly noticeable in the European political tradition in which environmentalism is associated with a more conservative, moderate approach to environment protection, in contrast to ecologism which tends to solve environmental protection problems in a more radical way (Sargent, 2009: 277). Unlike ecologists, many members of the environmentalist movement are convinced that the problems with the destruction of the environment can be solved by applying scientific methods and public policies whose instrumentation already exists in the current political system (Doherty, 2002: 1). The term “ecology” was introduced by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866. For him, ecology meant the relationship between organisms and the environment in which they live. The term ecology has its basis in the Greek “oikos,” which means household or habitat, and logos— science. Initially, ecology as a science dealt with the systematic relationship between plants, animals, and the environment in which they exist. For ecologism, nature has its own value independent of the value attributed to it by humans. The term ecology was used to denote the study of the overall relationships between animals in their organic and inorganic environments. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, ecology has been recognized as a branch of biology that studies the relationships between living organisms and the environment in which they live. Since the 1960s and the growth of the Green Movement, this term has increasingly been used in a political connotation. From this period, ecologism is spoken of as a new ideology (Heywood, 2017). However, given the origin of the term, it is used more to capture the moment of scientism associated with contemporary mainstream science than the moment of political connotations associated with the political engagement of individuals seeking to protect nature. Ecology’s claim to being scientific implies that it accepts the use of authoritarian technological solutions for the preservation of nature. Some advocates of the idea that nature should be protected through ecologism, such as André Gorz, do not think that ecology should produce ethics. According to them, ecologism should be morally neutral. Environmentalists have no understanding of such ideas. They believe that ecologism produces an ethic that uses authoritarian technological solutions, and in fact it should strive to produce an ethic that rejects anthropocentrism, which, according to environmentalists, ecologists do not

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(Sargent, 2009: 282). According to environmentalists, ecologists claim to be scientific as Marxism did, and do not reject anthropocentrism, which goes hand in hand with industrialization as did Marxism which was one of the biggest promoters of industrialism. It seems that in the sphere of politics and political thought the term environmentalism is more domesticated, while in the domain of individual behavior the term ecology is used more. Those who write about the ideology related to the protection of nature, write about “environmental thought” and about “green thought.” In addition to that, the British Ecology Party changed its name to the British Green Party (Vincent, 2010: 198). Many ecologists associate ecologism with a personal attitude and pattern of behavior in one’s own life. In that sense, they associate ecologism with concrete actions such as buying products made from recycled material, using public transport, etc. Environmentalism as a term like ecologism began to be used from the 1950s to denote concepts and theories whose central idea was that human life can only be understood in context and as part of nature. The word environment represents a set of all external influences and conditions that had an impact on life, organisms, or the community. Environment includes the physical environment in which organisms live, including land, water, air, minerals, flora, fauna, noise, etc. (Goel & Goel, 2011: 193). Environment means the external, natural environment of organisms and all that it includes. Environmentalism is a broad and loose concept that can refer to various opinions about environment protection, which are associated with a particular organized group or a loose network of individuals protesting for environment protection (Doherty, 2002: 1). Environmentalism covers a wide range of scientific, religious, political, economic beliefs that support the contemporary Green Movement. Although he perceives the problems like ecologism and has the same ultimate goal—to solve them, unlike ecologism, environmentalism uses a more moderate approach and believes that serious ecological problems can be solved within the existing political and economic structures, without fundamental changes in values. For that purpose, it is necessary to have a wise government, appropriate legislation, and environmentalist policies. Ecologism on the other hand is a set of ideas about politics that call for radical socio-political change and a fundamental rethinking and rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature (Heywood, 2017; Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 275). The ecological crisis is so great that it requires a complete reorganization of the social, political, economic system and changing fundamental human values. Ecologism believes in a

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radical transformation of society, while environmentalism believes that the problems of environmental destruction can be overcome within the existing political, economic, and cultural system (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 274). According to Barry (2014: 1), ecologism is more concerned with the material, metabolic dimension of the human-nonhuman world relationship, while environmentalism is concerned with the ethical and political status of the nonhuman world. Ecologism indicates a focus on nature and nature’s relationship with people, but does not allow enough space for dealing with non-ecological topics, that is, with topics that are not explicitly and openly related to nature. Environmentalism, by opening the issue of resource management, goes toward opening a wider space for conducting an environmentalist policy. Environmentalism as policy focuses on taking measures to reduce pollution and environmental degradation, which includes broader issues such as the ways in which the use of nature is planned for the well-being of people. Classic policy questions related to environmentalism are air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, regulation of hazardous substances, regulation of waste, noise pollution, biodiversity, and the protection of endangered species and the protection of unique landscapes and natural reserves (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 114). Environmentalism as a policy contains many policy questions related to how human behavior potentially degrades the environment. Environment policy is closely related to other policies such as energy policy, agricultural policy, etc. In these areas there are issues that have points of contact and impact on environmental policy. Such is the question for or against the introduction of the use of nuclear energy. It is part of the energy policy, but it has serious consequences for the environment. The issue of ecological farming, organic food production is similar. It is part of the agricultural policy, but with a serious impact on the environment. On the issue of environmentalism, there is almost a consensus in society. Everyone agrees that there is an environmental problem that needs to be addressed. Nowadays, to claim that environmental protection is not needed is bordering on political suicide. The environmental problem is measurable and to some extent solvable. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to measure and solve environmental problems. But unlike some other problems, with the environment it is easier to see the connection between certain policies and the reduction of pollution. If we trace the prehistory of environmentalism, we will come to the realization that it was connected with the preservation and conservation

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movements of the nineteenth century. These movements were mainly aimed at forest protection (Heywood, 2017). Over time, especially with the progress of modernization and urbanization processes, the term “Green” was used more and more. More and more social movements and organizations began to define themselves as green, and green policies began to be placed high on the political agenda in industrialized societies. Since the 1950s, “Green” as a term has been used to denote a mix of environmentalist and ecological issues and topics. It solves the dilemma opened by Dobson (2000: 3) whether environmentalists and ecologists differ so much that we are talking about a difference in quality and not in nuances, so they must be kept separate like separate political philosophies for example socialism and liberalism. Although they differ significantly in approach, the basis of both terms is the same protection of nature. The term Greens is more general and covers the more moderate “minimalist” approach to nature protection promoted and applied by environmentalists and the more radical “maximalist” approach to nature protection applied by ecologists. On certain issues such as the method of political struggle, the Greens are often closer to environmentalism, but they do not reject the approach of ecologists as unacceptable. On other issues, such as the attitude toward the state, the Greens are closer to the ecologists and, unlike the environmentalists, they believed that the state only disturbs the ecological balance and is not a good, sufficiently broad framework in which the attitude of people toward nature should be resolved (Gökpinar, 2019: 167). Green as a term is characteristic of the sphere of politics and it unites environmentalism which is mainly used in the sphere of civic activism and environmentalism which is mainly used in the scientific sphere. Thus, the Greens as politicians have their own base and history in civil activism, but they claim to have their own foundation in the scientific sphere as well and to change the fundamental social values on which consumerism is based. The issue of the integration of environmentalism and ecologism into Green political ideology is a matter of identity building by invoking the proto-environmentalist tradition of nature conservation, which cannot be done with ecologists insisting on strict explicit scientific positions alone, which cannot be found before the second half of the twentieth century. The inclusion of ecologism, on the other hand, gives the Green ideology an element of ideological purity, and to some extent fanaticism in the protection of the environment. The issue of the integration of environmentalism and ecologism into Green political ideology is a practical political issue. Ecologism gives ideological purity to the Green political ideology,

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but it is followed by a small number of selected people. Politics, in addition to the ideological thread, requires massiveness and activism, which the Green political ideology draws from the traditions of environmentalism. Since the 1970s the term Greens has been used to denote the growing number of Green parties. Today, the term Greens is used to denote Green political philosophy, Green policies, and Green ideology. The policies of the Green parties were based on the ideas of environmentalism and ecologism. The use of the term “Green” in scientific purposes could be problematic because it is imprecise, because it is used very often, uncritically, and by many authors in different contexts and with different meanings. In its beginnings, the term “Green” evoked associations of left-oriented policies for the protection of nature (Vincent, 2010: 198), because some of the activists had such a background, but as time passed, it became clear that the Greens are an authentic, independent political force. The scope of the term Greens extends from political thought and activities that are moderate in demands for nature conservation, to demands for fundamental social changes and a rethinking of the relationship between humanity and nature. The flexibility of the term goes so far that almost any political party can say it implements Green policies. But the Green parties only identify themselves as such. Their political identity is Green, in contrast to the social democratic, socialist, liberal, conservative parties which, among other things, may implement Green policies, but primarily identify as social democrats, socialists, liberals, conservatives. In addition to that, the Green parties have a specific rhetoric that emphasizes the protection of nature. The rhetoric is based on the political tradition of the parties. Just as parties that identify with other ideologies may implement Green policies, Green parties may also implement policies that belong to a different ideological tradition, but this happens on the periphery of political activity, or rather it is not the primary policy which the Green parties advocate and implement (Williams, 1999: 3).

1.4  A Brief Prehistory of the Development of Green Political Thought There are authors who claim that people lived in harmony with nature since Neolithic times, but it seems that there is not enough solid scientific evidence for such claims (Lewis, 1992). Ideas about the beauty of nature

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and the village way of life can be found in many poets in ancient Greece and Rome. They idealized life in nature. In that period, one can find authors such as Plato, Lucretius, and Ceaser who write about problems with land erosion (Awe & Adedoja, 2020: 13). At the level of ideas about living in harmony with the laws of nature Greens can go back to pagan religions that developed the concept of Mother Earth (Heywood, 2017). As an argument for the need to pay more attention to the environment, some authors give the fate of the Mayan civilization, whose tragic fate is partly due to the destruction of forests and land erosion (Carter, 2007: 21). Among the Greens, one can sense a thread of criticism toward European enlightenment and the trust it has in rationality. The Enlightenment believed that nature could be rationally understood and manipulated for the benefit of humans. It can be said that the Enlightenment had a mechanistic view of nature. It can be disassembled and assembled into its component parts, as it suits man. Francis Bacon, for example, proved that nature can be atomized, divided into parts, into basic components from which knowledge can be obtained that will help to manipulate it for the purposes of people (Carter, 2007). The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century ontologically separated the world of human freedom, values, and culture from that of other forms of life (Latoir, 2013). Greens have a holistic and organic view of nature. They do not analyze the environmentalist issues of biodiversity loss, land degradation, deforestation, global warming, the ozone hole as isolated, atomistic, independent of each other, but on the contrary the environmentalist issues Greens see as part of a whole, interconnected and interdependent. Nature can best be understood and protected by understanding how the parts of ecosystems are interconnected, and not by analyzing the parts and making decisions about them as separate, independent, self-sufficient wholes (Bomnerg, 2005: 10). Nature is not a simple collection of parts that can be disassembled and assembled as needed. It is an organic unity of interdependent parts. Just as environmental issues are not isolated from each other, the environment is not isolated from political, social, and economic issues and problems. Greens sometimes speculate on the natural lifestyle of “primitive” people, as they assume how they lived before “civilization” and Christianization (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 281). The position that nature in itself has no value is especially criticized (Vincent, 2010: 198). The contribution of science, and especially the Enlightenment, to the triumph of rationality, the criticism of traditional authorities and the expansion of the ideas of liberalism can hardly be contested, but it is also undeniable

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that the ideas of the Enlightenment, science, and technology are often misused, which ends in degradation of nature (Carter, 2007: 14). There are important medieval and renaissance poets who celebrated the natural world and its spiritual values. Although they celebrated her, people at the same time feared nature, its unpredictability, the mercilessness of natural disasters (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 276). In that sense, the idea developed that nature without human intervention is wild and unpredictable. Enlightenment with its faith in education, emancipation projected a man who is the master of his destiny, he does not depend on nature, but manages it. The development of Cartesian philosophy and Newtonian physics enabled the development of industrialization, the mastery of nature and its use to meet the needs of people. With the development of industrialization, natural resources began to be used so much that nature began to be destroyed. It created preconditions for concern about the destruction of nature and natural resources. Intellectuals began to register it. Thus, Rousseau is generally critical of the interventions in nature, which are made by the “civilized” man. He idealizes the peaceful agrarian world, which was destroyed before the onslaught of industrialization and urbanization. It seems that in the Enlightenment reaction one can look for the first signs of what would later develop into a Green ideology. Here one can find the first signs of challenging the superiority of reason, the primary place of humans on the planet, the idea that nature has no value in itself and can therefore be manipulated depending on the needs of humans (Dobson, 2000: 23). Nineteenth-century romanticism, with its idealization of unspoiled wilderness, can be seen as a reaction to both the Enlightenment and the development of industrialism. Within the framework of romanticism, special attention is paid to the beauty of rural landscapes, mountains, forests, and oceans, which were previously seen as dangerous, hostile places. We note the first attempts to protect nature in the nineteenth century. On the normative level, we see the first attempt to protect nature in Great Britain with the Alkali Act, which was adopted in 1863, while in the United States in 1876 in St Louis, the regulation for protection against air pollution was adopted (Carter, 2007: 4). In that period, toward the end of the nineteenth century, we note the emergence of the first groups that are focused on the idealization of nature, such as the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, which aimed to promote the responsible use of natural resources, to protect wild, untouched natural beauty, to restore the quality of the natural environment, etc. (Stoddart et al., 2022: 4).

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Ideas similar to those found today among the Greens in the nineteenth century were fragmented, piecemeal, indirect, easily inclined to one of the options on the left-right political spectrum, and could hardly be spoken of as an ideology (Dobson, 2000). Thus, for example, the “back to nature” movement that emerged in Great Britain in the nineteenth century, due to its opposition to liberal industrialism, was perceived as left-oriented. Until the end of the nineteenth century, resistance and opposition to mass industrial production was reduced to individual reactions, so that in the second half of the nineteenth century we can see the formation of the first conservation organizations (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 354). Ideas for the protection of nature begin to enter the political field more seriously in the first half of the twentieth century. Ideas of energy environmentalism can be found in the first decades of the twentieth century in France, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany (Bramwell, 1989: 85), although Gould (1988) indicates that such a perception was strained. The Nazis had the idea of using alternative sources of energy and protecting the Earth (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 276). The increasing use of natural resources after the Second World War and the presence in the public sphere of topics such as the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, the spread of nuclear energy production and nuclear weapons, the impact of the use of motor vehicles and road construction on the environment and health of humans, and the destruction of the animal world stimulated the development of movements for the protection of nature. Such movements were ecologism and environmentalism. As Tokar (1992) points out, the Green Movement traces its origins to the great social and political upheavals that swept the Western world in the 1960s. The movement was based on the growing awareness of nature conservation and previous attempts to do so. A surge of disaffected liberals from the 1960s gave the movement characteristics that the early Greens would have found offensive (Sullivan, 1992). Dobson (2000: 33) seems to rightly identify the 1972 publication of “The Limits of Growth” as the birthplace of the systematization of ideas for environment conservation into a consistent political orientation. Until the appearance of this report, environmentalists were locally oriented, on a specific issue and lacked systematic approach and global perspective. Parallel to the development of the environmentalist movement in the 1980s and 1990s, many texts, articles, books, and TV programs appeared in the public sphere that talked about the damage to the ozone layer, the increasing rate of extinction of rare animals, the depletion of resources, the danger to the biosphere from new types of pollution

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etc. It contributed to the development of awareness that the environmental problem is global. The presence in the public sphere of the ideas of nature protection was in symbiosis with the activities of the environmentalist movement and somewhat later the formation of the Green parties. With the formation of the Green parties, their election results which in certain situations enabled them to form coalition governments, to implement Green policies, the Greens grew into a fully rounded political ideology. At the level of political theory Barry (2014: 4) identifies two waves of development of the political theory of the Greens. The first wave was characterized by the attempt to distinguish ecologism from the political practice of the Greens. The second wave was characterized by a debate between the political theory of the Greens and the political theories of other political ideologies such as liberalism, feminism, socialism, critical theory, etc. Those debates are focused on concepts like democracy, justice, state, citizenship, etc. Today we attend the third wave of Green political theory. It is characterized by interdisciplinarity and applicability. It is almost impossible to talk about the political thought of the Greens today without entering a field that emerges from politics, political science, and political theory.

1.5  Greens and Modernization Greens question the basic values and beliefs of modern society. According to Baudrillard (1987: 64) modernity is the ideology of contemporary society. In the absence of an alternative vision of progress, modernization has become a feature of contemporary civilization (see Table  1.1). Modernization destroyed the environment and instrumentalized nature. Although they have a negative attitude toward industrialization as a significant part of modernization, the Greens highly value some of the greatest achievements of modernization such as the French Revolution, which brought a republican arrangement of the state, a democratic political system and the emancipation of the broad masses of people not only in France, but around the world (Barry, 2014: 2). Science and economics accept the dominance of humans over nature as a measure of human progress, but the Greens are critical on this issue (Gökpinar, 2019: 168). Modernization creates a worldview in which humans are fundamentally different and superior to other life forms on Earth. The logic that emerges from the processes of modernization treats people as masters of their own

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Table 1.1  Characteristics of modernization Feature type

Description of the feature

Homo economicus Progressivism

Economic well-being is primary and leads to well-being in other spheres of human life Technology will solve all problems. With the help of technology, people are moving toward an ever-increasing abundance in which they live Mass production satisfies the needs of consumers and is the source of their happiness Material wealth is the source of happiness Individual interests and the pursuit of individual benefit take precedence over collective interests

Industrialism Consumerism Individualism

Source: Spretnak (1997: 41)

destiny and of the planet. People can use nature as they see fit. There are unlimited resources in the world that give people a multitude of options. Human ingenuity will solve all problems, and progress will never stop (Catton & Dunlap, 1980: 18). Part of the legacy of modernization is the colonialism and imperialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the Greens condemn as a form of environmentalist injustice and as a form of environmentalist debt that developed countries owe to developing countries (Barry, 2014: 2). Colonial powers did great damage to regional ecosystems, local communities, and cultural traditions in Third World countries. Post-colonial states sought growth at any cost, including overexploitation of natural resources. They are not essentially against the exploitation of natural resources, but against the distribution of resource exploitation. The idea is that local residents, companies, states, etc. participate very little in the distribution. The model based on rapid economic development dictated the rapid development of industrialization, facilitating international trade, building infrastructure for mass local production, etc. The byproducts of rapid economic growth are the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, and increasing pollution of air, water, and soil. The consumer society created a pleasant environment for work, consumption, use of free time, but also for a suffering, impoverished, and polluted world (Talshir, 2002: 5). Some advocates of the idea of nature protection, especially those who were Marxist-oriented like André Gorz, considered that the struggle for nature protection was not an end in itself, but was part of the larger struggle against capitalism. Such an understanding of the role of the struggle

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for nature protection was rejected by the Greens, for whom nature protection is not part of other wider ideologies, but an ideology unto itself (Sargent, 2009: 282).

1.6  Greens and Industrialism Industrialization and technological development have contributed a lot to raising people’s quality of life, but at the same time they have created many problems, primarily of an environmental nature. Because of this, the awareness of nature protection began to grow, and issues related to it became part of the political agenda (Gökpinar, 2019: 164). Industrialization was not a simple change made only by change in the mode of production. It transforms people’s awareness of their place in the world, their relationship to the environment, above all to nature. There is an impression that people before industrialization had more respect for nature than since the process of industrialization took place. In that period, people cared much more about nature and took from it only what they really needed. Such a relationship to nature existed deep throughout history from the times of living in tribal communities, from the times of shamans, mystics, gurus, etc. (Vincent, 2010: 200). But the question arises, did the people in that generation respect nature more because they could not master it, so they had to obey it, or the respect stemmed from the awareness that nature must be protected and left as such to the next generations. However, it seems that the first alternative is much more likely. With the advent of industrialism, the attitude toward nature begins to change. Nature begins to be perceived as an object that is subordinate to people and that should satisfy their needs. The emergence of environmentalism and the Greens is a consequence of the attitude toward nature that was cultivated under the influence of industrialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The emergence of industrialism influenced the construction of an anthropocentric worldview. It was standardized in the twentieth century. The anthropocentric world was philosophically based on the conquest of nature, spiritually on materialism, economically on consumerism. In such conditions it was very difficult to raise awareness about the importance of nature protection. The very term “industrialism” is used by the theorists of Greens as a “super ideology,” a “meta-ideology” that transcends capitalism and socialism, left-right divisions. As an economic system, industrialism is characterized by mass production, capital accumulation, and economic growth at

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any cost. Industrialism generates the belief that all human needs can be met by a steady increase in industrial productivity. As a philosophy, industrialism is based on materialism, utilitarian values, unquestioning trust in science and technology. Therefore for many Greens, industrialism is a serious problem (Heywood, 2017; Porritt, 1984). From an economic point of view, industrialism does not work only on the side of generating a larger supply, that is, on the growth of production, but in parallel works on the production of demand through the creation of entire industries such as marketing, advertising, public relations. They aim to impose needs on people that will later be satisfied by increased production. The most significant characteristics of industrialism according to Ian Adams (1998: 177) are the following: • Commitment to economic growth, industry expansion, and constant technological innovation • Belief in the primacy of satisfying people’s material needs • Centralized bureaucratic control of production • Maximal confidence in the rationality of science • Large entities in industry, but also in administration are the most efficient • Giving preference to patriarchy and male values such as constant competition and aggressiveness • Anthropocentric worldview. All resources that exist on Earth must be used for human needs • Hierarchical social structure where power and wealth are concentrated among those at the top of the pyramid • Economic logic dominates society, and moral, social, and artistic values are secondary The development of society based on the principles of industrialism is disastrous both for society and for planet Earth. Industrialization meant the mechanization of production and the devastation of the countryside. Principles on which industrialization operates lead to rapid exploitation of physical and biological resources, environmental degradation, and eventual ecological collapse. Such a system of values leads people to material and spiritual poverty, even in the most developed countries of the world (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 284; Barry, 2014: 2). It can be said that anti-­ industrialism is immanent to the Greens, but anti-industrialism should not be confused with anti-capitalism, although historically they have often

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been mixed. Until the Second World War, anti-industrialism was generally perceived as anti-capitalism, although the Soviets after the October Revolution were not anti-industrialists, but on the contrary forced accelerated industrialization. At the same time, some of the nature protection societies such as the Commons Preservation Society in Great Britain did not necessarily promote anti-capitalism, but recommended living in nature, in the open space to overcome the dark discontent of the workers caused by the class conflict (Gould, 1988: 90). A clear separation of anti-­ industrialism and anti-capitalism came in the 1960s and 1970s, when members of the new middle classes entered the environmentalist movement, opposing environmental pollution, mass production, consumerism, but in general they had nothing against private property. The anti-­ industrialism of the environmentalists and later of the Greens, caused a reaction from industrialism which was primarily supported by people who worked in the industry, especially the industries that were the most affected by the environmentalists such as the forestry industry. Those who reacted to environmentalism were mostly people who feared for their jobs and material well-being. In the United States the anti-environmentalist reaction fueled by industrialism was channeled into the Wise Use Movement which opposed market regulation fueled by environmentalist impulses. That movement has become part of mainstream American political discourse. Today, similar positions in terms of environment protection can be found among the Tea Party (Stoddart et al., 2022: 7). Environmentalism seems to have developed mostly as a reaction to industrialization. It is obvious that in the nineteenth century, wherever the industry and the urban way of living developed, the nostalgia for rural life and the idealization of the village grew simultaneously. It can be seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy and the British liberal socialist William Morris. The reaction is greatest in the countries that went through the fastest and most dramatic process of modernization. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, for example, in less than 30 years, Germany became a major industrial power, capable of being measured against the economic power of the previously unassailable Great Britain and the United States. This experience scared the German political culture, which created myths about the purity and dignity of rural life, which was the impetus for the growth of the “back to nature” movement, which had great support among young people in Germany. Romantic pastoralism in the twentieth century was used by nationalists and fascists (Heywood, 2017). In the period after 1945, industrial growth had frightening

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dimensions. The acceleration of growth in recent decades has been alarming. The industrial growth that began to take place around the world in the late 1990s was causing anxiety, especially in countries with large populations like India and China. The concern of the general public about the degradation of the environment, its impact on climate change as a way of thinking that enters the environmentalist worldview can be registered through the organization of the United Nations conference in Kyoto, 1997 (Vincent, 2010: 199; Dalton et al., 2003: 743). A significant contribution to the study of the relationship between economic development and the growth of the Greens was the study of Lowe and Goyder (1983). They argue that there are waves of creating concern about environmental problems. The first wave is 1880 to 1900, the second 1918–1939, the third 1950s–1970s. Each of the periods when concerns about environmental problems are expressed more emphatically, the 1890s, 1920s, 1950s, 1970s, coincide with the end of business cycles in the world. Once the material needs of certain sectors in society are satisfied through the achievement of economic prosperity, people begin to ask the question of the cost of that prosperity in terms of pollution and damage to nature. Those who express concern about environmental problems are members of social classes that are on the periphery of industrialism such as university professors, teachers, artists, priests, social workers, etc. The radical demographic, technological, and socio-economic transformation that took place at the end of the nineteenth century forced the Western empires to rely much more on natural resources to achieve rapid and large economic growth. A significant factor here is the development of democracy in which the states, especially the parties in each of the states, have discovered that in order to convince the citizens to vote for them, they need to constantly improve the standard of living, and in order to do this, the economy and industry need to be in constant growth. The world’s resources were incorporated into a single capitalist and competitive international market. The consequence of this was a rapid depletion of resources on a global scale. This has raised concerns about nature conservation. That concern made its way first onto the societal scene in the form of social movements, and later as a political issue, significant enough to inspire the formation of political parties. In those moments, a real danger loomed from a nuclear war that was an existential danger to every individual on the planet. In addition to that, the arms race was accelerating, there was a danger of icebergs melting and coastal flooding, etc. (Talshir, 2002: 5). The Greens rest on a critique of industrialism as a super

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ideology. For them, industrialism affects the destruction of the human environment more than capitalism and socialism. In fact, the two systems capitalism and socialism rested on industrialism, that is, in their essence they are industrialist systems. The difference between them is not whether, but how to develop industrialism to achieve higher economic growth. The Greens’ advocacy of limiting economic growth is difficult to explain to trade unionists and people working in the car industry for example. They are opposed to the exploitation of workers, but not to production itself and to industrialism. Namely, the trade unionists had remarks that workers are exploited within the framework of industrial production. They do not demand a reduction in industrial production, but only that it is organized in such a way that it would be fair to all parties involved in production, especially to the workers. The Greens, on the other hand, believe that in industrial production the real exploitation takes place over natural resources that are depleted more than their capacity to regenerate. That is why the Greens insist on limiting growth. In developed and industrialized countries such as Germany, opposition to increased industrial production and consumerism causes mistrust of the Greens’ agenda (McBride, 2022). The very appearance first of environmentalism as a social movement, and later of the Greens as a political structure, indicates the transformation of society from an industrial one based on the classical division in the left-­ right political spectrum, to a post-industrial society that goes beyond the indicated division (Barry, 2014: 2). The constant increase in production within the framework of industrialism is conditioned and made possible by the advancement of technology and the implementation of technological innovations in the production process. Greens are convinced that control over technology is a prerequisite for nature protection. Suspicion of advanced technologies is a significant and ever-present theme in Green circles, whether it is the use of pesticides and chemicals in agricultural production, genetically modified food, innovations that enable nuclear power generation, etc. (Carter, 2007: 49). Greens question the assumption that technology can find a solution to environmental problems and that the benefits of using new technological solutions are always greater than the price paid for their introduction into social reality. Greens are not Luddites and they acknowledge the achievements that technology has made in raising the standard of living of citizens, especially through the advancement of medicine. They are aware that technology can help solve environmental problems. But the problems are more serious and are not in the field of technology, but in

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social values and changing the lifestyle of individuals. Technology can help, but it cannot solve the environmental problem unless the lifestyle of individuals changes. The Greens do not demand a halt to technological development, but greater democratic control over the development and use of technology. They demanded decentralization of control over the application of technology. The control over the implementation of new technologies with possible consequences for the environment should not be held by large corporations and the central government, but by the local communities in which the technologies would be implemented. Although the environmentalist movement is by its nature globalized, the problems that environmentalists pose are global; it shows tendencies to cooperate with the anti-globalist and anti-capitalist movements. The basic principles of industrialism: competitive individualism, materialism, and consumerism are woven into economic globalization, and globalization itself is hyper-industrialism. Greens criticize the institutions responsible for installing globalization. They blame the World Trade Organization for imposing a liberalized global market that has led to massive environmental pollution on a global scale. Also, the Greens accuse the World Bank of imposing economic policies whose only goal is economic growth, which has environmental pollution as a byproduct. The question arises whether and to what extent the Greens are compatible with post-industrialism. According to some authors, post-­industrialism itself has a dual meaning (Dobson, 2000: 5). On the one hand it uses advanced technology in the economy, based on services and creates wealth. On the other hand, post-industrialism can be seen as an economy and society that is decentralized, oriented to the individual, to small groups, and not to mass production. The Greens have a degree of compatibility with the second understanding of post-industrialism, but the question remains as to how representative it is of post-industrialism itself. Although probably the first association of the post-industrial society is not the Greens or environmentalism, certainly one of the characteristics of the modern post-industrial society is concern for environmental protection, efforts to use renewable energy sources, vegetarianism, etc.

1.7  Greens and Science Greens have an ambivalent attitude toward science. On the one hand, they oppose industrialism, which relies on science and scientific innovation. On the other hand, the Greens claim to be scientific. The Greens seek the

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basis of their political creed in the knowledge produced by environmental science in the nineteenth century, but also more recent scientific knowledge about global climate change, genetically modified food, etc. Part of the political theory of the Greens is the acceptance of Darwinian evolutionary theory, which provides answers to many questions about the relationship between man and nature (Barry, 2014: 2). It could be said that without the contribution of science, most of the issues raised by the Greens would not be part of the agenda of contemporary politics and the general public. Science is of great importance for the development of environmentalism and Green parties, because it provides facts about environmentalist problems, which the Greens take up and put on the agenda in the political arena. In that sense, science gives legitimacy to the claims of the Greens that there is destruction of nature, which has disastrous consequences for life on the planet (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 185; Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 281). But the attitude toward science and above all toward technology among the Greens is not unanimous and universal. Among the Greens, voices can be heard who claim that the development of science and technology causes environmental disasters and in that sense they are not part of the solution, but of the problem in efforts to protect the environment. Scientific and technological development is responsible for the discovery of internal combustion engines, nuclear energy, and biotechnology. Science and technology are responsible because they make it possible to arrive at more efficient and productive means of exploiting the resources of nature and destroying it. Greens generally criticize mechanism and the idea that through technological development humans dominate nature. Modern science imposes a mechanistic view of the world devoid of ethical considerations. Seen through that perspective, natural objects do not have their own intrinsic meaning and value, and as objects they are suitable for being exploited (Moore, 2015). According to the Greens, the relationship between people and nature should be based on cooperation, not dominance (Burchell, 2002: 13). With scientific methods, it is difficult to capture the spiritual moments of human nature, which are necessary for understanding the relationship of people to the environment. When nature is perceived through the application of scientific methods, one gets the impression that nature exists only to serve people, that natural phenomena exist only to be discovered by science and to be used by people. It should be borne in mind that science is not a homogeneous, but a heterogeneous structure. In that sense, the Greens based their ideology and policies on a part of science that identifies and points out the problems

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with the destruction of the environment, but has a critical attitude toward scientific discoveries that lead to the destruction of the environment. Just as science is not homogenous in relation to nature, so the Greens are not homogenous in relation to science. The more moderate structure, the environmentalists, believed that with all the criticisms of science, it could contribute to solving the problems of pollution of nature, while the more radical structure, the ecologists, rejected science and relied more on changes that could be made on the basis of religious and moral values that can restore balance to nature (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 281). When drawing up and creating policies, the Greens place more and more emphasis on the “precautionary principle.” This principle essentially means that the possible absence of irrefutable scientific evidence should not be taken as a reason for postponing policies to prevent environment degradation. The Greens are generally considered to be one of the ideologies that reduce the immanent distance between science and politics and introduce tensions between them by introducing emotions into the evaluation of science (Davies, 2020). To avoid such criticisms, the political theory of the Greens pays particular attention to the techno-fix mentality that prevails in industrialism. People who have complete faith in technology and industrialism recognize that environmental disasters do happen occasionally, but the solution to them is not to use less, but more technology. The idea is that environmental problems can be overcome through new technological discoveries and their implementation. Those who sympathize with the techno-fix perspective believe that the problems with ecology are not so serious as to require significant changes in the economic or political system, in the pattern of production and consumption (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 185). Overreliance on science and technology in determining the contours of environmental problems has led to environmental crises being depoliticized. They should not be seen as political and ethical problems, but as problems of science and technology. In that sense, a scientific approach can be taken to environmental problems and they can be left to the experts to deal with. Greens accept science, but they know that it can be politicized, that it is not a neutral instrument in the political context, that it has ethical implications, and with all these reservations it can be part of the solution to the problems of nature protection.

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References Adams, I. (1998). Ideology and Politics in Britain Today. Manchester University Press. Awe, K. S., & Adedoja, A. M. (2020). Green Political Ideology as a Imperative for Sustainable Society. International Journal for Advanced Academic Research, 6(6), 13–25. Barry, J. (2014). Green Political Theory. In V. Geoghegan & R. Wilford (Eds.), Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Routledge. Barry, J., & Dobson, A. (2004). Green Political Theory: Report. In G. F. Gerald & K. Chandran (Eds.), Handbook of Political Theory. Sage. Baudrillard, J. (1987). Modernity. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 21(3), 63–72. Bomnerg, E. (2005). Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. Routledge. Bookchin, M. (1989). Remaking Society. Black Rose. Bramwell, A. (1989). Ecology in the 20th Century. Yale University Press. Burchell, J. (2002). Development and Change within European Green Parties. Earthscan Publications Limited. Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press. Carter, N. (2013). Greening the Mainstream: Party Politics and the Environment. Environmental Politics, 13(1), 73–94. Catton, W., Jr., & Dunlap, R. (1980). The New Ecological Paradigm for Post Exuberant Paradigm. American Behavioral Scientist, 24(1), 15–47. Dalton, J.  R., Reccia, S., & Rohrschneider, R. (2003). The Environmental Movement and the Modes of Political Action. Comparative Political Studies, 20(10), 743–771. Davies, W. (2020). Green Populism?: Action and mortality in the Anthropocene. Environmental Values, 29(6), 647–668. Dobson, A. (2000). Green Political Thought: An Introduction. Routledge. Doherty, B. (2002). Ideas and the Action in Green Movement. Routledge. Goel, A., & Goel, V. (2011). The Need of Sustainable Environment as a Human Eight Issue. Journal of Art, Science and Commerce, 2(1), 192–212. Gökpinar, F. (2019). Green Theory and International Relations. In A. Tayyar & T. Elif (Eds.), Theories of International Relations 2. Anadolu University Press. Gould, P. (1988). Early Green Politics: Back to Nature, Back to the Land and Socialism in Britain 1880-1900. Harvester. Green-Pedersen, C. (2019). The Reshaping of West European Party Politics: Agenda Setting and Party Competition in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press.

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Guigni, M., & Grasso, T.  M. (2015). Environmental Movement in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Heterogeneity, Transformation and Industrialization. Annual Review of Environmental Recourses, 40, 337–361. Harrison, K., & Boyd, T. (2003). Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press. Heywood, A. (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. Kitschelt, H. (1988). Left  – Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovations in Comparative Party Systems. World Politics, 40(2), 194–234. Latoir, B. (2013). An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Harvard University Press. Lewis, M. (1992). Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism. Duke University Press. Lowe, P., & Goyder, J. (1983). Environmental Groups in Politics. Allen & Unwin. McBride, J. (2022). How Green Party Success is Reshaping Global Politics. Council of Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-­green-­party­success-­reshaping-­global-­politics Moore, W. J. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso Books. Porritt, J. (1984). Seeing Green. Blackwell. Sargent, T. L. (2009). Contemporary Political Theory. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Schumacher, E.  F. (1973). Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Metered. Blonde and Brigs. Spretnak, C. (1997). The Resurgence of the Real. Addison-Wesley. Stoddart, C. J. M., Tindall, D., & Dunlap, E. R. (2022). The Contours of Anti-­ Environmentalism: An Introduction to the Handbook of Anti-­ Environmentalism. In D. Tindall, C. J. M. Stoddart, & E. R. Dunlap (Eds.), Handbook of Anti-Environmentalism. Edward Elgar. Sullivan, D. (1992). Greens and Libertarians: The Yin and Yang of Our Political Future. Green Revolution, 49(2) https://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/ greenlibertarians.html Talshir, G. (2002). The Political Ideology of Green Parties: From the Politics of Nature to Redefining the Nature of Politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Tokar, B. (1992). The Green Alternative: Creating An Ecological Future. New Society Publishers. Vincent, A. (2010). Modern Political Ideologies. Wiley – Blackwell. Williams, M. (1999). Rethinking Green Parties: The Emergence and Electoral Success of Green Parties in Austria, Britain and the Netherlands  – Doctoral Dissertation. University of Sheffield. Wissenburg, M. (2019). The Concept of Nature in Libertarianism. Ethics, Policy and Environment, 22(3), 287–302.

CHAPTER 2

Environment Protection in a Left-Libertarian Political Philosophy

2.1   Introduction Since Kitschelt (1988), many have characterized the Greens as left libertarians. It’s almost become a platitude that goes along with the Greens all the time, but why is that? And what is libertarianism? As a political movement, libertarianism is a marginal phenomenon, with the exception of the United States, but therefore as a political philosophy it has a great influence on both economic and political thought (Wissenburg, 2019: 287). As a political philosophy, libertarianism is known for its commitment to property rights, the free market, the right of citizens to freely associate, the maximization of individual liberty as long as the liberty of others is not threatened, and strictly limited government. Most libertarians believe that these institutions have moral and pragmatic justification. The free market not only produces efficient results, but is the embodiment of respect for human rights. For libertarians, the individual right to property is inviolable. They place a strict limit on the scope of the immunity of government regulation. An individual’s right to justly acquired property cannot be taken from him, just because that property is more needed by someone else. According to the libertarians, the right to justly acquired private property cannot be taken away, even if taking it away would increase the welfare of society. Libertarians do not waive the right to justly acquired property when private property needs to be expropriated to build a

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highway. In such cases, the landlord must negotiate and reach an agreement. Without that, the land cannot be confiscated (Zwolinski, 2015). Libertarians are not anarchists, although in the nineteenth century libertarianism was associated with anarchism (Wissenburg, 2019: 290). They believe that a minimal state must be in place to protect the rights of individuals. Historically, anarchism in the nineteenth century was particularly closely associated with a subspecies of libertarianism—left libertarianism. It was characterized by pro-market but anti-capitalist positions compatible with individualist anarchism. In this incarnation, left libertarianism went hand in hand with radical feminism and the labor movement. A current variant of left libertarianism tries to strike a balance between individual property and an egalitarian approach to natural resources. Supporters of the current version of left libertarianism are not advocates of anarchist positions (Long, 2012: 227). However, libertarianism as a whole has divergent positions on a number of important issues. Thus, in terms of economic issues, libertarianism is predominantly right-oriented, but in terms of social issues, it is predominantly left-oriented, advocating for the expansion of individual rights that include opposition to the restriction of medicines, the imposition of religious positions, and mandatory military service (van der Vossen, 2022). Left libertarianism can be said to be an attempt to integrate libertarianism with issues that concern the left such as the working environment, social equality, gender equality, opposition to plutocracy, etc. (Long, 2012). According to Anthony Gregory (2006) left libertarianism tries to combine the personal freedom of individuals with egalitarianism, and opposes social hierarchy. He prefers a liberal lifestyle, opposes big corporations, imperialism, and war. As such, left libertarianism is the ideological underpinning of the New Left. Left libertarianism advocates horizontally organized, decentralized institutions, but also a similar organizational structure of the left, which according to left libertarians would include all left political movements with the exception of Leninists and social democrats (Carson, 2014). Left libertarians seek to oppose large corporations and business interests through the promotion of free market economy. Just as in the time of Smith and Ricardo classical liberalism attacked the dominant financial structures in society, above all the landowners, so today left libertarianism should protect the interests of people from global financial capital and transnational corporations. Left libertarianism should do this on the basis of free market positions, just as classical liberalism did in its day. In that sense, left libertarianism promotes freedom of association

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and cooperation, opposes economic injustices, the concentration of power and wealth, the power of large corporations, the exploitation of workers, environmental pollution, and structural forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Greens take these ideas of left libertarianism and combine them with the belief that the relationship between humans and nature needs to be reconceptualized which raises questions of the type of value humans place on nature and the relationship between the valuing of nature and humans. A significant conviction of the Greens, which is combined with the ideas of left libertarianism, is that natural resources are limited, that all people should have access to them, but at the same time there should be an awareness that the more they are used, the faster they will be exhausted. Hence the criticism of consumerism and the idea of limited and sustained development. It is an ideological thread on which the Greens base the need to reassess the value system and completely change the political, economic, and social system (Carter, 2007: 6). The fact that people are part of an ecosystem, that their lives, freedom, well-being depend on the protection of the ecosystem gives them the moral right to condemn any individual who threatens the ecosystem. The issue of initial ownership makes a difference between right-wing libertarians such as Robert Nozick, Jan Narveson, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who believe that nature before the initial acquisition of ownership through involvement in the labor process did not belong to anyone, and left libertarians such as Michael Otsuka, Peter Vallentyne, Hillel Stiner, Philippe van Parijs who consider that nature before the initial acquisition of property belonged to the community or humanity as a whole. In general, right-wing libertarianism is much more dominant in public discourse and when the public speaks of libertarianism, it is usually right-wing libertarianism that is meant, although there are authors who claim that unlike the United States, where the right-wing is dominant, left-wing libertarianism is dominant in Europe (Miller, 2012). Both types of libertarianism basically accept private property (van der Vossen, 2022), but while right-wing libertarianism can lead to ecocentrism, in the sense that initially natural resources do not belong to anyone and hence open up space for them to be appropriated, placed in private property, left libertarianism sees natural resources as property of the community, which cannot be used without its decision, whether the decision is made by majority (Grunebaum, 2000: 57) or unanimously (Cohen, 1995: 95; Wissenburg, 2019: 287).

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Right-wing libertarians have reservations about the view that natural resources are initially owned by the community, before the initial accumulation of capital. This position, if interpreted consistently, leaves citizens without freedom, including without freedom of breathing, because in this way they emit greenhouse gas and endanger the clean air that is the property of the community. Cohen (1995: 103) considers that each individual initially has an equal share in the ownership of natural resources. Rothbard (2000: 224) points out that it is practically impossible to manage resources that have billions of co-owners. It is impossible to call a shareholders meeting. The question arises, who has the right to call a shareholders’ meeting? who would have the majority?, how would decisions be made? etc. Hence, according to some libertarians, natural resources are not initially owned by anyone, but are available to the entire community. The whole community has the right to use natural resources, without asking for permission and paying compensation for their exploitation. Everyone has the right to pick fruits from a land that is not owned by any individual, just as everyone has the right to bathe in a lake that is not owned by anyone. Left libertarians prioritize community. According to left libertarians, natural resources are common property in the sense that anyone can use them freely (but not appropriate them), as long as they do not threaten the rights of use and ownership of other members of the community. Natural resources such as coal, oil, diamonds, copper, have more economic than environmental value. The only difference between a stone and a diamond is what people are willing to pay to own a diamond. Originally, the stone, like the diamond, cannot be attributed to anyone’s ownership as can human labor or an idea produced by a specific individual. The use of diamonds, unlike the use of coal, has no negative consequences for the community, therefore the acquisition and use of diamonds is not environmentally relevant, unlike the acquisition and use of coal (Walshe, 2014: 966). Regardless of whether some resources are ecologically relevant, the appropriation of collective community property can only occur by respecting the rights of all community members to use natural resources (Tidelman & Vallenyne, 2001: 447). Unilateral appropriation of natural resources can only occur if no more is appropriated than is necessary for each individual in the community to have an equal chance at a good life, and only if each individual is paid his share of the common property by law of supply and demand (Vallenyne et al., 2005: 203). In cases where nature is used as a resource to make certain products, those who want to acquire

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the right to own or use someone else’s property must negotiate with the owners that is, the community and convince them to give him the rights of management or ownership. So, for example, if someone wants to use the natural resources of a certain river to produce electricity, he must convince the local community to give him that right. The local community can give him the right to produce electricity, but also to restrict the use of natural resources. There were such examples in Serbia in 2021 when the local population protested against the “putting of the rivers in pipes,” due to the fact that the settlements were left without the rivers that were crucial for sustaining life in those communities. In order to save the rivers in certain places, there was cooperation between the Serbs and the Albanians, who have opposing views on almost all other issues. The difference between left libertarians, who in the literature are also called egalitarian libertarians and other left-oriented political philosophies, is that left libertarians, although they indicate that initially natural resources are the property of the community, generally do not have a negative attitude toward private property, unlike Marxists and socialists who believe that private property is an evil that corrupts human nature and should be destroyed. Marxists and socialists argue that natural ownership is degrading to workers’ rights. Left libertarians believe that the question of the relationship between private property and workers’ rights is not the most relevant question of today. They are more concerned with the relationship of private ownership to natural resources. They are concerned that unrestricted private property could ultimately have a destructive effect on natural resources as the property of every individual in society. Because of its strong support for private property rights and relatively unregulated capitalism, right-wing libertarianism has often been perceived as incompatible with political goals devoted to environment protection. Many right-wing libertarians, with their hostile rhetoric toward environment protection, contribute to reinforcing this perception (Zwolinski, 2015). But the feeling of incompatibility is mutual. While for most right libertarians private property is sacrosanct and the state should be small and not interfere in competition between free market entities, most left libertarians propose, and the Greens accept, that balance in nature will be achieved with a greater role for the community in environmental protection. Right-wing libertarians, on the one hand, try to look at politics from the perspective of logic and analytics, but they do not have a consensus on what kind of society they want to create. The Greens, on the other hand,

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approach politics more with intuition than with reason, but they have a clear idea of what kind of society they want, although there are misunderstandings about the principles on which it can be achieved. Ironically, right libertarians are more utopian and uncompromising in their political goals, thus missing out on gaining more public support. Greens, on the other hand, make compromises more easily, but it is not clear whether they always lead to the achievement of their ultimate goals in politics. Although at first glance they may seem different, the values of right libertarianism and the Greens are not mutually exclusive. In that sense, Sullivan (1992) points out that libertarians and Greens could cooperate and complement each other. Thus right libertarians would borrow the intuition of the Greens, while the Greens would be able to borrow the analyticity of the right libertarians. Right libertarians could point the Greens to the importance of entrepreneurial spirit and the economic results it can achieve, while the Greens could serve as an example to right libertarians of showing compassion and building community cohesion. Despite popular perception, a libertarian political philosophy of robust private property rights may better serve to protect nature than policies that undermine such rights, which may at first appear to be more compatible with environmental protection. It is true that the libertarian insistence on respecting property rights has been an obstacle to environmental regulation. It is true that libertarians believed that the government had no right to limit what companies could do with the land or natural resources they owned. It is crucial to keep in mind that libertarians do not just protect the property rights of companies, but of those who own homes, houses, and apartments. Hence, even the most significant representative of right libertarianism Nozick (1974) points out that the destruction of the environment has consequences for the health of individuals, and they themselves pay the costs of treatment. Hence it can be said that environmental pollution is a kind of theft from the people living in that environment. More recent versions of libertarianism are concerned with establishing valid reasons for compensation in the development and exploitation of natural resources (Wissenburg, 2019: 287). Property rights have such far-reaching consequences for individuals that the real problem with libertarianism is not that it is not sensitive enough to environmentalist concerns, but rather that it is too sensitive to them. The demands of libertarians are that much more must be done than just recycling, cycling to work, etc.

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2.2   Protection of the Environment Through Respect for the Right to Property Natural resources are objects that have value but are not produced by rational agents. Every organism uses natural resources like food, water, shelter to satisfy its needs and wants. All animals use natural resources without having a particularly thoughtful attitude toward them, but this should not apply to humans. People are beings capable of reflexivity and moral judgments. They may be asked what natural resources they will use to satisfy their needs and wants and how they will do so. The answer which natural resources will be used can be given by left libertarianism. On the one hand, he relies on the natural right of each individual to own private property, and on the other, he relies on Locke’s theory of acquisition. The right of ownership is first of all the right of ownership of one’s personality and the work that he performs. Specifically, according to left libertarianism, everyone has the right to (1) control over their own mind and body, (2) compensation if that right is violated (3) prevention of the violation of the right to control its own mind and body (4) to transfer that right to third parties, and (5) of immunity against non-consensual loss of the aforementioned right (Quong, 2011: 66). Everyone has the right of ownership over his own body and mind and no one has the right to harm another person, his life, health, freedom, and property. Everyone has the right not to be treated instrumentally, that is, abused by others without own consent. Individuals have the right to acquire property through their work and voluntary exchange of goods and services (Walshe, 2014: 955). In other words, everyone has the right to control their own life, and that right can only be limited by the prohibition of interference in the affairs of others. The right to control one’s own life includes the right to use the fruits of one’s labor, the right to freely associate, and conclude contracts. The place of government in society is to protect these basic rights of citizens (Sullivan, 1992). The individual’s ownership of his own mind, body, and work includes the right to acquire ownership of external resources, based on his own work and in agreement with those who already had ownership of them, or acquisition of ownership of resources that no one previously owned. Left libertarians point out that there is a serious difference between the right of individuals to own their own personality and the fruits of their own labor and the extension of that right to the appropriation of external resources. If that right is limited, social inequality would be seriously reduced. It would not disappear, because it is only a

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transmission of the inequalities in the talents that individuals have, but it would be reduced, or rather it would not be socially stimulated. Specifically, inequalities between people would be naturally, not socially produced. Nozick himself recognizes that individuals’ right to appropriate external resources must take into account and respect prior rights to external resources (Spitz, 2006). In that sense, property rights over one’s own person and the right to appropriation are seriously different. While left libertarians point out that prior rights of ownership or use of external (natural) resources is held by the community, Nozick argues that appropriation is legitimate if there are no prior rights of the community over natural resources (as right libertarians claim) and if the community overall, it found itself in a better position due to the appropriation of external resources. Every individual in society will be better off if resources are privately owned, because a society and economy based on private property will function better than a society and economy based on collective ownership. The right to own one’s own personality and the right to appropriate external (natural) resources for left libertarians are structurally different rights. The right to one’s own personality is an unconditional, exclusive right of every individual. While the right to appropriate external (natural) resources is a conditional right subordinated to the right to equality between individuals. The right of an individual to acquire water resources is subordinated to the right of every individual to have access to drinking water. If an individual’s acquisition of ownership over water resources threatens the right of others in the community to have access to drinking water, then that individual does not have the right to acquire ownership over those resources. Conversely, if an individual’s ownership of water resources does not threaten the right of others in the community to have access to drinking water, that individual has a right to acquire ownership of water resources. Left libertarianism points out that the unconditional right of each individual to own his own personality and the conditional right of individuals to acquire ownership of external natural resources are mutually compatible. The unconditional right of individuals to own their own personality does not threaten the conditional nature of the right to acquire ownership of natural resources, and conversely the conditional nature of the right to own external (natural) resources does not threaten the unconditional right to own their own personality. The right of ownership over the body means that no one has the right to touch it, without the owner’s consent, regardless of whether it causes

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him benefit or loss. The strong insistence on property rights provides an opportunity to oppose environmental pollution. The right to property over external (natural) resources derives from the right of people to equal use of natural resources. Without the existence of the right of people to use natural resources, there would be no right to private property. Appropriating things that no one uses does not harm anyone, but appropriating things that disturb the natural balance are subject to strict regulation (Walshe, 2014: 965). According to Vallentyne (2003) natural resources that are not owned by anyone should be used in an egalitarian way. A more extreme variant of left libertarianism claims that natural resources are initially owned by the members of the community and any use of them should be decided by the community through voting. Specifically, everyone has the right to a healthy and safe environment, to the protection of that environment, as well as to making decisions related to the environment (Goel & Goel, 2011: 195). This variant of left libertarianism would also make private property meaningless, because it is often used in combination with external resources. However, among left libertarians, the dominant opinion is that natural resources are not the property of anyone, but that the community has the right to use them based on the principle of egalitarianism. Therefore, for the use of natural resources that are available to everyone, for example when we breathe air, we do not need to get anyone’s permission. Everyone should have access to them and be able to use them equally (van der Vossen, 2022). If some natural resources are abundant and with the expropriation of some of them, the members of the community would still be able to have access to the same type of resources, then they could be expropriated, that is, appropriated by an individual (Spitz, 2006). For example, sources of drinking water may be given to an individual for commercial use only if, in addition to such act, sufficient drinking water remains for the population living in that community. But since that source of water will not be able to be used by the other members of the community, the one who will be given the right to use it exclusively or to appropriate it, should for that right to compensate the community. The compensation should be paid in a common fund of the community, in the state budget for example, and the amount of the compensation should be determined by the market. Therefore, among left libertarians there is no contradiction between the right of individuals to private property and the right to egalitarian use of natural resources. The egalitarian use of natural resources does not end with redistribution. The right to exclusively use natural resources can only be

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acquired if such natural resources remain sufficient for each individual to be able to use them. The right of ownership or exclusive use of such natural resources is paid to the community fund by those who wish to appropriate such resources. In that way, the right to appropriate natural resources is legitimized. Threatening natural resources threatens the right to use them by community members (Steiner, 2009: 1). The most worrisome forms of environmental pollution can be treated as threats to property rights. No one has the right to throw a bag of garbage in a neighbor’s yard, without his consent, because it violates his right to property. In the same way, no one has the right to throw garbage in the air, in the water, on the ground, if it violates the rights of ownership or use of natural resources (Zwolinski, 2015). Pollution of the environment in the place where the property is located threatens the right of the owner to dispose of his property as he wishes. For example, if there is a lot of noise caused by some production capacity, the house owners are not able to use their own houses as they want. It also lowers the value of houses. If person A discharges toxic waste from his factory into the river, which, after reaching person B’s land, destroys the mineral composition of the soil, then person A’s actions invaded person B’s property and caused damage as if person А had personally entered the property of person B and caused damage to him. This is a classic example of damage to property rights for which person A is to blame, especially because person B did not consent to the actions of person A that led to damage to the quality of the property. Accordingly, person B has the right to demand that the activities of person A stop immediately, and that the property be returned to its original state before the pollution. Person А must cease activities that threaten the quality of person B’s property and pay to return person B’s land to its pre-pollution condition (Torpman, 2021). The function of the minimal state advocated by left libertarians is to protect the right to property by preventing and punishing its encroachment by third parties. Therefore, the regulation of environmental protection is justified. Private property cannot be used to threaten the rights of others (Christmas, 2023). Possession of an ax does not give the owner the right to use it to attack innocent citizens. Owning private property does not give the owners the right to threaten the rights to life, health, and well-being of other citizens in that community.

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Pro-business conservatives tend to tolerate environmental pollution to some degree. They see pollution as a byproduct of economic activities without which there is no growth in the gross domestic product. But libertarians disagree with that argument. Property rights should not be sacrificed for the pursuit of business interests. Firm insistence on the respect of property rights also means firm insistence on environmental protection (Zwolinski, 2015). This means that those who pollute the environment devalue the property of other people living around them, should pay a fee for that. The more they pollute, the more they have to pay. The payment of fee should be in function of removing environmental pollution. This means that someone who devalues someone’s property by playing loud music, for example, can do so, if he has previously agreed with the tenants, pays them a certain compensation for it and they agree to it. No individual or group of people has the right to devalue someone’s property without the consent of the owner. No one has the right to endanger the health of citizens by smoking and releasing the smoke that others in the room involuntarily have to inhale. In that way, people’s health is damaged (their right to their own health). Air pollution is just as much a crime as setting fire to someone else’s property or physically assaulting another person. In that sense, Poole (1973: 253), defines pollution as the transfer of a harmful emission or substance to a person’s property or to the person himself, without his consent to such an act. Ideally, in a libertarian society, everyone should be responsible for their own actions and the harmful consequences that may result from them. But issues such as air pollution, acid rains, climate change introduce us to such complex chain situations, that it is difficult to establish causal links between the polluters who should in principle bear responsibility and the consequences (Christmas, 2023). For example, we know what types of activities cause acid rains, but with today’s level of technology development, it is difficult or completely impossible to determine individual responsibility for causing acid rains in a certain settlement. Climate change is caused by the emission of CO2 in the air, but due to the complexity of the situation, the involvement of many factors, it is difficult to identify entities that would be responsible for paying restitution for causing climate change on a personal, individual level. Environmental pollution cannot be analyzed from the point of view of cost-benefit analysis, as the Chicago school did. It would be like analyzing the emancipation of slaves in terms of whether that act would increase the cost of cotton production. Moral principles take precedence over

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pragmatic interests. If the protection of the environment prevents the growth of the economy, that is, if the economy cannot grow without polluting the environment, it means that it should not grow. That is the price for respecting human rights (Zwolinski, 2015). It seems that libertarianism, especially left libertarianism with its strong insistence on property rights, allows for much better environmental protection than the liberalism developed by John Rawls. If the pollution produced by industry threatens the property of people who own land, forests, it should be prohibited and considered an aggression toward others (Zwolinski, 2015). Pollution definitely threatens people’s health, that is, it harms the body as the property of each individual. If pollution damages property, then libertarianism, as a political philosophy predominantly devoted to the defense of property rights, can legitimately deal with the subject of pollution and pollution protection. In addition, the development of technology itself expands the rights that people have access to and can claim to exercise. The development of the technology itself requires consent if it encroaches on the natural resources that the community uses based on applying the principles of egalitarianism. Just as the use of technology requires the consent of its owners, the use of natural resources with the help of that technology requires the consent of the owners of those resources.

2.3  The Principle of Non-Aggression and the Protection of Nature Aggression is the use of violence or the threat of use of violence against the person of a particular individual or his property. It goes without saying that the use of violence or the threat of use of violence is wrong, no matter what the goal is to achieve, for example to get money or to prevent a certain individual from wearing clothes that someone does not like. Probably the most important moral principle of libertarians is the principle of non-­ aggression. It consists in the fact that no person or group has the right to be aggressive against another person or group (Routhbard, 1973). Every individual has a moral obligation not to be aggressive toward other people and their property. When you add to that the legitimate right of ownership over external resources such as land, pastures, forests, waters, which includes the right to use and alienate ownership, you get an idea of the attitude of libertarians to ownership, but also to natural resources.

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The obligation not to be aggressive and not to endanger the person and property means, among other things, not to undertake activities and measures that would endanger or harm the health and property of others, such as polluting the private property of other people, as well as natural resources whether it is air, soil, or water pollution. If the pollution ban is consistently enforced, it could mean the end of industrial facilities, driving cars, heating wood, etc., or rather life as we know it today. For the serious pollution of the environment, the industrial entities are criminally liable, which is not the case with smaller relatively insignificant offenses that do not harm seriously the environment and human health. The same goes for cars. The standards for what is considered pollution caused by cars are constantly increasing. Owners of older cars that do not meet environmental standards are prohibited from using them, in countries that import second-hand cars, such cars are prohibited for import or have to pay a very high tax on them. It is similar with the use of state subsidies. They are used to implement a policy of environmental protection. In the field of heating, although citizens are not penalized for using firewood, energy efficiency policies and the use of energy from renewable sources are increasingly recommended. Libertarians do not use the principle of non-violence only in the private domain, in relations between social groups, but apply it to the state. The state should refrain from getting involved in situations that provoke the application of physical force. If one person takes money from another without his consent, it is considered theft. The same is the case if the state imposes taxes for which there are no justified reasons. This is especially true of the welfare state. If you look at things from that perspective, the state as a whole can be seen as aggressive (Zwolinski, 2016). Of course, things are not as simple as they seem at first glance. Namely, each individual has certain needs, for example for the establishment of public order, and hence the need for the state to be given legitimacy. The modern state has many mechanisms to gain legitimacy, but for libertarians the question of the inflows received by the welfare state remains controversial, mostly because of the purposes for which those assets are reallocated—that is, because the welfare state has a strong redistributive component. In other words, libertarians generally oppose the use of aggression. Just as norms are applied to those who behave aggressively in a private capacity, the same norms should be applied to institutions of public authority.

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2.3.1   Application of the Principle of Non-Violence in Green Politics Non-violence, regardless of whether it is on an interpersonal or structural level, implemented by the institutions and the state, is one of the basic principles of the Green parties. This has been the case since the time of the environmentalist movement from the 1960s onward. Non-violence is the point of connection of the environmentalist movement with the peace movement, the anti-nuclear movement, feminism, etc. (Doherty, 1996). Greens are against using violence against women, children, minority groups in society. The use of violence by the state is not a way to resolve conflicts. The Greens are against militarism and advocate a policy of preventing military conflicts. They advocate nuclear disarmament even after the end of the cold war, because global security cannot be achieved as long as weapons of mass destruction are produced or stored. As long as nuclear weapons exist there is a constant risk of nuclear holocaust. For the Greens, achieving safety through a strategy of nuclear deterrence, essentially through maintaining a balance of fear, is by definition unsafe (Bomnerg, 2005: 9). The Greens advocate for the removal of the causes that lead to military conflicts and the peaceful resolution of conflicts when they occur. As long as the Green parties advocate reducing the level of violence in politics and resist the view that the use of violence is sometimes inevitable they are morally consistent. Citizens do not have the right to act violently, but they do have the right to protest and even civil disobedience. In fact, civil disobedience for the Greens is a form of active citizenship (Doherty & de Geus, 2003: 5). Advocating for non-violent conflict resolution is compatible with environment protection. Greens criticize the violent behavior of people toward nature (not only toward other people during conflicts). Relations with nature should be based on the principle of respect for nature. In general, the Green parties at the level of principles try to lead a pacifist policy. Greens believe that there is no military solution to any problem. They claim that the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were counterproductive and as a result did not contribute to increasing the security of the world population. Die Grünen’s support for NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia was justified by the manifesto of the European Green parties on foreign policy, in which it is said that interventions can be supported to prevent the outbreak of new wars, civil wars, ethnic cleansing,

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etc. The Greens deny that they have given up pacifism with this foreign policy. According to them, the world has become more violent and they have only adapted their politics to the new geo-political reality (Price-­ Thomas, 2016: 19). Non-violence and pacifism are the original values of the Greens from the time when they functioned as social movements. But then they had the luxury of thinking and acting idealistically, including on the issue of the use of force in politics. Ever since they entered the labyrinths of mainstream politics, the Greens realized that the picture is much more complex, that in politics the choice is often not between good and bad, but between two bad options, and in such cases you should choose the less bad option. Violence can happen outside of your control and the choice you have is whether to stop it with counter-violence or let it grow and expand unchecked. Although they advocate non-violence in principle, when they practice politics, when they have to make specific decisions, the Greens know how to make decisions that in practice mean the use of force by the police or the army, regardless of whether they justify it by preventing major disasters. As the Greens are increasingly faced with making decisions about the use of the police and military in the practice of politics, they will need to revise their initial principles (Doherty, 1996: 44).

2.4  Extreme Variants of the Libertarian Conception of Nature Protection The problem with libertarianism is not that it is not radical enough in protecting nature, but that it is too radical. Carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but also an end product of human metabolism. If individuals have no right to pollute another’s property with anything, not a single molecule, it would mean that everyone would have to get permission from their neighbors to breathe, unless they promised not to breathe out (Zwolinski, 2015). But the right to life, especially the right to life of all people on the planet has priority over the right to property. Property would be meaningless if people were dead. Additionally, the absence of opposition to not emitting carbon dioxide can be considered consent to do so (Torpman, 2021: 128). It is a tacit consent that all people give to each other. Without that consent, the life of each individual would be at risk. Consistent with the carbon dioxide example, the use of light could be considered a threat to a neighbor’s property. For example, if someone

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were to point a strong laser beam at a neighbor’s door, that would jeopardize their right to use their property. If pointing a strong laser beam threatens a property owner’s right to use their property as they see fit, then pointing a lantern or using a lantern or lighting a firecracker threatens someone’s right to use their property as they see fit. Just as the absolute primacy of property rights does not allow ­libertarians to distinguish between moderate and acceptable taxation, so prioritizing the protection of private property does not allow libertarians to distinguish between serious and relatively trivial pollution (Zwolinski, 2015).

2.5  The Libertarian Explanation of the Way Nature Works The ecosystem operates on the same principles as the free market. In the absence of humans it would be in equilibrium, which is not intentional, but species would reproduce as much as there are resources on the planet. If more were reproduced than there are resources, in the long run those for whom there are no resources would not survive, and conversely if less than the available resources were reproduced, there would be room for a constant increase in the rate of reproduction until the balance is reached. Just as there is a balance between supply and consumption in the free market, so there is a balance between the number of animals and natural resources. Overexploitation of natural resources by humans threatens the rights of other species (Walshe, 2014: 956). Environmental pollution is not a consequence of the freedom of the market, but of the absence of market logic in the protection of nature and the failure of governments to protect the environment. In the conduct of public affairs, governments are prone to fall unduly under the influence of powerful economic interests. Thus, governments begin to conduct politics in their own interest, to the detriment of the interests of citizens. Companies receive a permit from the government to engage in a certain business, which as a byproduct has environmental pollution, because it contributes to the achievement of some higher goal such as employment of many people, increase in economic growth, etc. In addition, authorities often make decisions to externalize the costs of dealing with pollution (Zwolinski, 2015). While private companies can be sued for polluting the environment, it is more difficult to do so with the government. That is why libertarians are calling for an end to the immunity that the

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government has in making decisions that are harmful to the environment. But green libertarians are not anarchists. They support small, limited government. Left libertarians criticize environmental regulation in its classical form. They are pushing for restitution. Fines for environmental pollution should not be paid to the government, as is the case until now, but to those who are victims of environmental pollution. Although government conservation measures have broad public support, libertarians question whether it is the best way to protect the environment. Government regulation on nature protection costs a lot, shows inconsistency and many weaknesses. From an economic point of view, libertarians criticize this as reminiscent of a centrally planned economy. Libertarians advocate free market environmentalism (Hamowi, 2008: 150). The prevailing public opinion is that market mechanisms fail to protect the environment and by definition the government must intervene to do so. Business entities would accept to pollute the environment (as a byproduct of production) if it costs them less than environmental protection and if they are not punished by the state. Most often they pollute the environment, leaving the state to take care of restoring things to their original state. They would discharge untreated water into rivers without compensating those affected by the pollution. By letting the state take care of pollution, they externalize the burdens of production. Companies pay for the use of labor, electricity, and other inputs in production, but not for environmental protection. Hence, many draw the conclusion that the market prioritizes being more competitive and at the cost of polluting the environment, or rather that it does not respect environmental values, so it must be regulated by the state. According to libertarians, the problem with environment protection is not that the market does nothing to protect it, but that environment protection has long been treated as something that exists outside of market mechanisms, of property rights, of voluntary exchange, of rule of law. Libertarians point out that privately owned resources are well maintained. Resources that are common property, that are under the control of politicians are often less well maintained and can be misused and destroyed. In order to protect natural resources, ownership rights over them should be clearly established (Hamowi, 2008: 151). The natural state before the introduction of property rights was for humans to live in a similar way to animals. To feed themselves they hunted animals, gathered fruits, etc., as well as the rest of the ecosystem in which humans lived. Plants, animals, even rivers as ecosystems have their own life

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cycle. Therefore, natural resources can be treated as a stock that provides flow (Walshe, 2014: 957). It is normal for humans to live in interaction with the natural resources that other elements of the ecosystem provide. Invoking Kant’s famous dictum that people should be treated as ends in themselves and not as tools, left libertarians point out that people have a natural right not to be used as instruments to achieve other people’s interests, against their own will. The question arises whether people have the right to treat animals as they would not want someone else to treat them. In the natural rights tradition, humans are the only claimants to justice. If an individual is denied access to stock, it means that someone else has the right to deny access. It comes down to correlative duty. If it is about rights to natural resources that belong to all species, then the appropriation of stock rights would not be possible without a signed universal agreement. Without such an agreement, people could have very limited access to flow, but even then they would be limited in what they could do with it.

2.6  Environmental Protection and Eco Balance Left libertarians believe that people can acquire land and use natural resources as long as the ecosystem is in balance. If the resources are used, and the system is in balance, those who want to use more resources will not be able to do so. Namely, if in a cinema hall, only a small part of the seats are filled, there is an opportunity for anyone who wants to buy a ticket and sit down, but once the hall is full (the system will reach equilibrium), then the one who wants to sit down will have to negotiate and agree with the one who was already sitting to get up. When the ecological balance has already been made, no one may use additional natural resources without the consent of others. If the resources are already shared, the one who does not own the resources but wants to use them will have to reach an agreement with someone who is already using the resources to give them their rights. If we return to the example of the cinema hall, a businessman could invest in increasing the capacity of the hall, so that the balance (fullness) would be achieved with a greater number of people using the right to sit in the cinema hall. When it comes to the ecosystem, these are investments in renewable energy sources, afforestation, organic food production, etc. (Walshe, 2014: 962).

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2.7  The Attitude Toward the State The Greens who accept the ideas of left libertarianism faced a series of practical political questions such as the approach to the state, that is, whether the ideas of nature protection through respecting the rights to use natural resources can be better realized through the state and state institutions or through the market and market mechanisms, whether it would be better to use centralized or decentralized political structures for the protection of natural resources, whether activism should include collective action through the formation of political parties or be individual through changing the lifestyle of individuals, whether the achievement of the goals should happen through radical actions and not acceptance of the formal institutions but to constant protest against them or to make the necessary changes evolutionarily through the institutions of the system. Regarding the first dilemma, left libertarians advocate a limited state, the reduction of state power, and its decentralization (Marshal, 2009: 641). The Greens, taking the positions of the left libertarians, indicate that attempts to solve the problem of the devastation of nature at the level of the nation-state have failed. The Greens propose decentralization and a new entity—the community that will have to deal with the devastation of nature and the overexploitation of natural resources (Gökpinar, 2019: 169). Debates on decentralization are one of the constants of theoretical debates, but also of the party programs of the Greens. Among the Greens, decentralization takes the form of libertarian municipalism (Bookchin, 1989: 182), and in more detail it is developed as bioregionalism (Sale, 1985). Decisions in politics should be made at the micro level, that is, at the level of self-sustaining micro-communities. This is what Sale (1980) called politics by the measure of man. Certain theorists such as Paterson (2005: 242) are critical of whether problems that have a global character can be solved at the local level. He points out that the nation-state is both too big and too small to deal with the problem of the environment. In addition to decentralization and the insistence of the community as a subject, Paterson (2005: 242) indicates that the possibility of forming wider agglomerations that would coordinate efforts to deal with the problem of the environment should be considered. The environmentalism on which Green parties were later formed was rooted in deep suspicion of the state and the erosion of trust in formal political procedures (Poguntke, 1989: 192). Greens claim that the greed of the state is one of the biggest reasons for the overexploitation of natural

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resources. Namely, the state only cares about its property, but not about the property of the community, that is, about natural resources such as water, mountains, oceans, etc. The state strives to achieve short-term economic interests, such as achieving the greatest possible growth of the gross domestic product, without thinking about the consequences that this could have on the environment. States like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil justify the cutting of trees with their sovereignty over the territory where the forests are located. Here we see the contradiction between the principle of national sovereignty and the protection of the environment (Gökpinar, 2019: 170). It is typical for the Greens to have a hostile attitude toward the state, especially toward the central government. Hence their attitude toward the welfare state, which does not help, but rather imposes help on individuals. Imposing help on individuals does not help them to independently solve their own problems, for example with employment, but only deceives and manipulates them. Such a social policy certainly does not lead to social changes that the Greens advocate. The welfare state is not sustainable and does not lead to the realization of a self-sufficient and self-sustaining society. Greens advocate for a fair distribution of resources in society, but not for the redistribution of resources through the use of state mechanisms, especially not through the use of the mechanisms of central authorities. The Greens advocate a smaller society in which there will be less need for social workers. This means that society should be organized in such a way that everyone could take care of their needs. Social benefits are not acceptable if provided by the state, but are desirable if provided by self-governing communities or civil society. Libertarian and anarchist structures refuse to accept that the state can play a significant role in implementing the green agenda, thus refusing to give legitimacy to the state, which they see as part of the problem of environmental pollution. For the Greens, the state is a centralized, pseudo-­ representative, quasi-democratic structure that encourages unsustainable and environmentally harmful economic development, growth of nationalism, and militarism (Carter, 1993). Hence for some Green authors like Carter (1993), the state is not only not necessary, but it is not even a desirable unit for the organization of life. In doing so, the Greens distinguish between the central government (the state at the central level) and the local authorities (the state at the local level) (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 597). The Greens generally have three objections to the state. The first remark is that the state contributes, that is, it is the most significant mechanism that is used for the destruction of nature and for excessive use of natural

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resources. Furthermore, the state promotes and protects industrialism and consumerism. In the end, the state has a democratic deficit, not motivating citizens to participate in politics, and relations between states are established in a murky and chaotic state, which reflects the inability of states to adopt and coordinate policies for the protection of nature. There are two camps in Green political theory. One who questions the need for the existence of the state and the other who sees the state as a necessary evil (Gökpinar, 2019: 170). Eckersley (2004: 2) is of the opinion that among Green theorists the prevailing opinion is that the state should not be abolished, but that it should be transformed into a Green state. The Greens do not consider the state at the central level to be a neutral instrument for achieving political goals. The Greens, who have a more pragmatic approach to politics, take an instrumental approach to the state. For tactical reasons, it can be used, that is, the march of the Greens through the institutions can give results in achieving their political goals. But even those Greens who have a positive view of the state do not give the state an advantage in achieving the goals of the Greens, in comparison with communities that can be used to achieve the same goals (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 597). In other words, Greens who are pragmatists believe that the state can be used for Greens to achieve their goals, while Greens who are more influenced by left libertarianism believe that the same goals should be achieved through the use of civil society. Civil society is a dam against the marketization of all spheres of social life. It is a dam for the harmful influence of the state, as well as for the harmful influence of large corporations that do not allow real competition in the sphere of the economy, and destroy the environment in the sphere of ecology. One of the symbols of environmentalism, Greta Thunberg, in her speech from May 2018, pointed out that the state and corporations are not doing anything to reduce carbon emissions (BBC, 2020). Civil society has a different logic than the economy. It is not based on competition, but on cooperation, sharing, inclusiveness, integration, and cohesiveness (Salonen & Ahiberg, 2013: 385). Modern society should be based on flexible, creative, adaptable, inventive communities. Insisting on the importance of communities goes through the decentralization of political authorities and understanding the influence of local communities in decision-making. Thus, in the Green Party Manifesto for a Sustainable Society from 1999, it was stated that no decisions should be made at the central level, if equally good, even better decisions can be made locally (Dobson, 2000: 97). Actions taken at the local level stimulate greater participation and responsibility. In that

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way, people will be more involved in politics. People’s participation in politics does not end with the act of voting, on the contrary, it begins at that moment. The Greens have a more positive view of the state at the local level, that is, of the local authorities. It can be said that the principle “the small is beautiful” applies to the Greens (Schumacher, 1973). Greens in principle doubt that bureaucratized structures are able to meet people’s needs. It goes hand in hand with the Greens’ commitment to the decentralization of power, but also with the organizational structure of the Green parties, which is organized from the bottom up. Hence the Greens advocate a grassroots form of economic and political initiatives and give preference to the community over the state and the market (Barry, 2014: 6). The state and the market should be in the function of the community. The Greens force the economy to take place primarily within the boundaries of the community. The state does not have a lot of work and space for interventions in an economy that takes place within the community. But such an economy also differs from an economy dominated by large corporations that cartelize the market. Greens perceive the state (democracy, citizenship) and the market (private property, type of organizations) in terms of the functions they have toward the community. Greens, with the exception of eco-anarchists, do not reject the state, but they doubt the concentration and centralization of power that the state does and advocate for its democratization and decentralization. According to the Greens, there is a place for the state in regulating the market, to avoid monopolization and the creation of large social inequalities, which undermines solidarity and has a corrosive effect on the community.

2.8  Differences Between Welfare State and Green State One of the basic principles of the Greens is solidarity, especially solidarity toward nature that is being destroyed, toward future generations who will have to live with the consequences of the destruction of nature, toward marginalized social strata. When it comes to the welfare state, the Greens give priority to building a Green state. If the welfare state developed in the time of Keynesianism, the Green State developed in the time of neoliberalism, that is, in the time of the growth of the power of capital and business, or rather in the time of the reduction of the power of the lower social classes. According to Meadowcroft (2012a) Green state developed in two

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phases: until 1970 we note the development of legislation, policies, administration, and regulation for environmental protection. In the second phase, which began at the end of the 1980s, we note the development of the previously created apparatus and the attitude of the state toward a series of issues such as the economy, security, well-being, all under the banner of sustainable development policies. The Greens have criticized the welfare state as highly bureaucratized and inefficient. Namely, most of the services provided by the welfare state, education, social welfare, health care, are provided on a non-market basis, with the help of bureaucratic institutions. It creates dissatisfaction and revolt among a large number of people from the effectiveness, speed, and quality of the services they receive. Left libertarians used this to demand decentralization of service delivery. According to left libertarians, the provision of welfare state services should be reorganized and under the control of consumers (Kitschelt, 2019: 20). In addition to that, left libertarians have reservations regarding corporatism, that is, collective agreements between capitalism and workers. Such policies are especially intensified when socialist or social democratic parties are in power. In collective negotiations, no one protects the interests of natural resources. Collective agreements usually produce an increase in industrial production and the extent of exploitation of natural resources. Class interests, especially those of the working class, which are dominant in the welfare state, are absent in the Green state. Concern for the environment dominated among the more educated and better-off strata of the population. Environmental protection represents the interests of the middle strata of the population, who exert pressure on the public, among other things, through new social movements and Green parties, to which governments respond by developing the Green state (Gough, 2016: 33). There are analyses that indicate that there is a process of adjustment by certain layers of the upper class toward environmentalism. This is especially true for the financial elite. Gatti (2022:3) calls that process greening of financial elites. The proportion of companies that do not pollute the environment is growing, at the expense of the reduction in the number and volume of companies that pollute nature. It appears to be part of a larger process of the growth of the financial sector of the economy, or financial capitalism, at the expense of the decline of industrial capitalism which pollutes nature but is generally in decline. So when the new middle class, through the Green parties, demanded a Green state from the financial elite, it found open doors.

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According to some analyses of the transition to the Green state, business interests are more important than the interests of individual social strata in society. There are analyses that attempt to analyze the links between countries with large coal reserves and opposition to global climate agreements. The large financial benefits of using coal contribute to delaying the adoption of environmental protection measures. On the other hand, there are sectors in the business that see their interests in the transition to green technologies, that is, a chance for better positioning on the market. If in the past the growth of the economy was mostly based on the growth of heavy industry, the production of weapons and infrastructure projects, today the growth of the economy is more and more due to the development of telecommunications, companies operating on the Internet, the service sector, the financial sector, etc. In that sense, one can talk about moving from brown capitalism to green capitals. Green policies in a country depend on the balance between them (Gough, 2016: 33). One of the differences between the welfare state and the Green state is that the welfare state went hand in hand with a growing economy (Meadowcroft, 2012b: 12). Those who designed the welfare state agree that the economy must constantly grow, and the welfare state must remedy the social inequalities that arise along the way. The same cannot be said for the Green state. Those who support the Green state prioritize the preservation of the environment over economic growth. For the welfare state, it is not the most important question in which sectors’ economic growth will be recorded, but for the Greens, that question is of crucial importance. For the supporters of the Green state, it is extremely important that, if there is to be growth, it should be generated in economic sectors that do not pollute nature. The Green state emerged and began to grow in the era of the dominance of neoliberalism, which goes hand in hand with the denigration of the state’s capacity to deal with public affairs and an unfriendly attitude toward public initiatives. In such an era, the Green state was much more acceptable than the welfare state, especially if it came with features of libertarianism, and even if it was left libertarianism. Hence, instead of large expenditures of the welfare state, there is talk of sustainable growth—a paradigm imposed by libertarian environmentalism. According to some authors, the extent of the Green state is as great as the hegemony of neoliberalism in a certain state (Gough, 2016: 34). The welfare state is based on the appropriation of income to individuals and enterprises and the provision of services such as health insurance, social housing, etc. Taxation,

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income transfers, and service provision are the basis of the welfare state, although they are accompanied by a dense legislative network and administrative rules. In contrast, the Green state relies on a mixture of regulations and prohibitions, normative orders, taxes, and subsidies. A very small part of the expenditure refers to environmental management. The instruments of the Green state are aimed at producers, not at consumers (Meadowcroft, 2012b: 14). The Green state is not a state with a liberal democratic political system ruled by the Green Party. On the contrary, the Green state is a state with participatory democracy. It is a decentralized, small state based on autonomous communities that are not consumerist, with which citizens would identify and participate more in political processes. In addition to being decentralized based on micro-communities (bioregions), the Green state should give the right to influence and participate in the decision-making process to all actors who suffer consequences of decision-making or are at risk due to the pollution of the environment and the overexploitation of resources that occurs sometimes with the active participation and sometimes with the tacit consent of the states. The Green state is not selfish and guarantees not only the rights of those who live on its territory, but also those who do not live on its territory, and could feel the consequences of its decisions. The Green state is not only transterritorial and transnational, but also transtemporal. Namely, it takes into account the interests of future generations. This arrangement of the Green state shakes the cage of the national state. The concept of the Green state decentralizes and breaks up the existing national state into small communities from the inside, and shakes it from the outside by including not only supranational entities, but also citizens who do not formally live in its territory.

2.9  Bioregionalism Left libertarianism’s attitude toward ownership and the right to use natural resources is derived from their attitude toward community. For left libertarians community, bioregions, decentralization, and grassroots democracy as concepts go together. The real value upon which the entire political philosophy of left libertarianism rests is neither the state nor the welfare state, but the community. Left libertarians are suspicious of the state, which should be decentralized and reduced to a set of micro-communities. At the same time, left libertarians are critical of the welfare state, which is a bureaucratic structure based on the redistribution of goods and

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services. They stand for a fair distribution of natural resources, but not for their redistribution using the mechanisms of the welfare state. Left libertarians are also critical of the free market economy, which creates large corporations, cartels, oligopolies, monopolies, mass production, commercialization of the economy, directs people to consumerism and stimulates in them greed for acquiring material goods, which devalue the value of the community. The Green ideology, based on the political philosophy of the left libertarians, sees the state, the welfare state, and the free market economy through the prism of the community. The solution to the criticism of all three concepts is their transformation and functioning according to the model of community organization. Left libertarians advocate giving greater value to intangible collective goods such as nature. Nature can only be protected if the organizational structure of society returns to the community level. Communities are part of biodiversity. They are formed naturally depending on the geographical and natural characteristics of the areas in which they are located. Relations in communities should be libertarian, egalitarian, and participatory. They should be opposed to the principles of productivity and consumerism. Communities are self-sufficient, but at the same time involved in a network of relationships, obligations with other communities (Paterson, 2005: 243). Bioregionalism could lead to the breaking up of nations into self-­ sustaining, environmentally friendly entities (Vincent, 2010: 216). Only in small communities can people be individuals, in large agglomerations they become increasingly isolated. In bioregions, people live in self-­ sustaining autonomous communities. When living in small autonomous communities, people depend more on nature, care more about it and respond more quickly, try to find a solution if there is damage to the balance in nature. Goldsmith (1972: 53) suggests neighborhoods should number no more than 500 people, communities no more than 5000 people, while regions no more than 50,000 people. Dobson (2000:91) suggests that historically people lived in communities of 500 to 1000 people with whom they had face-to-face communication. The wider tribal community comprised 5000 to 10,000 people. Sale (1991: 64) agrees that the number of people in a bioregion should not exceed 10,000 inhabitants. Anything above that would be problematic in terms of self-sustainability based on the natural resources of the space in which it lives. Communities within bioregions would minimize resource maintenance, avoid unnecessary waste of resources, and not pollute the environment. That is, they would be self-sustaining. Because of self-sustainability, communities in

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bioregions would be less inclined to trade. Land in bioregions would be owned by the community, and power would be divided among the many small groups that make up the community (Sale, 1985: 91). In bioregions, people would live closer to nature, they would have greater knowledge of nature, more respect for it and knowledge of the capacities and limitations for its continuous use and pollution. Living in bioregions would contribute to people identifying more with nature and the location in which they live. Bioregions leave the sphere of anthropocentricity and enter the sphere of ecocentricity. They are not formed on the basis of social characteristics, but on the basis of natural-geographical characteristics. Bioregions are not national, ethnic, administrative, political units, but biologically self-­ sustaining units. It is an area that is not characterized by political borders, but by native, biological, geographical borders. Boundaries are naturally delineated by mountains, river courses, vegetation, climate, soil features of flora and fauna. Each bioregion has a unique balance in its relationship to the land, flora, fauna, and people who live there, and it should respect that. Each bioregion has its own biodiversity, which, according to environmentalists, should be maintained and developed. Greens here are particularly concerned that the development of monoculture agriculture may negatively affect biodiversity (Sargent, 2009: 289). Bioregions should be self-sustaining ecosystems where people will live without damaging the environment. There are proposals for bioregions to be economically autarchic, self-sufficient, and self-sustaining. They would not tolerate wasting scarce resources on frivolous and unnecessary travel. Airplanes use a lot of non-renewable resources to carry people for hedonistic reasons. “The frugal-sustainable society” will limit mobility, people will have to spend more time in one place, cultivating loyalty to the bioregions in which they exist. In addition to the term bioregions with a very similar meaning, the terms ecoregions, georegions, morphoregions could be used (Dobson, 2000: 91). Bioregionalism has its roots in the localism of the environmentalist movement. It can be said that NIMBY (Not in my backyard) was motivated by the interest in protecting the local environment (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 592). To people with a cosmopolitan understanding of public affairs, NIMBY may appear to be motivated by parochial, self-­ serving interests, without regard to the interest of humanity and the planet as a whole. But even if it is based on the principle of local patriotism, on the protection of the interests of the local population, it is better to have

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such groups than if no one cares about environmental protection. The experience of nature protection at the local level necessarily raises awareness of the importance of environmental protection at a higher level than the local community. In that sense, the slogan “acting local, thinking global” applies to the Greens. Opposition to centralization and the undemocratic consequences of the political and economic organization that is imposed from above are the basic positions of the Greens. Hence, the Greens advocate decentralization and democratization of more and more areas of social life. Communities are the opposite of a centralized, bureaucratized state structure. At the local level, citizens’ services should be provided by the communities. Self-management of communities places greater responsibility on each individual who has an influence on the processes taking place at the local level. On several occasions, the Greens pledged in their election programs that the achievement of a fair and sustainable society is the responsibility of each individual (Price-Thomas, 2016: 287). Based on the principle of diversity, bioregions will not only tolerate but also stimulate differences not only in opinion but also in behavior (Dobson, 2000: 94). However, one wonders how far such ambitions can go. Inspired by the idea of being different, certain individuals or groups of citizens may begin to openly promote and propagate sexism or racism. The question arises whether the Greens would still be open to diversity as principles or would return to the postulates of the Enlightenment. The post-industrial society advocated by the Greens declares that it will maximize democracy, tolerance, freedom, equality, but the question arises whether in such a way the Greens do not go directly against the principle of diversity and universalize the values associated with liberal democracy marginalizing all other values. Criticisms of decentralization, which are an integral part of the concept of bioregions, go in two directions. First, local communities in bioregions will not be able to meet all their needs independently. Everything that we use today as products that cost the quality of life of individuals cannot be produced locally. It is not possible to make refrigerators, bicycles, dialysis machines locally. If they are made, the quality and cost of such products will increase significantly, because there will be very little competition, and the production will be for a limited number of consumers. Second, some kind of planning and coordination with centralized political structures must exist, if nothing else to regulate relations between communities (Dobson, 2000: 98).

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References Barry, J. (2014). Green Political Theory. In V. Geoghegan & R. Wilford (Eds.), Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Routledge. Barry, J., & Doherty, B. (2001). The Greens and Social Policy: Movements, Social Policy and Practice. Social Policy and Administration, 35(5), 587–607. BBC. (2020). Thunberg Greta: Who Is She and What Does She Want? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-­europe-­49918719 Bomnerg, E. (2005). Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. Routledge. Bookchin, M. (1989). Remaking Society. Black Rose. Carson, K. (2014). An Introduction to Left Libertarianism. Center for Stateless Society. https://c4ss.org/content/28216 Carter, A. (1993). Toward a Green Political Theory. In D.  Andrew & L.  Paul (Eds.), The Politics of Nature: Explorations in Green Political Theory. Routledge. Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press. Christmas, B. (2023). Natural Rights and Pollution. In H. J. Agler (Ed.), Climate Liberalism, Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution. Palgrave Macmillan. Cohen, G.  A. (1995). Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge University Press. Dobson, A. (2000). Green Political Thought: An Introduction. Routledge. Doherty, B. (1996). Green Parties, Nonviolence and Political Obligations. In B.  Doherty & M. de Geus (Eds.), Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Doherty, B., & de Geus, M. (2003). Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Eckersley, R. (2004). The Green State. MIT Press. Gatti, D. (2022). Whats Behind the Political Support for Green Welfare State Institutions?. Inter Brief Series No.1 Goel, A., & Goel, V. (2011). The Need of Sustainable Environment as a Human Eight Issue. Journal of Art, Science and Commerce, 2(1), 192–212. Gökpinar, F. (2019). Green Theory and International Relations. In A. Tayyar & T. Elif (Eds.), Theories of International Relations 2. Anadolu University Press. Goldsmith, E. (1972). Blueprint for Survival. Penguin Books. Gough, I. (2016). Welfare States and Environmental States: A Comparative Analysis. Environmental Politics, 25(1), 24–47. Gregory, A. (2006). Left, Right, Moderate and Radical. LewRockwell.com. Grunebaum, J. (2000). Autonomous Ownership. In V. Peter & S. Hillel (Eds.), Left Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. Palgrave. Hamowi, R. (2008). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Sage. Kitschelt, H. (1988). Left  – Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovations in Comparative Party Systems. World Politics, 40(2), 194–234.

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Kitschelt, H. (2019). The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Cornell University Press. Long, R. (2012). Anarchism, Terminological Note. In G. F. Gaus & F. D'Agostino (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy. Routledge. Marshal, P. (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. PM Press. Meadowcroft, J. (2012a). Greening the State? In F. P. Stinberg & D. S. VanDever (Eds.), Comparative Environmental Politics: Theory, Practice and Prospects. MIT Press. Meadowcroft, J. (2012b). From State to Ecostate. In J.  Barry & R.  Eckersley (Eds.), The State and the Global Ecological Crisis. MIT Press. Miller, W. (2012). The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America: An Encyclopedia. Sage. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State and Utopia. Basic Books. Paterson, M. (2005). Green Politics. In S. Burchill, A. Linklater, R. Devetak, & J. Donnelly (Eds.), Theories of International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan. Poguntke, T. (1989). The New Politics Dimension in European Green Parties. In F. Мüller-Rommel (Ed.), New Politics in Western Europe: The Rise and Success of Green Parties and Alternative Lists. Westview Press. Poole, R. (1973). Reason and Ecology. In D.  James (Ed.), Outside, Looking. Harper and Row. Price-Thomas, G. (2016). Green Party Ideology Today: Divergences and Continuities in Germany, France and Britain. In E.  Van Haute (Ed.), Green Parties in Europe. Routledge. Quong, J. (2011). Symposium: Ownership and Self-Ownership Left Libertarianism: Rawlsian Non Luck Egalitarian. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 19(1), 64–68. John 9. Rothbard, M. (2000). In P.  Vallenyne & H.  Steiner (Eds.), Entrepreneurship, Entitlement, and Economic Justice in Left Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. Palgrave. Routhbard, N. M. (1973). For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Auburn. Sale, K. (1980). Human Scale. Secker and Warburg. Sale, K. (1985). Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision. Sierra Club. Sale, K. (1991). Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision. New Society Publishers. Salonen, A.  A., & Ahiberg, M. (2013). Toward Sustainable Society: From Materialism to Post-Materialism. International Journal of Sustainable Society., 5(4), 374–393. Sargent, T. L. (2009). Contemporary Political Theory. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Schumacher, E.  F. (1973). Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Metered. Blonde and Brigs. Spitz, J.-F. (2006). Left Wing Libertarianism: Equality Based on Self Ownership. Raisons Politiques, 23(3), 23–46.

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Steiner, H. (2009). Left Libertarianism and the Ownership of Natural Resources. Public Reason, 1(1), 1–8. Sullivan, D. (1992). Greens and Libertarians: The Yin and Yang of Our Political Future. Green Revolution, 49(2) https://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/ greenlibertarians.html Tidelman, N., & Vallenyne, P. (2001). Left-Libertarianism and Global Justice. In M. B. Laiser & T. Campbell (Eds.), Human Rights in Philosophy and Practice. Ashgate Publishing. Torpman, O. (2021). Libertarianism, Climate Change and Individual Responsibility. Res Publica, 28, 125–148. Vallentyne, P. (2003). Equality and Justice. Routledge. Vallenyne, P., Stiner, H., & Otsuka, M. (2005). Why Left-Libertarianism in Not Incoherent, Indeterminate or Irrelevant: Reply to Fried. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33(2), 201–215. van der Vossen, B. (2022). Libertarianism. In E. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Vincent, A. (2010). Modern Political Ideologies. Wiley – Blackwell. Walshe, G. (2014). Green Libertarianism. Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 17(5), 955–970. Wissenburg, M. (2019). The Concept of Nature in Libertarianism. Ethics, Policy and Environment, 22(3), 287–302. Zwolinski, M. (2015). Libertarianism and Pollution. In B. Hale & A. Light (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Environmental Ethics. Routledge. Zwolinski, M. (2016). The Libertarian Nonaggression Principle. Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Green Political Thought

3.1   Introduction The consolidation of Green political thought takes place in the 1990s when there is a noticeable shift from a systematic and detailed critique of the status quo to the promotion of a new moral paradigm that has before it the ideal of achieving a green sustainable society (Barry, 1999: 6). The achievement of a sustainable society of several key values and concepts is closely related to the political habitus and the way of action of the Green parties. If positivism held that humans are separate from and dominate the rest of nature, Green political thought can be said to be post-positivist (Gökpinar, 2019: 168). The values and concepts of Green political thought include the protection of nature and natural resources, grassroots democracy, social justice, non-violence, decentralization, community-­based economics, post-patriarchal values, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, and a future based on sustainability (Sullivan, 1992). The value it places at the center of its interest makes it clear that Green political thought is inclined to create and refine a normative Green Theory. Green political thought perceives the need for radical changes to traditional political structures. In an effort to protect the world from human-­ caused destruction, the Greens challenge the status quo that is leading humanity to ruin. There are at least two reasons why the responsibility for protecting nature should be taken by humans. First, humans are most

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responsible for the environmental pollution problems we face today. In that sense, people have to solve the problems they themselves have created. Second, humans are the most developed form of life that exists on Earth, hence they have a moral responsibility to care and take concrete measures to protect nature and all life forms on Earth (Gökpinar, 2019: 172).

3.2  Return to Nature Greens criticize the basic premise of classical political ideologies and theories—anthropocentricity. It is a mistake to believe that people are at the center of the universe (strong anthropocentrism), that they are above other forms of life on the planet, and that the entire planet should be subordinated to meeting the needs of people (weak anthropocentrism). David Ehrenfeld (1981) calls that the “arrogance of humanism.” The exclusive orientation only of the needs and interests of people has damaged and somewhat destroyed the relationship between people and the natural environment in which they have to live. The idea that only humans have intrinsic value is related to their capacity to feel pleasure, pain, think rationally, and have interests. The rest of nature has only instrumental value in terms of whether and how much it contributes to human well-being. Those parts of nature that contribute more to human well-being have greater value. Nature is a source of resources that people use to improve their own well-being. Instead of respecting and protecting nature, people began to behave as if they were its owners, who had the right to use it as they saw fit. Hence, terms like “conquering nature,” “battle against nature,” “growing above nature.” Such expressions reveal that nature is seen as something alien, different from what people are, as something to be conquered, outgrown (Heywood, 2017). According to the Greens, people should be seen not as an entity unto themselves, independent and superior to nature, but rather as a part of it. The well-being of people is of secondary importance to the well-being of nature. People should make an effort to harmonize the vision of their well-being with the well-being of nature. What is good for nature is also good for people. At the same time, nature is a network of interconnected interdependencies in which humans live together with other species. Humans not only live together with other species, but also represent an environment for them, such as for microorganisms. As human life is respected, so should the life of other species on the planet. Humans

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have an obligation to care for and sustain the life of all species that exist on the planet. In this sense, Porritt (1984: 99) spoke of an ecological imperative—the protection of nature as something on which people depend. The perception that people are at the center around which the affairs of the planet move can be understood as a characteristic of human nature. People perceive the world through their own prism. But not taking into account the consequences for the environment, believing that without people, nature is worthless is a serious problem. It could be called shallow ecology. It comes very close to the liberal understanding of self-interest. On the other hand, deep ecology theorists advocate a holistic approach and believe that the primary locus by which one’s value should be determined should be the ecosphere as a whole, not people or humanity. Humans should not be seen as a superior and primary species to the rest of the species on planet Earth. The ecosphere should not be seen and used instrumentally to satisfy the needs and interests of people. This way of thinking can be found in Aldo Leopold’s (1949) The Send County Almanac, and somewhat later in the writings of Arne Naess (1973). Warwick (1990) proposed a new metaphysical philosophy that would focus on the fundamental changes brought about by the development of ecological consciousness. Price-Thomas (2016: 284) analyzing the programs of the Green parties in Germany, France, and Great Britain states that they are based on ecocentrism and not on anthropocentrism. Thus, Die Grünen indicate in their program that they support the protection of biological diversity as an end in itself, while Les Verts in France indicate that they oppose the utilitarian vision of nature. According to them, people need to redefine their place in the natural equilibrium. But according to some theorists like Dobson (2010), ecocentrism was more characteristic of the Greens when they were founded as a party compared to the contemporary policies of pragmatic environmentalism, which tries to reconcile ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. An example of this is Die Grünen’s program commitment from 2009, where it is said that the protection of nature should be a priority, because otherwise people would not be able to survive (Price-Thomas, 2016: 9). This means that the protection of nature is not an end in itself, but a way to indirectly save people. Ecocentrism implies reciprocity, a politics based on the relationship between living beings, not a politics based on the individual (Paterson, 2005: 238). All living beings have autonomy of action. Therefore, humans are not exclusive and dominant in relation to other forms of life that exist on Earth. Ecocentrism is the original ideological orientation of the Greens,

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while pragmatism is the result of the unwillingness of the general public to support such positions and the desire of the Greens to get as many votes as possible, in order to promote their policies from those positions. Greens believe that humans are just one of the species and that they should live in harmony with other species according to the natural order. For the Earth, they often use the metaphor “spaceship earth,” a beautiful but fragile ship that is essentially all that humans have. The resources of that ship are limited, which also limits the activities of people, especially in terms of consumerism. The way nature and the natural order works should be an example of how society should work. Nature is based on the principles of cooperation, diversity, balance, and self-regulating stability. Without respecting these principles, nature would not survive in the long run (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 280). Green political theory sees nature as an indivisible whole. Nature includes all forms of life on the planet as well as the material objects that surround them. The conceptualization of nature from traditional political ideologies differs significantly from that of the Greens. Namely, for liberals, nature is a source of resources for satisfying human needs. They do not question the undisputed dominance of humans over nature. For liberals, nature itself has no value. It acquires value only when it is transformed by the application of human labor. Socialists have a similar view of nature as liberals. For them, nature is a source of resources. But unlike liberals, socialists have a romantic view of the past in which they idealize the beauty of nature. Conservatives see nature as a threat to humans. It is cruel, amoral, and shapes human existence. For conservatives, humans are part of nature, but they are superior to other forms of life and hence their responsibility to protect nature. Anarchists probably have the closest view of nature to that of the Greens. For them, nature is unregulated harmony. It is a benchmark for simplicity and balance.

3.3   Human Nature The basis of the political theory of any political ideology is the determination of human nature. So it is with the Greens. Political ideology indicates how individuals should live their lives, based on what they are by nature. Human nature is situated and firmly connected with the general nature. For liberals, humans are by nature selfish and rational. They use their own ratio to protect their interests. For conservatives, human nature is imperfect, prone to mistakes and oversights. That is why people should not

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experiment but rely on tradition. For socialists, human nature is plastic, changeable depending on the context. Humans are essentially altruistic, inclined to cooperate, but at the time of the abolition of private property, humans became greedy and began to turn to competition. Greens believed that humans are part of the natural order. It is characterized by interdependence. The well-being of one species contributes to the well-being of other species on the planet and the entire planet (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 279). People are part of nature, but also a product of culture. Culture is the second nature of people. It is the way people express their nature. Hence, culture should not radically separate people from nature. The Greens, especially referring to the tradition of deep ecology, have a critical attitude toward the Cartesian (modernist) conceptualization of the self. According to them, the modern self is constructed too narrowly, incompletely, unnaturally, and unhealthy. It has an anthropocentric worldview and it causes environmental crises. Self should be inclusive, not exclusive. It should be open to the nonhuman world. The ecocentric self should be cultivated in the process of identification with the natural world. It should be oriented toward caring for nature (Barry, 1996: 32). Humans are not only connected to nature, but are part of nature. But wrongly conceptualized and trapped in large urban centers, people have drifted away from their true nature. People are not only rational beings (as the liberals claim), only social beings (as the socialists claim), according to the Greens they are primarily natural beings, connected to the environment.

3.4  Environmental Justice The concept of justice is well established in normative political theory and civil society. It is related to the concept of rights, human rights, but it raises the question of the rights of the next generations, but also the rights of animals. Theories of social justice deal with the issues of distribution of rights, opportunities, and resources among people. These theories open up the issue of social inequality. According to some libertarians such as Nozick (1974), it is fair for everyone to have what belongs to them according to the property they own, and inequality in society is not unfair. The relationship between social justice and environmental issues is very significant, but until recently it was not much developed. The first analysis referring to environmental justice appeared in the United States in the 1980s and was the result of numerous upheavals referring to the conceptualization of environmental rights (Dauvergne, 2009: 63). Greens indicate that

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from the interdependence of the multitude of entities in nature, their equality arises. Namely, in nature there are many entities, each of which has a certain value for some other entity. Because of their interdependence they tend to be equal. This principle is highly criticized. Namely, the employer and the employee are also interdependent, but it does not follow that they are equal. The second principle of environmental justice indicates that social injustice implies the degradation of nature. This principle is also under serious criticism. If some people are disadvantaged or if they are in an inferior situation in the social stratification, it does not mean that they will destroy the environment less. Namely, people living in poverty are forced to use chemicals and pesticides in agricultural production in order for their family to survive, as for the same reasons they are forced to carry out more deforestation (Carter, 2007: 62). In the narrower sense of the word, environmental justice refers to and tries to solve the challenge of creating and increasing environmental damage, the unequal distribution of environmental damage, and the creation of waste by the wealthier, and its collection and storage by the poorer and marginalized members of the community. Hence the Greens can raise the issue of distributional equality. The cause of the environmentalist crisis according to environmentalist justice theorists lies not only in the unequal distribution of goods and services on the global market, but also in systemic racism, gender discrimination, and the system of relations in every society. The protection of biodiversity, which the Greens insist on, implies the protection of the diversity of relations between people, and this excludes the tolerance of discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, and age. Hence, environmental injustice is a consequence of discrimination that contributes to the unfair distribution of available natural resources. Some authors such as Martinez-Alier (2002) referring to environmental justice indicate that poorer citizens and poorer societies should have a fair share in the resources for dealing with environmental disasters. Martinez-Alier points out that the poor have a greater need for equitable sustainability of the ecosystem than the rich. Environmental justice corresponds to the vocabulary and conceptual apparatus of contemporary liberal theory and practice (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182). It goes hand in hand with the concept of social justice, which is related to the fair distribution of benefits and obligations in society. The question arises whether the principles of social justice are applicable to the concept of environmental justice. Namely, can environmental justice be perceived through the prism of the rights and obligations of individuals

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and social groups. For a long time the issue of the environment was ignored when theories of justice were developed. More recently, modern theories of justice are slowly beginning to give it some importance. Social justice theories are not only interested in the issue of distribution, but also in the principles on the basis of which scarce resources are distributed in society. In that sense, the question arises as to how the right to the environment is fairly distributed in society. What are the obligations of given social groups, individuals, institutions that could enable the right to a clean natural environment. Greens insist on equal treatment of all social groups, unlike some other political ideologies such as socialists and anarchists who are more interested in constantly raising and overemphasizing the issue of the exploitation of the working class. They saw social justice through the prism of the interests of the working class. The Greens indicated that when considering the issue of social justice, serious attention should be paid to the rights of women, migrants, sexual minorities, and residents of developing countries (Price-Thomas, 2016: 287). Greens especially often raise the issue of women’s rights. Considering the political underrepresentation, economic problems, and physical violence against women, the Green parties indicate that social solidarity can be built only if the relations between women and men change significantly. Acts of violence against women are not individual acts, but a social problem in the relationship between women and men. Hence, Green parties are often perceived as feminist. According to the Greens, the immigration policy should be open and humanistic. The French Greens, Les Verts, came out with a statement that they reject the concept of “Fortress Europe.” The German Die Grünen in their party programs constantly treat the issue of migration policy and criticize the policy of Fortress Europe, that is, of seeing Europe as a fortress against migrants. They advocate a society that will be open to migrants, who will be integrated through participation. The German Greens indicate the necessity of migrants for the formation of a diverse national culture, that is, for the formation of a multicultural reality. Greens argue that language, culture, and way of life are enriched by integrating foreigners into social streams. The labor market is crucial for the integration of migrants into society. Through inclusion in the labor market, migrants contribute to increasing the productivity of national economies. The policy toward migrants promoted by the Greens is not very different from mainstream libertarianism (Price-Thomas, 2016: 288).

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The protection of the living environment is a matter of ethics, that is, of an ethical attitude toward the inhuman natural world. Environmental policy is not a matter of finance or personal gain, but of self-awareness for environmental protection. There is a difference between the consumption of resources, for example the consumption of wood, by people who live in poverty and use wood for warmth and survival, from those who use it as part of a luxurious and lavish lifestyle (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182). Regarding the question of whether resources are inexhaustible and have no limit, Marx’s debate with Thomas Malthus is significant. While Malthus points out that the resources we have at our disposal are a given, a constant that we cannot change, Marx points to the dialectical relationship between humanity and nature. Humans have transformed nature, just as nature has transformed humans. This means that resource limits are a function of the metabolism between humanity and nature, it is something that is dynamic and changeable, and not something that is given, immutable, constant (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182). Greens do not deny that society can shape or at least influence the contours that the environment sets for us. What is problematic is the decrease in the will to protect the environment, which can lead to local, regional, and global disasters. However, the number of political parties that are more vocal about environmental issues in their programs is growing. They decide on environmental topics in a direct or indirect way when they talk about energy, housing, transport, agriculture, and food policies. The question arises whether we all have an equal right to a clean environment, if it is a rare resource in society. If everyone cannot get equal quality of the environment, unpolluted nature, should the right to it be linked to the fulfillment of certain conditions? For example, those who do not pollute to have an advantage in using the benefits of having a clean environment. In such a case, the most developed countries would have the least right to use the benefits of a clean environment, because 20% of the most economically developed countries use 80% of the goods and services that are produced (Chasek et al., 2010: 325). The question of fairness in the use of the resources available to us can be raised if the relationship between the current and future generations is analyzed. The question can be raised whether current generations, through excessive exploitation of existing resources (beyond the limits of their renewal), have the right to deprive these resources from future generations. In that sense, the question arises whether the ruthless use of

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resources is fair to the next generations. Environmental degradation can be considered an intergenerational injustice that leaves future generations with fewer options to choose from.

3.5   Green Ethics Green ethics deals with the question of how people should conceive and treat nature. In that sense, green ethics is a link between theory and practice (Carter, 2007: 14). It deals with values, with how we value nature, and why. Green ethics tries to answer whether the environment has value independent of the satisfaction of human needs. It is critical of the anthropocentricity of the conventional ethical system. According to the Greens, people are not the source of all values in the world. The value of nature should not derive from whether and to what extent it satisfies the interests of people as utilitarianism does. Utilitarianism judges whether a decision and behavior is good or not according to whether it causes pleasure or pain for people. People are utility maximizers which means that from the point of view of utilitarianism, the ethically correct decision or behavior is the one that causes the greatest pleasure or least pain to people. All other life forms on the planet are treated instrumentally. They have no value in themselves, but exist to serve people, to fulfill their needs and interests. In the theories of John Locke, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, the nonhuman world acquires value only when it interacts with humans. In that interaction people begin to develop their skills and sensibilities (Heywood, 2017). According to the Greens, people are part of the ecosystem. Environmental laws are universal and they apply to humans as well as to other life forms on the planet. Greens indicate the principle of moral extensionism. That principle means that we should expand the moral community. In addition to humans, it should include animals (Carter, 2007: 14). According to the Greens, green ethics should not be confused with human ethics. Green ethics is not an extension of human ethics, which is only applied to another area, that is, to other forms of life on the planet. Goodin (1992) developed the “green theory of value” in which he claims that resources should be valued, because they are the result of natural processes and not of human activity. Greens do not accept that natural resources and nature as a whole are given importance, a certain value only when people see some sense in them, something they can use to improve their own lives. Hence Aldo Leopold (1949) in “A Sand County Almanac” talks about “lend ethics.” He points to the need to protect the integrity,

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stability, and beauty of the biological community. For him, nature itself is an ethical community, which means that the people of the planet are nothing but ordinary citizens who have no more rights and deserve no more respect than any other life form on the planet. Such a moral position implies “bio centric equality,” which means that all organisms and entities in the ecosphere are part of one whole and have equal moral value. Specifically, all forms of life on the planet have an equal right to life and development. Critics of this position point out that it is unrealistic and that it ignores some basic facts related to nature such as the food chain and the struggle for survival. They indicate that morality, ethics are a human discovery, and that nature in its essence does not know ethics (Heywood, 2017). Nature is an object, not a subject of ethics. Ethics is applied to objects, but they themselves do not have ethical positions. One of the central issues of green ethics is the moral obligations to be owed to future generations. The consequences of today’s decisions and behavior related to the environment will be felt after several decades, and in some cases even centuries. Why worry about the depletion of fossil fuel reserves if we will not be on the planet when their reserves are completely depleted. Similarly, why worry about the increase in nuclear waste when the generations that will have to deal with that problem are not even born yet. Here the question of reciprocity arises. Why should this generation care about the next when they can offer nothing in return to this generation? But according to this logic, we could understand the question of why we would help those who are in misery, in an accident, in poverty, if they are in a position to offer nothing in return. The answer to this false dilemma lies in the sociability and solidarity between people, which extends to the next generations. If people personally cannot live, then humanity and the planet have to go on with their lives, and the current generations have to make it happen, even though at first glance they seem to be making sacrifices for which they will not be compensated. The next dilemma with intergenerational solidarity is the problem of knowledge. Namely, the current generations take actions in the name of the following ones, but they could hardly know what it is that the next generations will really need, what they will really want. Although it is true that it is difficult to know what the needs and demands of the next generations will be, it can still be assumed that in order for life to continue, the next generations will need the natural resources that this generation should provide. Finally, the dilemma arises as to whether the yet unborn generations have their own interests and rights. Current generations should create preconditions

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for future generations to form their own interests and acquire their own rights by the act of birth. If natural resources are not protected, future generations could have fewer rights than the present (Carter, 2007: 192). When the Greens talk about the future of humanity, they make no distinction between current and future generations, between those living now and those not yet born.

3.6  Sustainability Sustainability is the most important political goal of the Greens. It is a complex goal and can be set in many areas and achieved by many separate but mutually coordinated policies. The question arises as to how this goal corresponds to certain values such as freedom, justice, equality, democracy, and order. The question arises, what should be sustained? How long? Does sustainability aim at the well-being of existing or future generations? What appears to be sustainable in one context, in one society, may not be sustainable in another context, in another society. From an epistemological point of view, sustainability must be created, shaped, resulting from an open debate that will include people, and not be the product of a deliberation that will include only experts. From a pragmatic point of view, sustainability should be legitimized and supported by ordinary people. That will not happen if sustainability, its contours, is not the fruit of an open debate among a wide range of people. When the contours of sustainability are solidified in a public discussion, when it is legitimized, it should be kept in mind that there are dynamics of social and physical processes, which will condition its constant reassessment (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 187). Environmental responsibility is the second name for sustainability. Sustainability itself in the current political context, as understood by the Greens, is based on the idea of limiting growth. Limitation of growth has the purpose of society and life on the planet lasting in a long time perspective, to be long-lasting. This can be achieved if care is taken not to overload the capacities of the planet, that is, not to use natural resources more than their capacity for regeneration. For the planet to survive and be long-­ lasting, growth—economic, political, social must be limited, to be self-­ sustaining (Carter, 2007: 47). The second important thing for achieving sustainability is lifestyle. Some lifestyles promise a greater likelihood of achieving sustainability than others. Similarly, some political institutions are more effective in dealing with environmental degradation than others (Dobson, 2000: 73).

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The assumption on which the traditional political thought of the mainstream political parties (gray parties) is based is that humanity has unlimited possibilities for material growth and prosperity. People in many countries around the world have a standard of living that would have been hard to imagine 50 or a 100 years ago. Science and technology have solved and are still solving many problems. Poverty is reduced and cures have been found for many diseases. The development of the Internet, computers, and robotics is a symbol of the progress of humanity. From an ecological point of view, the promise of unlimited prosperity and material wealth, or as Herman Daly (1974) called growth mania, is irresponsible and can cause ecological catastrophe. Green political theory criticizes capitalism and communism as examples of industrialization. They require assumptions about the nature and goals of economic activities to be reconsidered and put in relation to environment protection (Heywood, 2017). The Greens refused to base the economic policy on the exploitation and plunder of natural resources and raw materials. Such positions at the level of rhetoric are acceptable to the electorate, so at first glance, the electorate of the traditional mainstream parties also accepts them. But when it comes to specific policies, when the question of priorities in bringing political solutions is raised, priority is almost always given to economic growth, before the protection of the environment and sustainable growth (Carter, 2007: 2). However, if the programs of the Green parties are analyzed, it will be seen that they advocate limiting economic growth. Thus, the Green Party in Great Britain indicated in its program in 2010 that the economy has ecological limits. if the economy continues to grow, it may exceed its ecological limits. The policy of sustainability starts from the assumption that the resources and opportunities available to us on Earth are not unlimited. Humans can survive only if they realize that they are only one element in the biosphere. Only a healthy and balanced biosphere is a guarantee for human existence. Therefore, people’s policies and actions must be based on the principle of sustainability. Sustainability places limits on ambitions for material success as it requires production to cause as little damage as possible to the global ecosystem. For example, the sustainable energy policy must be based on the reduction of energy consumption, and especially on the reduction of the use of energy from non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels, oil, and the use of potentially dangerous technologies for the production of nuclear energy. Greens recommended looking for alternatives through the use of renewable energy sources such as solar energy, the use of energy that can

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be produced by wind, water waves, etc. and thus to create a sustainable energy system. In it, the use of fossil energy must end and be replaced by a period in which solar energy will be used (Heywood, 2017). To create a sustainable system, the Greens recommend more local production and less trade. In that way, the environmental costs (risks) of the transport would be reduced. For this to happen, new social and political values are needed based on reducing pollution and consumerism and a fairer distribution of wealth within society and between societies (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 286). 3.6.1   Areas of Sustainable Development The question of what is to be sustained is crucial. Is it the development or the life of the planet that needs to be sustained? The dominant position in the general public is that development should be maintained, that is, development should be achieved that will not jeopardize the prospects of future generations to meet their needs. After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992, sustainable development became the dominant strategy for dealing with environmentalist problems (Gökpinar, 2019: 171). Today, almost all countries accept and try to apply the concept of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development is becoming part of international and national legislation. For the Greens, such policies are unsatisfactory. They are skeptical of anything related to development, regardless of whether it is presented sustainable or not. As the British Greens put it, they reject the politics of “more and more” and embrace the politics of “enough” (Bomnerg, 2005). A similar example is with Les Verts in France who criticized President Sarkozy’s statement about green growth as an oxymoron. They indicate that those who use such terminology have a questionable value system in terms of environmental protection (Price-Thomas, 2016: 285). Greens would like to see sustainability of natural resources, healthy lifestyles, etc. (Humphrey, 2013). The maximum goal that the Greens set for themselves is the sustainability of natural resources (strong sustainability). But if it is not possible in real politics for certain reasons, the Greens generally prefer the policy of weak sustainability, which includes limiting growth to the level of self-sustainability, than a policy of economic growth that goes hand in hand with encouragement of consumerism. If it were up to the Greens they would lead a policy of sustainability of natural resources, but in the real political context in which they get a limited number of votes, the Greens often have to choose between supporting a policy of sustainable growth on the one hand or a

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Table 3.1  Spheres of sustainable development Environmental sustainability

Economic sustainability

Social sustainability

Recycling Hazardous waste management

Longevity of products Favoring ecological products Favoring recyclable products Dynamism of the economy An economy based on small businesses

Community orientation Orientation toward tolerance and cohesion Healthy lifestyle

Favoring walking, cycling, and using public transport Energy saving Use of renewable energy sources in households Saving water Maintaining the temperature in the household at a maximum of 21 degrees during the winter Vegetarian food Preference of organic food Preference of local food

Social inclusion Orientation toward reducing poverty in the world Incorporation of quality Elimination of risks in materials in production public health Repairing broken products Social responsibility of instead of replacing them consumers with new ones Energy efficiency in Intergenerational production connection Maintenance of civil society Volunteering Giving less value to private property

Source: Salonen and Ahiberg (2013: 380)

policy of economic growth on the other hand. In such a situation, the Greens see the policy of sustained growth as optimal. Sustainable development as a concept is commonly applied in three spheres: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability (see Table 3.1). 3.6.2   Sustainability of Economic Growth The constant obsession with increasing economic growth creates significant problems for the environment such as depletion of natural resources, unhealthy that is non-ecological production, and environment pollution. Sustainable growth in the economic sphere means that natural resources should be used more responsibly, but also a change in attitude toward economic growth, consumerism, production, and work. If people are oriented toward satisfying needs and not desires, then the orientation toward

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economic growth would disappear or at least significantly decrease. Greens are critical of consumerism, especially the consumption of products and services that we have no real need for. Economic growth in the modern economy is maintained by creating artificial needs. Entire industries such as advertising, marketing, public relations, fashion, etc. work on the creation of artificial needs. Orientation to real needs and not to artificially created desires is a challenge for the economy based on the motive to make as much profit as possible, regardless of the environmental consequences of it. Greens are convinced that rejecting consumerism will increase the quality of life. For the Greens, a society based on the acquisition of material wealth is not desirable and is morally wrong. Citizens preoccupied with the desire to acquire more material goods have less time to participate in democratic procedures, in the design and implementation of policies. Even when they participate in democratic processes, citizens preoccupied with the motives of acquiring material benefits, perceive democracy instrumentally, as a tool for achieving materialistic goals. Hence corruption in politics. The Greens propose that the economy should be based on satisfying people’s real needs, not on making a profit (Carter, 2007: 48). People should consume less goods and services, reduce production, protect resources, the economy should be based on renewable energy sources, production of products that can be used longer, several times, use of clean technologies in production, and recycling of the products. Some authors propose an alternative approach to economic activities. So for example, Schumacher (1973) proposes the development of “Buddhist economics.” It is an alternative approach to conventional economics that considers individuals to be utility maximizers. Buddhists believe that in addition to producing goods and services, through production individuals achieve personal growth through the development of skills and talents. Manufacturing helps people overcome self-centeredness, strengthens social bonds, and encourages people to collaborate, that is, to work together. This view of economics and production is far from the conventional approach that is obsessed with wealth creation and pays very little attention to nature or the spiritual qualities of people. The principles of the Buddhist approach to economics are not incompatible with material prosperity. It is not wealth that keeps people from being free, but the addiction to it that keeps people from enjoying the other pleasures that life has to offer. Hence, the Greens suggest that the economy should serve the human, not the other way around (Heywood, 2017).

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Referring to Schumacher (1973) Greens in economics are followers of the small are “beautiful” philosophy. Mass production and the overdimensioning of production made possible by modern technology have negative consequences for the environment, putting the viability of local ecosystems under constant pressure. Due to the fact that industry produces environmental pollution, residential zones must be located at a great distance from industrial facilities. For workers to get to their jobs, they have to use transport, mostly cars, which further pollute the environment. The green economy should use technologies that do not pollute the environment, it should not be based on mass production, hence there is no need for large industrial facilities and it should be located in the community whose needs it satisfies. At the level of lifestyle, the inclination toward sustainable development is compatible with the inclination toward post-materialist values. It requires replacing the concept of “good life” which is based on economic growth, use of sophisticated technology, growth in the production of goods and services with a “simpler life” which promotes a cleaner planet, use of less natural resources, spirituality connected to nature, and acting at the local level to solve global problems (Bomnerg, 2005: 9). On a personal level, sustainable development implies a preference for a sustainable lifestyle, recycling waste, consuming organic food, not using water unnecessarily, maintaining civil society, using ecological products, as well as energy from renewable sources. 3.6.3   Limitation of Economic Growth Growth whether it is physical growth, human population growth, car production growth, or building construction growth has its limits and cannot last indefinitely. Limiting growth in all spheres is based on what would happen in the future if natural resources were used irresponsibly in order to increase growth today, without thinking about the consequences it may have in the future. Natural resources should be used today so that next generations are not prevented from having a dignified life in the future. The idea of limiting growth is part of a broader understanding of the economy that is the conceptualization of the green economy on the one hand and the concept of environmental justice on the other hand. Society cannot have constant and unlimited growth without having consequences for the environment. The constant exponential growth of both developed and developing countries means that the risks of destroying the

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environment are also constantly growing exponentially. The risks and problems with the environment grow so much that it is impossible to perceive them only in isolation. Тhey become part of the global problem that humanity has with the environment (Meadows et  al., 1972). Hence, a policy of discouraging the use of limited resources and environmental pollution should be pursued. There are many factors that influence the catastrophic situation with the pollution of nature. These include industrial waste, resource depletion, pollution, food production using pesticides, etc. All these factors are interrelated and trying to intervene and one can have unwanted repercussions on the others. For example, attempts to find technological solutions that increase the duration of use of resources can affect an increase in pollution (Carter, 2007: 42). Regardless, in principle, the solutions to the consequences of constant growth cannot be technological. Technological solutions to the problems of excessive use of limited natural resources are insufficient because this solution cannot understand and properly respond to the economic, social, and political reasons behind the excessive use of natural resources. Technological solutions can slow down, but not prevent, the destruction of natural resources. The causes must be addressed, not the consequences, and this can only be done by changing people’s habits, their lifestyles, and behavior patterns. Technology can only temporarily solve some of the problems, but if habits do not change, it is only a matter of time before more and more serious environmental problems appear. The spread of the idea of limiting growth went hand in hand with the fear that if it didn’t happen humanity risked experiencing an ecological disaster. The Greens criticize the concept of gross domestic product (GDP), which is the basis of all analyses of the growth of the economy. The calculation of the gross domestic product does not include the atmospheric pollution caused by the growth of GDP, noise, workplace accidents, and stress. GDP also does not measure the distribution of wealth generated in a society. GDP cannot measure entire segments of the real economy, such as services and products that are made and performed informally, often within the family. This is how a significant part of the economy of the countries in the world works. When measuring GDP, these goods and services are not included, because they are based on mutual exchange and not on the use of classical monetary operations (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 285). Greens criticize the obsession that many social actors show toward economic growth. Connelly et al. (1999: 57) in an attempt to reconcile the

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concepts of sustainable development and economic growth, introduced the concept of “ecological modernization.” According to that concept, economic development is needed to ensure the development of society and protection of the environment. Analyzing the party programs of the Green parties, Price-Thomas (2016: 10) states that the election programs of the British Greens for 2010 state that excessive economic growth can exceed environmental limits. The paradigm of economic growth must come to an end. The French Greens give a vivid picture of economic growth. They indicate in their program that they do not support the growth of a cake that is more and more polluted. Although they oppose economic growth, it is not the most important issue that the Greens deal with in the election campaigns. Greens base their position on limiting economic growth on the consequences that such growth has on environmental degradation. According to the Greens, growth should be moderate, sustained, and not cause degradation of nature. According to the Greens, economic growth must be halted or at least dramatically reduced. For that to happen, a series of radical measures will have to be taken, including redefining the term “work.” The term work should not be equated with paid work or employment as it is in modern society. According to the Greens, work should be an activity with a favorable end result. In that sense, growing your own vegetables and fruits, farming, helping the elderly, raising children are work activities that were not considered such until now. That is why the Greens believed that a basic monthly income should be introduced. Every citizen should have the right to a basic, minimum monthly allowance regardless of whether he works in the conventional sense of the word or not (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 285). In that way, inequality in society would be reduced. Inequality in society does not decrease through increased economic growth, but only deepens and increases. Inequality is reduced by limiting economic growth and introducing minimum guaranteed incomes for each individual. Economic activities should satisfy human needs, not the greed of individuals. Work should be organized to meet the emotional and social needs of both producers and consumers. To achieve this, production should be organized in small cooperative enterprises (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 285). Paradoxically, the Greens advocate reducing and abolishing economic growth, and support for the Green Party typically rises when the economy is growing and the labor force is near full employment, but falls when the economy goes into recession, when jobs begin to be threatened.

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3.7   Green Citizenship There is no generally accepted definition of green citizenship, but the basic idea of the concept of green citizenship is to link the rights and obligations of citizens related to the environment to citizenship (Dauvergne, 2009: 62). Green citizenship promotes pro-environmentalist behavior in both public and private life, based on the fair distribution of environmentalist goods, with the aim of achieving the sustainability of the ecosystem (Hadjichamblis & Reis, 2020: 1). The basic premise here is seeing the citizens as raw material of democracy. If someone wants a sustainable outcome from the democratic process, he must work to green the citizens. A green citizen is one who has coherent and adequate knowledge, values, skills, behavior, and competences to act as an agent of change in the private and public spheres, at the local, national, and global level, trying through individual and collective actions to solve environmental problems, to achieve a sustained and healthy relationship with nature (Hadjichamblis & Reis, 2020: 8). Normative theories of green citizenship began to emerge from the 1990s. They discuss the rights and obligations that citizens should have toward establishing ecosystem sustainability (Scerri, 2012: 3). The concept of green citizenship extends and has its consequences in economics, politics, philosophy, management, marketing, etc. It represents an attempt to find an adequate response to environmentalist problems such as the problem of climate change. The very concept of green citizenship suggests, first, to think of the rights and obligations that citizens have, outside the context of their attachment to the citizenship of a particular national state. Citizenship itself is related to the rights and obligations of individuals in a particular state. An interesting debate arises here between proponents of cosmopolitan citizenship like Linklater and environmentalists. Some authors have gone so far as to argue that green citizenship should be a post-cosmopolitan citizenship (Dobson, 2003), but such concepts have come under serious criticism. However, since the consequences of the destruction of nature are not confined to the borders of a state, the prevailing opinion is that green citizenship should be non-territorial. Those with green citizenship, with a developed awareness of the environmentalist challenge, should act both within the state in whose borders they live, and outside it. The second point is that traditionally the rights and obligations in the traditional conception of citizenship were reciprocal. But the question arises whether we can talk about reciprocity in conditions where the potential ecological

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disaster can be asymmetric. Green citizenship means that the one who pollutes the environment has obligations to others to reduce or completely stop pollution, but those who are beneficiaries of such obligations in turn have no obligations to those who will reduce pollution. However, it seems that for the Greens the obligations are not to other people but to nature. Everyone has obligations to nature. Those who pollute should reduce the volume and preferably stop doing so. The rest, not to be included in a pattern of behavior that implies pollution of nature. Third, green citizenship brings back into play the concept of virtue, which disappeared with the emergence of republics as a form of organizing states. Virtue is a concept that is related to the virtues that apply more to the private than to the public sphere. In order for citizens to be able to fulfill their obligations toward the protection of nature, which should be imposed on them by accepting green citizenship, they should have the right to dispose of certain natural resources. The concept of social justice and fair distribution of natural resources goes together with the obligations that citizens undertake for their preservation. Fourth, the social subject to whom green citizenship is intended is the citizen, but the idea of green citizenship first of all tries to harness the civil society that should influence individuals in the attempt to protect nature and achieve sustainability. At the same time, state mechanisms such as taxation and financial incentives are used in the attempt to change the behavior of individuals in line with nature protection (Dauvergne, 2009: 62). Appealing only to the consciousness of individuals does not give the desired results, so in order to achieve post-materialistic goals, materialistic instruments are used. Fifth, the idea of linking citizenship with privacy is transgressive. This would mean that the acts that individuals do in their private lives are related to consumption, (re)production, and have consequences for their public status. Citizenship has traditionally been associated with the way individuals behave in the public sphere, but the actions people take in the private sphere, especially if they are related to environmental degradation, should have consequences. Green citizenship must encompass the private sphere. Just as domestic violence has criminal-legal consequences for the perpetrators of such crimes, the degradation of natural resources that occurs in the private sphere should have consequences in the public sphere, affecting the reputation and social status of citizens, but it could also have criminal legal consequences. Green ideology theorists suggest that citizenship begins at home (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 187; Dobson, 2003).

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Table 3.2  The attitude toward green citizenship depending on the type of citizen Type of citizen

Personal responsibility

Participatory

Socially responsible

Feature

Acts responsibly without asking why Waste recycling

Acts responsibly and undertakes concrete actions Distributes flyers and recycles

Critically observes social justice and acts accordingly

Example

Get involved in discussions about recycling at the local level, participating in decisions about which model of recycling to apply

Source: Levinson et al. (2020: 17)

Levinson et al. (2020: 17) point out that there are three types of citizens: 1. Citizens who feel personally responsible, obey the law and act according to it without questioning social norms, 2. Citizens who participate in social life, but act individually, 3. Citizens who are socially responsible, who are concerned with social justice and who can identify the problems that need to be overcome in order to create a just society. Depending on the type of citizens, the attitude toward the state, green citizenship can vary (see Table 3.2). 3.7.1   Green Citizenship in Practice The growth strategy of the EU (Europe 2020), “European vision for green, circular and low carbon economy” pays special attention to the active participation of citizens, that is, green citizenship (Hadjichamblis & Reis, 2020: 1). Policies that are compatible with green citizenship are the introduction of taxes, fees, and benefits to motivate citizens to behave in accordance with environmental protection standards. One example of that is congestion charges that are introduced in many cities across Europe. Car drivers are charged a fee to enter certain zones of the city, usually the centers where there is a high concentration of cars, crowds, and air pollution. In that way, citizens are implicitly sent a message to use an alternative, healthier way of transportation. A second example is the tax on the use of plastic bags, which the Irish government introduced in 2002. The idea was to discourage citizens from using a new plastic bag every time they go shopping. Instead, they wanted to stimulate citizens to use cloth

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bags and to use them for a longer period of time. Such measures seem to be yielding results. In the first year after the introduction of a tax to enter the central city zones, the entry of cars into those zones decreased by 18%. With the introduction of taxation on plastic bags in Ireland, according to some estimates, 1 billion fewer bags were used in Ireland in the first year of the measure (Dobson, 2000: 132). Fiscal measures seem to produce quick results in changing people’s habits. The only weakness of this kind of policy would be that the behavior of the citizens may return to the old way, if the policies are changed. What can potentially be of concern is not the results of the policy of introducing taxation, fees, and benefits for the preservation of the environment, but the fact that behind changing the habits of citizens’ behavior is not the awareness of protecting the environment, but the selfish motives of not being taxed, to not pay a fee. 3.7.2   Green Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism The idea of green citizenship is based on the concept of cosmopolitanism, that is, on the idea that citizenship should be related to the contribution that the individual makes to society, and not to his origin in terms of gender, age, nation, race, and religion. It refers to the old slogan in the struggle for the independence of the United States: no taxation without representation. In that sense, the EU is considering giving European citizenship to people who spend a significant amount of time in several EU countries. This is especially true for those who make large incomes, so they use the various citizenships they may legally possess to avoid taxation (Martinache, 2022). The idea of cosmopolitism as the basis of citizenship developed independently and before the emergence of the idea of green citizenship. In doing so, cosmopolitanism is understood as an ethical engagement in civic life, something that has slowly eroded in the neoliberal age, when most people are concerned only with their personal interests and needs. According to Wonicki (2019), cosmopolitanism implies belonging to an ethical community and citizenship without a state. Specifically, engagement in the civil, public sphere. Those who think about green citizenship draw inspiration from the idea of cosmopolitanism (Dobson, 2000: 133). Being a citizen of the world means, among other things, having moral obligations to preserve the environment. The idea of green citizenship is considered by many governments as an opportunity to involve civil society more in public policies (Dauvergne, 2009: 62). The

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cosmopolitanism of green citizenship rests on the idea that every citizen has the right to a healthy and clean environment. The living environment is not limited by national borders. Every citizen, regardless of where he lives, should work to improve the environment. Given the increasing interdependence of the inhabitants of the entire planet, which is especially seen in the need to solve environmental issues such as climate change, the reduction of biological diversity, deforestation, various types of pollution, health crises, nuclear risks, terrorist threats, the idea that we live in a global risk society, the need to design a cosmopolitan global green citizenship emerges. That would mean universalizing the personal responsibility of individuals and the rights that derive from that responsibility. Until now, the only entities that regulated these issues were the nation-­states. But according to Ulrich Beck, the logic of nation-states has become very porous. It is necessary to take responsibility for building institutions that will preserve the common world. The European Union could represent a laboratory for pacifying and merging many histories and cultures into one cultural whole (Martinache, 2022).

3.8  The Attitude Toward Animals The attitude toward animals is probably not at the center, but it is a significant part of the political philosophy of the Greens. Greens raise the question of the attitude toward animals. Specifically, they raise the question of applying the standards and values developed and intended for humans to other forms of life on the planet. Monkeys are often taken as animals that are suitable for experimentation in the pharmaceutical industry because of their similarities to humans. The same arguments used to ban human experimentation can be used to ban monkey experimentation. People are not experimented on because people have dignity that should be respected, that is, each person should be respected as an end in itself, and not as a means to achieve other greater goals. But what is true for humans should also be true for other forms of life, which have very similar characteristics to humans (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182). In the programs of the Green parties since their inception there have been provisions opposing the use of animals for experimental purposes. Thus, the program of Die Grünen states that experimentation with animals and plants destroys the balance in nature (Dobson, 2000: 44). Green indicates that animals should be treated humanely and should not be exploited. In addition to rejecting the use of

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animals for scientific experiments, the Greens have a negative attitude toward hunting, the animal trade, and the modern breeding of animals for the needs of the food industry. The attitude toward animals of the Greens implies the acceptance of vegetarianism as a lifestyle of people. Vegetarianism itself initially had a serious following in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more for health reasons than for the protection of animal rights (Sargent, 2009: 287). The Greens’ conceptualization of the attitude toward animals draws mainly on two approaches: Peter Signer’s utilitarianism and Tom Regan’s animal rights theory. 3.8.1   Peter Signer’s Utilitarianism After the writings of Peter Signer (1975), on the welfare of animals, especially after the publication of his book “Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals,” the movement that demanded the dignified treatment of animals grew. Signer believes that the treatment of animals should be evaluated based on whether it contributes to the improvement of their welfare or not. Signer’s work is based on the concept of “moral extensionism.” In short the idea is that what applies to humans should also apply to animals. Rights are related and should go together with life. One of the arguments why animals should not have the same rights as humans is that they do not think. Signer, declares that altruistic concern for the welfare of animals rests on the fact that, even though other life forms do not think, they can suffer. Signer calls it “sentience.” The ability to feel sentiments is the locus of interests, that is, of having one’s own interests. Such is the interest in not suffering. Stones have no feelings, cannot suffer, and hence have no interests. But animals can suffer and have an interest in avoiding it. Interests should be taken as the basis for animals to be treated in a dignified manner. There are people who, for various reasons, lag behind in intellectual development or are unable to speak, but because of this they do not lose the rights that belong to people. Carter (2007: 29) points out that although animals can suffer, the capacity of humans to anticipate the consequences, to predict death when someone becomes ill with an incurable disease makes humans’ capacity for suffering and feeling pain far greater than of animals. Hence, the advocates of anthropocentrism believe that more attention should be paid to avoiding the suffering of people, than avoiding the suffering of animals. As a utilitarian, Signer points out that animals, like humans, have an interest in avoiding physical pain. He denounces any attempt to put the interests of

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humans above those of animals as “speciesism.” The interests of all life forms should be treated in the same way. One should not have preferences toward a certain individual just because he belongs to the species homo sapiens. Favoring certain species over others is the same as favoring one race over another. In that sense, speciesism is an arbitrary and irrational prejudice similar to sexism and racism. Altruistic concern for all forms of life does not mean that they should be treated equally as humans and animals, especially when it comes to plants, trees, even rocks, rivers, etc. (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 182; Heywood, 2017; Sargent, 2009: 288). Signer points out that cutting down a tree for example has no meaning to it, because the tree does not feel it. But the principle of “reluctant holism” indicates that the locus of value is nature as a whole, that is, the biosphere, which includes plants. Moral principles must be applied not only to humans and animals, but also to plants. Most authors who defend the position that the relationship to plants should be the same as to humans and animals such as Baird J. Callocott, Holmes Rolston III, Paul Taylor still have a critical distance to the idea of absolutist holism, which is an idea promoted by deep ecology thinkers like Arne Naess and Warwick Fox (Vincent, 2010: 207). 3.8.2   Tom Regan’s Animal Rights Theory The idea that humans and animals should have the same moral status was developed by the American philosopher Tom Regan (1983), in the book “The Case of Animal Rights.” In that book he claims that all creatures that have life should have the same rights. If nothing else, all living things have the right to their life, that is, to live their life. Here, however, the question arises of obligations that should come with the rights that are given to individuals. Among other things, those obligations would primarily mean not taking away the right of other forms of life to live their lives freely and at their own discretion, if they do not endanger the lives of others. With such a position it is very difficult and almost impossible to differentiate between the animal world and the human world. According to Rawls (1973), animals cannot be responsible for their actions, that is, have obligations and hence cannot have rights. But it is undeniable that they have an interest in not suffering and living their own lives. According to Regan, rights are given to people because of the fact that they are capable of thinking and have moral autonomy. Because animals cannot think, they cannot be the subject of reciprocal moral contracts and obligations arising

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from them. They cannot act as ethical agents, be part of the ethical community, and hence cannot acquire rights like humans. But senile people, minor children, handicapped people are not deprived of their rights as human beings, because they cannot be held accountable for their actions. But their rights are undoubtedly limited. Such rights can be selectively applied to animals. This individualistic rights-based approach failed to fully satisfy the expectations and needs of the Greens who hoped for a holistic approach based on ethics, encompassing all life forms on the planet (Heywood, 2017). Greens generally advocate for the protection of animal rights, especially endangered animal species, whose numbers are unfortunately increasing. They support policies that would return animals to their natural habitat from which they were displaced. Due to human intervention, some animal species reproduce much more than others and threaten their existence. According to the Greens, it is a problem that can only be solved by human intervention. Deep ecologists believe that this only indicates that humans are the problem, not the solution (Sargent, 2009: 288). 3.8.3   Animal Rights Protection Policies For some Greens, animal rights are a controversial issue because it distracts from the central issue—the destruction of the environment. But there are groups like the Animal Liberation Front (mostly active in Great Britain) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which fight for the protection of animal rights. So, for example, under pressure from animal rights activists in 2004, Cambridge University decided to abandon the idea of building an animal research laboratory. The company that was supposed to build an animal research laboratory at Cambridge University has abandoned the project, after the company’s shares fell by 19%, following actions taken by animal rights activists. Given that twice as fewer animals are used in research today than in the 1970s, it seems that the activities of organizations dealing with this issue are yielding results (Sargent, 2009: 288). Animal protection is a standard part of the programs of the Green parties. In the Animal Manifesto, The Green Party of England and Walls stated that they would pursue a policy of returning animals to their natural environment, strengthening and expanding hunting laws, and would not allow the breeding of animals to be hunted, protecting the natural environment where animals live, revising the law on domestic animals by

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licensing people who keep domestic animals to avoid inappropriate treatment of animals, ending the use of animals for experimental purposes, ending the use of animals for people’s entertainment, such as in circuses (Green Party, 2017). The World Trade Organization does not allow a ban on trade in products that are made with cruel treatment of animals. For example, when the United States tried to ban the import of tuna from Mexico because it was caught with nets that killed dolphins, the World Trade Organization came out with the view that this violated the rights of trade between countries (Sargent, 2009: 288). The European Union has adopted new rules on how animals used for human food are treated. One of the rules is that such animals should have more living space.

References Barry, J. (1996). Green Political Theory: Nature, Virtue, and Progress. PhD. thesis. University of Glashow. Barry, J. (1999). Rethinking Green Politics: Nature, Virtue and Progress. Sage. Barry, J., & Dobson, A. (2004). Green Political Theory: Report. In G. F. Gerald & K. Chandran (Eds.), Handbook of Political Theory. Sage. Bomnerg, E. (2005). Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. Routledge. Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press. Chasek, S.  P., Downiem, L.  D., & Janet, W.  B. (2010). Global Environmental Politics. Westview Press. Connelly, J., Smith, G., Benson, D., & Saunders, C. (1999). Green Ideology. In C. James, S. Graham, B. David, & S. Clare (Eds.), Politics and the Environment. Routledge. Daly, H. (1974). Steady – State Economics Versus Growth mania: A Critique of Orthodox Conceptions of Growth, Wants, Scarcity and Efficiency. Polity Sciences, 5, 149–167. Dauvergne, P. (2009). Historical Dictionary of Environmentalism. The Scarecrow Press Inc. Dobson, A. (2000). Green Political Thought: An Introduction. Routledge. Dobson, A. (2003). Citizenship and the Environment. Oxford University Press. Dobson, A. (2010). Ecocentrism: A Response to Paul Kingsnorth. Open Democracy. http://www.opendemocracy.net/andrew-dobson/ecocentrism-responseto-­ paul-kingsnorth, Accessed 7 December 2020 Ehrenfeld, W. D. (1981). The Arrogance of Humanism. Oxford University Press. Gökpinar, F. (2019). Green Theory and International Relations. In A. Tayyar & T. Elif (Eds.), Theories of International Relations 2. Anadolu University Press.

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Goodin, E. R. (1992). Green Political Theory. Polity. Green Party. (2017). Animal Manifesto, https://www.greenparty.org.uk/animal-­ protection-­manifesto-­2017.html. Accessed 24.02.2023 Hadjichamblis, C.  A., & Reis, P. (2020). Introduction to Conceptualization of Environmental Citizenship for Twenty First Century Education. In C. A. Hadjichamblis, P. Reis, D. Paraskeva-Hadzichambi, J. Cincera, P. J. Boevede, N.  Gericke, & M.-C.  Knippels (Eds.), Conceptualizing Environmental Citizenship in 21st Century Education. Springer Nature. Harrison, K., & Boyd, T. (2003). Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press. Heywood, A. (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. Humphrey, M. (2013). Green Ideology. In M. Freeden, T. L. Sargent, & M. Stears (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County Almanac: And Sketcher Here and There. Oxford University Press. Levinson, R., Paraskeva, H. D., Bedsted, B., Manov, B., & Hadjichambis, C. A. (2020). Political Dimensions of Environmental Citizenship. In C.  A. Hadjichamblis, P. Reis, D. Paraskeva-Hadzichambi, J. Cincera, P. J. Boeve-de, N. Gericke, & M.-C.  Knippels (Eds.), Conceptualizing Environmental Citizenship in 21st Century Education. Springer Nature. Martinache, I. (2022). Citizenship: A Social Bond in Crisis (Macedonian Translation). Faculty of Philosophy. Martinez-Alier, J. (2002). The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflict and Valuation. Edward Elgar. Meadows, H. D., Meadows, L. D., Randers, J., & Behrens, W., III. (1972). The Limits of Growth: A Report for the Club of Romes Project on the Predicament of Mankind. A Potomac Associates Book. Ness, A. (1973). The Shallow of the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary. Journal of Philosophy, 16(1–4), 95–100. Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State and Utopia. Basic Books. Paterson, M. (2005). Green Politics. In S. Burchill, A. Linklater, R. Devetak, & J. Donnelly (Eds.), Theories of International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan. Porritt, J. (1984). Seeing Green. Blackwell. Price-Thomas, G. (2016). Green Party Ideology Today: Divergences and Continuities in Germany, France and Britain. In E.  Van Haute (Ed.), Green Parties in Europe. Routledge. Rawls, J. (1973). Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. Regan, T. (1983). A Case of Animal Rights. California University Press. Salonen, A.  A., & Ahiberg, M. (2013). Toward Sustainable Society: From Materialism to Post-Materialism. International Journal of Sustainable Society., 5(4), 374–393. Sargent, T. L. (2009). Contemporary Political Theory. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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Scerri, A. (2012). Greening Citizenship: Sustainable Development, the State and Ideology. Palgrave Macmillan. Schumacher, E.  F. (1973). Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Metered. Blonde and Brigs. Signer, P. (1975). Animal Liberation. Avon Books. Sullivan, D. (1992). Greens and Libertarians: The Yin and Yang of Our Political Future. Green Revolution, 49(2) https://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/ greenlibertarians.html Vincent, A. (2010). Modern Political Ideologies. Wiley – Blackwell. Warwick, F. (1990). Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism. Shambhala Publications. Wonicki, R. (2019). Global Environmental Citizenship: The Polish Approach to Ecology. In G. Mádlo (Ed.), Planet Earth Green? Brill.

CHAPTER 4

The Greens as a Social Movement

4.1   Introduction Social movements are a set of associations organized around common interests that strive to achieve collective goals, without controlling the levers of power. They challenge the power holders through a public manifestation of unity, massiveness, and willingness to act (Dryzek et al., 2003: 2; Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 338). Characteristics of social movements are a dense informal network of interactions, specific collective identities, and manifest, protest activities. What later developed as Green political parties and ideology has its beginnings in the environmentalist movement. In the words of Burchell (2002: 9) the ideological roots of the Greens can be traced to the environmentalist movement. It was a network of informal interactions involving individuals, groups, organizations that were directed toward collective action motivated by shared identities and concerns about environmentalist issues. The environmentalist movement is emblematic of the second half of the twentieth century (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 337). According to Touraine et al. (1983) the environmentalist movement and the new middle class are to postmodern society what the syndicalist movement and the trade union were to industrial society. Castells (1997: 67) is of the opinion that when the history of the twentieth century is written, the environmentalist movement will be treated as the most significant movement of that century. The environmentalist movement was key to the social and political changes that took place in Europe and North America in the second half of the twentieth century. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Sharlamanov, The Left Libertarianism of the Greens, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39263-4_4

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Movements for the protection of nature have their first beginnings in the 1920s and 1930s. At that moment it was a conservative, nationalist, populist movement that stood for the protection of nature throughout Europe. A few decades later with similar ideas for the protection of nature, began what we know today as the environmentalist movement (Vincent, 2010: 203). More specifically, the environmentalist movement appeared on the public scene at a time when the student movement in the 1960s was beginning to show signs of weakening. Then new movements appeared on the social scene. The student movement of 1968 and the New Left broke with the class-based model of organizing social movements within the labor movement (McBride, 2022). Issues such as water pollution, noise, harmful substances in food products, and protection of rare and limited resources have become the focus of public interest. These issues began to polarize the public and create more and more groups that protested some of the stated issues. They became the core of the environmentalist movement. Environmentalists criticized the processes in modern industrial society. The basis of those criticisms was that industrial society must recognize that economic and population growth has its natural limits. It protested against the decisions of the established political parties. But the influx of disaffected liberals into the environmentalist movement of the 1960s gave the movement characteristics that early Greens would find offensive (Sullivan, 1992). The environmentalist movement in the 1960s and 1970s grew slowly and separately from mainstream liberalism. Among the umbrella organizations of the environmentalist movement in Europe were the Federal Association of Environmental Citizen Initiatives BBU in Germany (founded in 1972), the Amis de la Terre in France (founded in 1971), Miljövarsgruppernas Riksförbund MIGRI in Sweden (founded in 1971), Vereniging Milieudefensie VMD in the Netherlands (founded 1972), (Müller-Rommel, 1994). In Germany, for example, there were many student movements of the New Left, citizen action groups, and campaigns against nuclear power. According to Burchell (2002: 53) in Germany there were 50,000 citizen initiative groups with about 300,000 members fighting for the protection of the environment. Most of them were disillusioned with politics. More precisely, they have lost their illusions that politics, especially the classic left-oriented parties, can do something about the issue of environmental protection. In the 1980s, the crisis of socialism began to be felt. The left began to lose its legitimacy, even for those who were considered oppressed by the system. Some of the disillusioned leftists began to see an alternative in

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environmentalism as a platform for their positions. Due to the extensive communication network, a growing number of leftists quickly identified the environmentalists and at least on a superficial level accepted their values, which they later tried to change over time (Sullivan, 1992). Environmentalism was a new left-wing social movement that replaced the old left-wing social movements led by social democratic, communist parties and trade union leaders. If the old left-wing movements were led by the working class, the question arose as to which social classes led the new social movements. It seems that it was the new middle class that had post-­ materialist goals (Cleveland, 2003: 163). Thus Touraine (1985) indicated that new social movements are a reflection of new social interests. According to him, they show spontaneity in action and an anti-­institutional character. When writing about social movements, personality factors of the individuals who lead the movements are usually left aside. When considering environmentalism, it should be borne in mind that like all political and ideological movements, it was led by people who had a complex mix of ideas, controversies, and conflicts both within the environmentalist movement itself and in relation to their ideological opponents. (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 276). This is something that can be expected from new social movements whose fundamental beliefs, but above all, political strategies were still in the stage of fermenting and crystallizing and where there was an ambition to gain influence and power in politics. During that period, different groups in the environmentalist movement applied different and often divergent strategies of action. So, while some environmental groups concentrated on changing legislation, others demonstrated like the Climate March. At the same time, there were environmental groups like Greenpeace that took direct and sometimes militant action against whaling ships, as there were groups that tried to apply the strategies of traditional social movements and those that tried to influence the behavior of individuals by appealing to them buy organic products, products from recycled materials, etc. (Szasz, 1994: 4; Jordan & Maloney, 1997). However, in order for a group to be considered as belonging to the environmentalist movement, it should satisfy several criteria: 1. it should identify itself with environmentalism, which can be determined by the pattern of self-­identification and behavior, 2. it should be involved in the network of environmentalist groups and organizations, to exchange information and interact with other groups and organizations that identify themselves as environmentalists, 3. to be involved in collective actions, primarily protests undertaken by

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environmentalists, 4. to protest against the existing form of power, that is, to provide resistance and challenge the general orientation toward which society moves (Doherty, 2002: 17). In other words, the environmentalist movement is heteronomous in relation to the social actors involved in it, in relation to the actions they take and the discourses they represent. Topics covered by environmentalists include animal rights, protests against transportation infrastructure, climate change, opposition to the use of nuclear energy, etc. What all the actors involved in the environmentalist movement have in common is that they all seek to protect and improve the balance between people and natural resources (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 338). The representatives of the two dominant theories of social movements believed that the driver of the new social movements was the new middle class. Proponents of these two theories disagreed about the reasons why the proponents of the new middle class are the drivers of new social movements. The representatives of resource mobilization theory believed that for a social movement to be successful it must possess several types of resources 1, moral resources (legitimacy and public support), 2, cultural resources (artifacts and cultural products), 3, organizational resources (repertoire of tactics, organizational patterns), 4, human resources (work, knowledge, skills, experience, leadership), and material resources (money, property, supply) (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004). It takes a special skill to combine all those resources into a harmonious and effective mix. The more resources a social movement has at its disposal, the greater its success. The representatives of resource mobilization theory believed that only the new middle class has the cultural capital to be the driver of new social movements. The theory of new social movements considered that the new middle class is the driver of the new social movements because of the post-materialist values that they cherish. Generally speaking, new social movement theory was European, while resource mobilization theory was an American approach to the study of new social movements (Carter, 2007: 92). Habermas (1981: 35) indicated that the focus of conflict in new social movements has shifted from the material interests of cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization. These new conflicts cannot be channeled through traditional social movements, parties, and organizations that are not ready to deal with such issues. It can be said that the new social movements were a dam for the attempt of the state and the economy to have a greater influence on society. Practically there was a clash between the values cherished by the new middle class and the social structure based on traditional materialistic values. The values of

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the new middle class were not the same as those of the working class. The new middle class itself was the result of the integration of several social groups in economically developed societies. The very position of the new middle class allows it to have a more idealistic view of politics. The representatives of the new middle class have the luxury of not getting involved in class conflicts. The new middle class wants to reform society, but the reform it proposes does not criticize class dominance and the accumulation of wealth, but, according to Hillier (2010), is based on enlightened individualism. The values of the new middle class were post-materialist, at odds with the establishment, but did not question capitalism as an economic system. In that sense, the clash of the new middle class with the establishment was different from that of the working class. The new middle class problematizes the industrialism that underlies both capitalism and socialism. In addition to that, the dominant and most significant reason industrialism was criticized was not because of the exploitation of workers, but because of the exploitation of resources and the destruction of nature. The demands were not so much related to the material well-being of the workers, but to the protection of nature. Social movements can be spontaneous or planned. Coordination between actors of social movements is not institutional. The goals of social movements are to achieve certain social, economic, political, cultural, etc. changes. Social movements are not defined by the number of participants, but by the fact that they initiate collective action. To understand collective action, it must be analyzed in the context of internal relations within a social movement. Social action is undertaken in order to resolve a certain antagonism, a certain problem that has mobilized the membership of the social movement. The collective action undertaken by social movements should not be seen as action driven solely by emotion, but as part of logical actions in which decisions are made (Melucci, 2009). It can be said that the new social movements brought together people with pacifist and anti-establishment ideas who tended toward anarchist and socialist environmentalism. Toward the end of the 1960s, the issues of air and water pollution, noise, harmful substances in food products, and the preservation of rare resources began to be raised. These issues became part of political debates and polarized public opinion across Europe. From the early 1970s onwards, the awareness of environmental pollution began to grow seriously. The Club of Rome report of 1972 is a good illustration of this. Namely, the Club of Rome Report indicates the need to limit growth. It’s a phrase that has become very popular in environmentalist literature

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over time. It can be said that the environmentalist movement was one of the most successful social movements in the second half of the twentieth century in Europe and the United States. For a social movement to succeed, it must have broad public support. Such was the case with the environmentalist movement. It had almost consensual support and that gave it an advantage over other social movements that divided the public. It is undeniable that environmentalism is one of the social movements with the greatest public support (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 114). A characteristic of the environmentalist movement is that it contained elements of utopianism, of a vision of society in which we will live in harmony with nature (McBride, 2022). Among the principles of the environmentalist movement, the following can be distinguished: 1, respect for the planet Earth and its diversity, 2, care for the community, 3, building a democratic society through the promotion of participation, sustainability, and peacemaking in politics, 4, securing the natural beauties, for present and future generations (Sargent, 2009: 281). Organizationally, the environmentalists were far from the traditional structuring of the labor social movement. They had a decentralized, open, democratic organizational structure (Burchell, 2002: 11). Polarization in terms of approaches to environmental protection led to the establishment of environmentalist groups at the local and regional level. Most of these groups arose spontaneously, protesting against certain issues such as urban renewal, new highways, construction of nuclear power plants; there were also protests demanding the construction of parks. These groups used different methods in trying to influence the policies of the established parties. Most of the time, they demanded changes to urban plans that would prevent the construction of high-rise buildings, nuclear power plants, etc. The success of environmentalist movements led to the formation of umbrella organizations. In this way, the political influence of the environmentalist movement began to grow.

4.2  The Evolutionary Development of the Environmentalist Movement Environmentalism, like all other social movements, is reflective and it learned not only from the mistakes and successes of previous social movements, from social movements that existed parallel to environmentalism, but also from its own experiences in terms of a repertoire of collective

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actions, use of resources, use of ideological constructs, inclusion of new groups in the movement, etc. (Doherty, 2002). The environmentalist movement has gone through a period of transformation in terms of the actors involved in it, the issues they raise, and the discourse they use to approach those issues. The environmentalist movement has also gone through a process of institutionalization through the creation of large global environmentalist organizations, although autonomous networks of environmentalist activists have existed independently of them all along. The pinnacle of the institutionalization process was the creation of the Green parties (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 339). The ability to adapt to circumstances, to transform, to include new actors, to set new goals has given the environmentalist movement longevity. The environmentalist movement has its own history that is connected to the conservationist movement. That movement in the second half of the nineteenth and the middle of the twentieth century was a reflection of the grouping of nature conservation issues that were increasingly imposed with the advent of industrialization. Nature conservation was a hot topic in the 1920s and 1930s. Particularly significant issues for this movement were the regulation of pollution produced by industry, the opening of national parks, pollution of the environment at the local level, and soil erosion. We note the first attempts to protect natural landscapes after the first waves of rapid industrialization. Proto-environmentalism’s conservation of nature went hand in hand with nostalgia for the old days dominated by aristocracy. Even at that time, the idea of protecting nature went against the status quo in society, because those who dominated society were the drivers of industrialization and pollution of nature. That’s why environmentalism can be said to be reactionary or progressive in relation to society, while in relation to nature it is a conservative social movement. It demands serious changes in society to protect nature. In this proto-environmentalist phase, citizens usually act individually, without taking collective actions and being organized into environmentalist groups. In other words, in the 1920s it can be observed that there is a social structure that raises environmentalist questions, but it is not related either as human capital, or as an ideological orientation, or as an organizational structure, or as goals and vision about society, or as a social visibility related with the environmentalist movement we have witnessed since the 1960s. The next stage of development of the movement for the protection of nature is called by some authors political environmentalism. That phase begins in the 1960s as a reaction to the fear of pollution for the health or life of individuals. Political environmentalism

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covers more topics than nature conservation and is more offensive in terms of taking active measures for the promotion of nature protection. Nature conservation was limited only to raising awareness for nature protection. Political environmentalism raises the question of the consequences and dangers of unlimited economic growth. In this phase of the development of political environmentalism begins the growth of awareness of an ecological crisis that threatens the future of humanity (Carter, 2007: 5). In the United States, environmentalism in the 1960s was part of a protest cycle, which included the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the indigenous movement, etc. (Stoddart et al., 2022: 5). Cooperation with the organizations of other new social movements politicized the environmentalist movement. The modern environmentalism of the 1960s was a mass political movement that raised the issues of the growth of the planet’s population, the consequences of technological development, the destruction of forests, the intensive use of pesticides in agriculture, the depletion of natural resources, etc. Themes such as the protection of animal rights, vegetarianism, and the consumption of organic food were immanent to modern environmentalism. He had a holistic vision of a decentralized, democratic, egalitarian society developing in harmony with nature. Modern environmentalism required a radical transformation of values and the structure of society. Toward the end of the second generation of modern environmentalism, the anti-­ nuclear movement developed, which some authors indicate is a single-­ issue movement, while others are of the opinion that it is part of environmentalism. It was a highly politicized movement that arose as a reaction to the risk of nuclear collision, but also as a reaction to fears of nuclear incidents such as Three Miles Island 1979, Chernobyl 1986, and Fukoyama 2011. In the 1970s a third generation of environmentalism emerged. Topics that prevailed in this generation of environmentalism were acid rain, ozone depletion, climate change, the reduction of biodiversity, genetically modified food, and nuclear energy. Namely under the influence of the oil crisis, many European governments in the 1970s decided to expand nuclear energy production programs. The issue of nuclear energy showed the need for the organization of a social movement at the national level, given that the problems with nuclear energy cannot be solved at the local level. Organizations opposed to the use of nuclear energy appeared in many countries. Such organizations were the Organization for Information on Nuclear Power (OOA) in Denmark founded in 1974, the Committee for the Co-ordination of Regional

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Anti-­Nuclear Power Initiatives—LEK in the Netherlands was founded in 1973, the Miljoverbund in Sweden was founded in 1976, The Initiative of Anti-­Nuclear Power Plants—IOAG in Austria was founded in 1976, the Action Against Nuclear Power—AMA in Norway was founded in 1974. The new generation of civic organizations, pressure groups, and activists included international NGOs that organized anti-systemic protests like Greenpeace, independent environmentalist networks like Friends of the Earth, and local grassroot groups like Earth First. They raised issues such as the dangers of nuclear energy, pollution, depletion of fossil fuel reserves, etc. Together with pre-existing and established environmentalist groups such as Worldwide Found for Nature, it created a powerful environmentalist movement which, from the 1980s, set a political agenda and transformed into the Green parties (Heywood, 2017; Carter, 2007: 7; Stoddart et al., 2022: 6). In the late 1970s, NATO’s decision to station Cruise missiles and the Pershing II in Western Europe created a great deal of solidarity among movements that opposed such moves. Large protests were held in the places where the missiles were to be stationed. Most of the protests were organized by national peace movements. The peace movements were a reflection of the attitude of threatened existence from the possible use of nuclear weapons. At almost the same time at the end of the 1970s in the countries of Western Europe, dissatisfaction with the direction in which the economy was moving was growing, more and more groups were formed that protested against environmental pollution and the use of nuclear energy, especially among the young population. These processes were accompanied by the fear of using nuclear weapons in the cold war. Hence, new social movements became active in the entire political scene. At the same time, cultural changes took place, class lines were no longer so sharp, new values based on participatory citizenship were formed. In the beginning of the 1980s, the new social movements slowly began to come into closer contact with the social democratic parties and other established left-oriented parties. They expected them to be a force that would completely oppose economic growth, which results in environmental pollution and the stationing of nuclear weapons. A characteristic of this stage of development of environmentalism is the globalization of the movement, which was part of the wider process of globalization of the social and political arena. The negative experience of social movement activists with bureaucratic organizational structures was one of the main reasons for the formation of Green parties across Europe.

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Although support for the environmental, anti-nuclear, and peace movements fluctuated in the 1980s, in the early 1990s the activities of these movements were in a downward trend. The transformation of these movements into pressure groups, with a large but inactive membership created the perception that the Greens are parties—movements, whose members appear in the elections incidentally. But in order to ensure their existence, the Greens had to go to the elections. To survive on the political scene, the Greens had to build a stable electorate that would identify with the parties. A British public opinion poll in 1989 showed that voting for the Greens was correlated with environmental concerns, but these were soft, non-binding votes. The number of Green voters who have a strong connection and who identify with the Green parties is very small. Of those who voted for the Green Party in Great Britain in the European Parliament elections, only 28% felt close to the Green Party, and only 42% declared that they would vote for the Greens in the next national elections as well (Rüdig, 1991: 7). The reason is that the Greens in general arose on the basis of grassroots democracy and ideal-type amateur activism. Several decades later, with all the attempts to professionalize and build the party infrastructure of the Green parties, amateur activism is still significant for the functioning of the Green parties. Some Green parties with a more significant electoral result, such as those in Germany and Finland, managed to establish themselves, institutionalize and develop the organizational model of the parties. However, to date the Green parties differ from other parties in that many of them have a collective form of leadership, joint male and female spokespersons, while women have typically held half of the parliamentary seats won by Green parties (Carter, 2013: 80). In terms of achieving the goals set by the environmentalist movement, it can be said that it was only partially successful. But it is rare to find a movement that has fully succeeded in achieving its goals. Also, social movements that manage to survive for more than a few years are rare. The environmentalist movement had a large organizational base and significant institutional and cultural influence in the most developed countries (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 114). Some authors note the beginning of the institutionalization of environmentalism at the beginning of the 1970s, when in the United States the largest environmentalist organizations were concentrated in Washington D.C. tending to seek policy reform through conventional strategies such as lobbying, monitoring the policy implementation process, supporting pro-environmentalist policies, etc. The second direction of the institutionalization of the environmentalist movement

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was the formation of the Green parties. Through them, the organizational networks of the environmentalist movement were harnessed in the political process. As a result of the environmentalist movement, a much larger number of people today are aware of the problems with the environment, as well as a much larger number of people are having a positive attitude toward nature, than in the time before the emergence of the environmentalist movement. At the same time, governments in modern society are much more sensitive to the issue of the environment and ready to take measures to protect it (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 339). That is why it can be said that environmentalism managed to be institutionalized, to become part of the institutions. The issue of nature protection is institutionalized today. Both the general public and those who make decisions in society are far more sensitive today to issues related to environment protection than in the time before the emergence of the environmental movement.

4.3   Basic Characteristics of the Environmental Movement As Yearly (1994) notes, environmentalism stands out from other social movements in that it developed a close relationship with science, attracted international support, and criticized and offered an alternative to industrial capitalism. On the one hand, environmentalism challenges, on the other hand, it uses the expertise of science in the argumentation of its positions. Despite the fact that it appeals to localism in action, environmentalism is a global movement in terms of the issues it puts on the agenda and the goals it wants to achieve. In that sense, the environmentalist movement is broader than the peace movement for example (Dryzek et al., 2003: 12). According to Guigni and Grasso (2015: 354) the most significant characteristic of environmentalism is its heterogeneity. It involves a multitude of actors and organizations from local, through national to supranational. Environmentalists raise a multitude of issues and set themselves a multitude of goals from nature protection to social justice. In terms of action strategies, environmentalism uses moderate to radical strategies. The heterogeneity of environmentalism created problems in building a collective identity. In the end, at the time of the delegitimization of communism, environmentalism seemed to be the only viable critique of industrial capitalism. A characteristic of the environmentalist movement is that:

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• It created a collective identity. To take collective action environmentalists had to have a certain degree of internal cohesion, solidarity, and common goals. They had to define what is needed to undertake a certain collective action, what the risks are and what are the gains from it, define who the enemies for achieving given goals are, and elaborate the problems well so that they can solve them. The collective identity of the environmentalists was formed gradually, as a result of the experience and the collective actions they took. The environmentalist movement of the 1970s was heavily influenced by the New Left, especially in shaping their position on the issue of social justice. Also, other social movements like the nuclear disarmament movement and feminism had a great influence on environmentalism. All these processes had their influence in shaping the collective identity of environmentalism. But it should be kept in mind that the collective identity of social movements is always fluid and needs to be constantly reaffirmed and renegotiated. • A characteristic of every social movement, including environmentalism, is that they represented a loose network of individuals. The networks of social movements are wider than any organization that is part of them. Social movement networks include formal and informal connections between individuals and groups. A good example of environmentalist networking is the UK fuel price protests that took place in September 2000. Activists from Friends of the Earth, the Green Peace, Transport 2000, together with activists who are not members of formal organizations, discussed via email how to react to the protests against fuel prices. While mainstream environmentalist organizations organized counter-protests, activists who were not members of formal organizations found it inappropriate and counterproductive. According to them, the government could not deal with the problems because they are structural and require ­revolutionary changes in the organization of agriculture and transport. Both sides agreed that high fuel taxes are not the way to reduce fuel consumption. Communicating through mailing lists, they agreed that the problem was the industrialization of agriculture and began to work with farmers who were open to environmentalists’ criticism of the industrialization of agriculture. • Involvement in protests and challenging opponents is one of the most significant characteristics of the environmentalist movement. Environmentalists are known for direct action that includes protests

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and spectacular events that are unusual for routinized public life. They do not accept the traditional forms of political participation such as voting, meetings with MPs, writing letters, etc. Through the direct way of action, they arouse interest and influence the formation of public opinions regarding the protection of the environment. Non-violent direct action was studied by Thöresson (2020) who believes that this type of action creates tension between the movement that implements it and the audiences because it is exclusive in nature and causes a counter reaction from the power structures. The post-materialist, anti-establishment values of environmentalists did not allow environmentalist groups to cooperate with bureaucratized institutions and authorities. Environmentalists were the vanguard of new social movements and promoters of participatory democracy (Dalton et al., 2003: 744). Already in the 1990s in France, Italy, and Sweden, we can see a lower intensity of protests than the previous decade, while the protests in Germany, Spain, and Great Britain were relatively stable. It seems that in the first two decades of the twenty-­ first century, the intensity of environmentalist protests has decreased. The reasons are different. Environmentalists now have a greater opportunity to reach out through the media and thus express their protest. A significant part of the environmentalist movement directly entered politics through the establishment of political parties. They are no longer outsiders protesting against the system, but part of it. • Challenging existing forms of power. The existence of social movements indicates that there are serious social problems for which the political system is unable to find a solution. It is characteristic of environmentalism that it does not seek to seize, replace, or share the power held by the state. It is oriented toward society, but still, it indicates the need for radical changes in society, in the worldview that creates it, the values on which it is founded, the behavior that it emanates. Environmentalists undermine the legitimacy of big corporations. They point out that consumerism as a means by which large corporations increase their profits is unfair and pointless. Green pacifism among other things reduces the power of bureaucrats and political elites. The problem arises when the Greens are part of the political elites. Namely, Joschka Fischer as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany supported NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia, although there was strong opposition within his party on this issue. It seems that the institutionalization of social movements, whether it comes

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in the form of founding an NGO or a political party, weakens social movements and makes them less radical (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 590; Dryzek et al., 2003: 11). Given the above-mentioned characteristics of environmentalism, it seems that for a group to be considered part of the environmentalist movement, it must have the following characteristics: an environmentalist identity, cover a loosely organized network of like-minded people with an environmentalist identity, to be involved in protests and to challenge the existing form of power.

4.4  Environmentalism and New Social Movements Environmentalism is one of the most significant movements within the wave that was known under the name of new social movements. The term new social movement has come to be used as a label for a multitude of modern liberal social movements that share certain characteristics. The new social movements have characteristics that distinguish them not only from their historical predecessors such as the movement of the proletariat, that is, the trade union movement, but also from many other social movements throughout history. They operated outside formal institutional channels of communication and emphasized lifestyle, ethical and identity issues, culture, human rights, animal rights, and not strictly economic issues and goals as the labor movement had previously done (Calhoun, 1993: 387). Considering that they mobilize citizens based on the transformation of identities, cultural innovations, lifestyles, it can be said that new social movements are more cultural than political movements in their nature (Scott, 1990). If environmentalism is taken as an example, it can probably be said that new social movements introduced new topics into politics, that is, they politicized issues that belonged to the domain of culture and identity. Among the new social movements there was a sentiment of anti-modernity, a fundamental rejection of the traditional values of industrial society such as economic growth (Bomnerg, 2005). The difference between the new social movements and the syndicalist movement was that 1. Unlike the syndicalist movement which had the ambition to influence the social democratic and labor parties, the new social movements have no such ambition. They were more inclined to boycott the established political parties and seek support from civil society for their goals. 2. The goal of the unions was political integration, legislative

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reform, and more economic rights for workers. The new social movements turn to civil society, oppose the excessive power of politics, and especially the state, and demand changes in the sphere of culture, values, and lifestyle, 3. Unlike the trade unions, which are organized in a bureaucratic and hierarchical manner, like other institutions, the new social movements had an informal, decentralized, fluid, participative organizational structure, 4. Trade unions acted within the existing political institutions, while the new social movements resorted to direct action, often outside the law, 5. Participants in the trade union movement believed that participation in the movement was a means through which higher goals would be achieved. For participants in the environmentalist movement, participation in the activities of the movement was an end in itself (Bomnerg, 2005; Scott, 1990). According to Tilly (2004) the trade union movement and the state grew together in a dialectical relationship of mutual opposition, cohabitation and, cooperation. The new social movements were something else. They tried to ignore and marginalize the state. There are beliefs that new social movements represent a significant challenge to the status quo in society, especially to the increasing penetration of the economic and governmental sectors in civil society. But at the same time, it is believed that new social movements are connected with economic and class interests, that they are an endemic type of movements characteristic of late capitalism, with post-materialist values, with a specific type of political identities, that they have an unconventional organizational structure and that they use unconventional tactics (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001L 114). New social movements posed new questions to society, introduced new tactics of struggle, carried out symbolic actions, and had a new social structure that supported their demands and implemented their tactics. They especially tried to radicalize the public and gain support from it for their cause. Since the new social movements established themselves, they slowly began to adopt a conventional organizational structure and strategy of struggle for their goals (Scott, 1990: 154). The new social movements differed drastically from the old established labor movement which was closely associated with Marxism and which sought to achieve goals close to those of the socialists. It had the working class as its social base and believed that the socio-economic transformation of society would solve all social problems. New social movements have called into question the traditional division of the political spectrum into left and right. They introduced new topics into politics, a new way of internal organization of movements, and new ways of fighting to achieve

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their goals. The social base and goals of the new and old left differ significantly. New social movements questioned the intervention of the state in civil society and challenged the contradictions that such interventions bring. This conflict explains the apocalyptic nature and non-institutional character of the new social movements (Burchell, 2002: 11). The internal organization of the new social movements does not prefer a rigid and centralized way of decision-making and delegation of power, but they are more decentralized, non-hierarchical structures, which tend toward more flexible action attracting the attention of the media (Martinache, 2022). They do not hope to achieve their goals through lobbying and voting. Many new social movements strive to achieve their goals by attracting media attention, mobilizing the public, exerting pressure through protests, etc. The new social movements arose in part from the New Left, which was born along with the failure of the student movement in the late 1960s. It was happening together with the reconceptualization of social theory due to the innovations that shifted the structure of social life. The new social movements replaced Marxism that sought to change the capitalist system with socialist ones. They required a radical change of culture, not of economy and society. Starting from the axiom that power is based on culture, that is, that knowledge is power, new social movements sought to replace the values of the modern with the values of the postmodern society (Cleveland, 2003: 175). In academic analyses, it was increasingly written that these movements indicate the need for a revision of Marx’s theory and social democratic policies. New social movements are a reflection of changes in society, of the transformation of society from industrial and modern to post-industrial and postmodern. It involves new issues that affect citizens and can mobilize civil activism, new type of political struggles, new divisions in society. Hence a new type of social theory and new policies was needed. Marxism as a theory was outdated; it analyzed the modern, but hardly touched the problems facing the postmodern society (Calhoun, 1993: 386). According to Tilly (1978, 7), in order for a social movement to exist, it should fulfill five conditions: to take advantage of the favorable conditions for the movement to be formed, to protect certain interests, to have an organizational structure, to mobilize membership, and to carry out collective action. Many believe that for a movement to be real, it should be in opposition to the establishment, to oppose, to protest against the establishment. Traditional social movements usually had a very strong

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economic and political agenda. This does not seem to be the case with new social movements that address civil society rather than the state. But it seems that the new social movements are recognized and tolerated by the state, because they do not demand anything from it, unlike some other social movements that have more specific materialistic, economic demands, which the state ignores. Movements that were marginalized by the state did not give them legitimacy, meaning, opportunities for promotion were religious and labor movements (Calhoun, 1993: 388). Central to the relationship between new social movements and liberalism is that established political economic identities have lost their meaning and have been replaced by innate identities such as race and gender and personally chosen, expressive identities such as sexual orientation, identification with one of a multitude of lifestyles, etc. New social movements usually do not mobilize sympathizers on a class basis, although members of the new middle class are much more likely to be part of new social movements than members of other classes (Calhoun, 1993: 400). The new social movements used direct action with non-violent protests as a method of struggle, along with lobbying and media campaigns. A survey on the type of activism of the environmentalist movement made in 56 countries, in which 698 environmentalist groups were included, showed that the majority of them, 67%, contact the media about their activities. The second most significant activity in which 64% of the contacted environmentalist groups were involved was mobilizing public opinion (Dalton et  al., 2003: 751). The militant activism of the new social movements was treated the same as the militant activism of the past. The crackdown on the anti-globalist movement and the authorities’ treatment of the war that followed 9/11 indicates that a distinction is being made between the left and moderate Protestants. Older left-leaning activists continued to be treated as deviants. The authorities could afford to tolerate the protests of the New Left as long as it failed to generate more mass support (Cleveland, 2003: 180). According to Melucci (1988: 247), the new social movements include feminism, the ecological movement or the Greens, the peace movement and the youth movement. Some authors here also add the gay movement, the animal rights movement, the anti-abortion and pro-life movement. They covered issues related to consumerism, regionalism, human rights, youth counterculture, etc. (Martinache, 2022). New social movements are interconnected. Namely, participants in one show a tendency to participate in other new social movements as well (Guigni & Grasso, 2015:

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337). Despite internal variations from one social movement to another, the new social movements represented a larger, more comprehensive, general movement. The environmentalist movement possessed the greatest potential to gather all the movements belonging to the new social movements together under one umbrella. It provided the ideological glue to make a framework in which separate social movements would come together. Environmentalism possessed the potential to synthesize the concerns of all the separate social movements into one coherent oppositional force. Environmentalism on the social scene promoted new topics that were initially considered not to be entirely political. Such a topic is the recycling of waste. Calhoun (1993: 399) is of the opinion that on this issue environmentalism is not very different from the labor movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then the new labor movement also raised issues that at that time were not considered political like public (state) education. As stated by Lowe and Rüdig (1986: 537) the environmentalist movement is based on a completely new political cleavage, which can integrate other social movements. Environmentalism challenges the political values of industrial societies and calls for the introduction of new politics. New social movements viewed from the perspective of Resource Mobilization Theory, especially its entrepreneurial version developed by McCarthy and Zald (1977) are a continuation of liberal pluralist policies and a reflection of the new type of interest groups. This version of Resource Mobilization Theory held that social movements are organizations run by political entrepreneurs, who run social movements on similar principles as businesses are run. The difference from classic interest groups is that they exert pressure on the establishment through non-violent but disruptive protests. They refer to the idea of functionalist modernization theory that the middle class has always played a leading role in pushing liberal capitalist societies to become even more liberal, modernized (structurally differentiated) and fully meritocratic. The liberal middle class always acts “from below” and “outside” from conventional parties and interest groups. The new middle class initiates reform ideas because it has the necessary resources and skills as a counter-elite to the dominant structure in society (Cleveland, 2003: 176). According to resource mobilization theory, the success of social movements depends on their capacity to mobilize social resources. New social movements were able to influence politics because they were able to mobilize more resources than conventional politics. In doing so, they try to achieve their goals by using new and unconventional

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methods. The success of the movement was a consequence of the amount of resources mobilized, but also the efficiency of their use. Critics of resource mobilization theory point out that this theory pays too much attention to the organizational structure of movements, and deals very little with the goals they want to achieve (Burchell, 2002: 9). A characteristic of new social movements is that they are a political wing of a growing civil society, defined as the voluntary voice of individuals who are outside the mainstream in society. The basic strategy of civil society is to expand as much as possible, thus spreading its influence in society. They have no ambition to take control over mainstream institutions, over the economy, the state and other social institutions, that is, to take the place of those who make the most important decisions in society. The new social movements did not aim to conquer the government, but to create an autonomous space that would not be under the control of the government, and in which alternative, elective identities would be affirmed (Martinache, 2022). For the new social movements, civil society is the expanse of subjectivity. Subjectivity is a source of resistance to mainstream institutions that restrict the freedoms of citizens who freely associate to express their cultural preferences (Cleveland, 2003: 177). As a result of the new social movements in the political scene, the New Left was formed. Green parties were part of it. The New Left is based on a sharing of liberal postmodern culture, not on an open clash of interests of dominant and subordinate groups in society (Pakulski, 1990). It does not open the issue of changing the socio-historical formation, but it politicizes everyday life especially on the issue of sexuality, the position of women in society, and the protection of the environment (Calhoun, 1993: 398). The new social movements have no ambition to take control of the economy or the state. Their ambition is that they themselves and the civil sector as a whole have a greater influence in society (Melucci, 1996). The struggle of the classical working class against capitalism is over. The working class was pacified at a time when the welfare state was growing. Meanwhile, new social movements replaced the old struggles. These are a new type of combat involving a new type of subject. The new social movements do not aim to change the socio-economic system that held the labor movement together. The only thing that held the new social movements together was the liberal ideal of pluralism, the idea that each group should have influence in the decision-making process and should be able to live its own lifestyle according to its own cultural preferences.

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The new social movements raised ethical and moral questions that affect the whole society. They are distinctly different from the traditional labor movement which focused on conflicts related to the control of the means of production. Some authors point out that the demands that new social movements place before society are not as new as it might seem at first glance. The dilemmas opened by environmentalism-consumerism, struggle for equality and expansion of human rights, lasted at least 50 years before the emergence of new social movements. Some of the methods of action of the new social movements have also been present for a long time on the social scene. Calls for boycotts played a significant role in the abolition of slavery, long before the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. The border between the old and the new social movements is not as sharp and irreconcilable as it is usually presented. Demands for recognition of one’s identity go along with a set of material benefits that lurk in the background (Martinache, 2022). Although Martinache (2022) is right when he points out that the line between new and old social movements is not as sharp as it appears to us, this does not mean that it does not exist. Although some of the new social movements, in addition to others, may set materialistic demands, they are not the essence, the basis, the reason why the new social movements exist, as was the case with the old social movements. Although the problems posed to society by environmentalism, feminism, and consumerism are not new and existed even before the emergence of new social movements, due to the fact that these issues were not so fateful for society, the public did not give them priority in relation to the labor movement. The situation is similar with the boycott as a method of action. Although historically this way of fighting is well known, there was a long period when it was considered illegitimate, too peaceful in comparison with physical confrontations with the police. New social movements brought back into use this method of struggle that had already been forgotten. The environmental movement is an avant-garde movement within the new social movements. In addition to its own goal, the protection of environment, it also accepts the goals of other movements within the new social movements. Ever since the Greens emerged as a political party in Western Europe, they have begun to advocate a range of issues that are characteristic of some of the new social movements. Among the demands of the Greens, in addition to the protection of environment, there is also the protection of social equality, human rights, the fight for world peace,

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etc. The different ideas within environmentalism can be seen through separate factions such as ecofeminism, deep ecology, social ecology, and environmental justice (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 117).

4.5  Environmentalism Today Sociologists agree that an inevitable stage in the life of any social movement is its bureaucratization, institutionalization, normalization, and finally its disappearance from the social scene. But contrary to expectations, environmentalism is still visible and shows signs of regeneration (Rootes, 2004), although it will hardly return the glory it had in the previous few decades. Examples of an environmentalist movement, as well as social movements that are still active are anti-road protestor and animal right activist. Although they may support the Green parties, they are independent of them and operate in the form of amorphous, spontaneous, protist groups (Bomnerg, 2005: 21). One of the most significant contemporary environmentalist entities is Extinction Rebellion. It is a movement created in 2018. The movement aims to prevent social and ecological collapse. The movement often talks about tipping points in the climate system, points from which there is no turning back in the attempt to save the environment. The movement received a lot of attention and a lot of support in academic circles. In 2018, 94 academics signed a declaration in support of Extinction Rebellion. Extinction Rebellion has three main goals: “tell the truth,” “act now,” and “go beyond politics.” “Tell the truth” means that governments should tell the truth about the climate and declare an environmental emergency. “Act now” means that governments must start acting immediately to prevent the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025. “Go beyond politics” means that citizens should be given more competences by basing the words of citizens, and acting on their recommendations. One of Extinction Rebellion’s goals is to mobilize 3.5% of the population to change the system and create a world in which future generations can live decently (Extinction Rebellion, 2020). Extinction Rebellion is a decentralized, loosely organized movement, meaning there is no chain of command. This means that anyone who adheres to the principles of Extinction Rebellion and asks can speak on behalf of the movement. The movement uses non-violent direct acts of protest which can be active and passive. Active means acts like

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blocking roads, stopping traffic, etc., while passive means boycotting the products of certain companies (Thöresson, 2020). Another significant contemporary movement is the Green Belt Movement. It planted 30 million seedlings in the greening efforts. The Kenyan environmentalist activist, who leads the movement Wangari Maathai, received the Nobel Prize in 2004 for the promotion of environmental values, social, economic, and cultural development of Kenya and Africa. It develops programs that point out the connection between the degradation of nature and other problems facing Africa. Maathai especially tries to encourage women to make a difference in nature conservation with their activism (Sargent, 2009: 277). With the spread of the influence of social media, today we are witnessing a more horizontal and network-organized form of mobilizing environmentalist activism. This is how Extinction Rebellion (XR), fossil fuel divestment movement, youth climate strikes, etc. act. At the same time, established and institutionalized groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) conduct research, serve as a source of information in the public sphere, and are involved in the political sphere. The role of Greenpeace in the environmentalist movement is similar. They have a large following on Twitter, Facebook, and You Tube (Stoddart et  al., 2022: 7). Contemporary environmentalism consists of established, institutionalized groups that have political influence and a diffuse network of grassroots protests. He uses different discursive approaches from supporting mainstream sustainable development to a radical critique of the unsustainability of modern industrial production and consumerism. It seems that the main characteristic of environmentalism today is that with the process of institutionalization that has lasted from the 1970s until today through the formation of civil organizations, but mostly through the formation of political parties, it lost its radicalism, entered the mainstream of society, conformed, but this does not mean that it has lost its social influence. On the contrary, that influence is only channeled in a different way and is realized not against, but through the institutions.

4.6  The Social Basis of Environmentalism Motives for participation in social movements can be different. Thus, Klandermans (1984) states among the motives for participation in social movements: instrumentality—the desire to change personal or social circumstances and influence the social and political order, identity—the

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desire to be part of something bigger and to manifest it, ideologically— the desire to find meaning and from the position of the accepted worldview to make an attempt to change the social circumstances. The participation of citizens in the activities of social movements is conditioned by two factors: how much it costs and the benefits they would have from the participation. If the repression on the participants is great, and the benefits are unknown, it is less likely that the social movement will attract a lot of support. On the contrary, if the cost of participation in the movement is not high, and significant benefits, both symbolic and material, can be obtained, then the movement can be expected to gain a massive base of activists. Collective interests are often tied to the participation of individuals belonging to separate groups, strata, classes in given social movements (Sturmer & Simon, 2004). Environmentalism and new social movements in general were attracting a new type of supporters. There was an opinion that they are a classless movement, that is, that they attract support from people belonging to different social classes, which was true for some of the older social movements (Dalton et  al., 1990). However, the dominant opinion was that environmentalists mostly draw support from the “new class” in society (Klandermans, 1991; Offe, 1987). Although among the supporters of environmentalism you can find people belonging to different social classes, the movement enjoys significantly more support among members of the new middle class than among members of other social classes (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 118). There are debates about specifying the exact characteristics of the new middle class, but it is undeniable that it consists of people with a high level of education, white collar occupations, mostly employed in the service sector. These are people who work in the social sciences, teachers, journalists, social workers, artists, engineers, researchers, etc., as drivers of the technical and general growth of society. The new middle class consists of people with a high level of expertise, skills, and who are in the struggle for greater autonomy from bureaucratic control that is constantly imposed on them (Kriesi et  al., 1995). Among the groups that do not belong to the new middle class and show great support for environmentalism are decommodified citizens such as students, housewives, retirees, and the unemployed. Another social group that supports environmentalism is the old middle class. These are people who are self-employed and independent like farmers, shop owners, and artists. Neither of these two groups belongs to the classic definition of bourgeois, nor to the proletariat (Carter, 2007: 93).

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The development of the new middle class is due to the tertiarization of the economic fabric of society. In the words of Martinache (2022), the new middle class consists of adventurers from everyday life, who are the new heroes of history. They had a strong individualism and did not want to remain closed in traditional institutions, especially traditional parties and trade unions. They do not share the concerns of older generations about material and economic security and are actively developing alternative lifestyles (Carter, 2007: 84). Members of the new middle class refuse to conform to the traditional institutionalized forms that channel social conflicts. On the contrary, the new middle class revolves around several simultaneous goals, which they achieve through separate flexibly organized social movements. According to Cotgrove (1982), the participation of the new middle class in the environmentalist movement is a reflection of the national protest against the position it has in society. Namely, the new middle class is marginalized in the decision-making process in the economic and political sector, due to the fact that it is not in the productive social segment, that is, in the segment where profit is generated. The frustration that the new middle class does not have a more serious influence in the institutions that make the key decisions is demonstrated through participation in the new social movements, especially in environmentalism. Participation in the environmentalist movement is based on the individual’s place in the stratification system, with the largest number of people active in environmentalism belonging to the new middle class, but it seems that these people either have no specific class interest, or the class interest is not selfishly defined to serve only the needs of people belonging to the new middle class. This is the best illustration that by its very nature the new middle class is post-materialistic. Namely, the benefits of environmental protection will not be exclusively available and used by the new middle class, but by the whole society. It can even be said that the biggest beneficiaries of a policy of environment protection would be the people belonging to the lower strata of the population. The biggest victims of pollution are those who work in factories that degrade the environment and those who live in inner city communities. The insistence on protecting the environment is even counterproductive for the new middle class, if it is observed from the perspective of the narrow-minded interests of this class. Namely, environmental protection by definition slows down economic growth, but also the growth of the non-productive sector in the economy, that is, the sector in which the new middle class functions.

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The relative independence from the market in the real sector in industrial production makes the new middle class to be much more critical toward the industrial system, to demand its reforms, from the working class whose existence is connected to the industry. Structural autonomy allows the new middle class to be more critical of industrialism. In addition to that, the professions held by members of the new class such as health workers, social workers, teachers, administrative workers, media workers, enable them to better perceive the consequences of industrialization (Eckersley, 1989: 222). On the other hand, the new middle class has no interest in protecting the modern centralized state which is mostly its employer and from which it demands autonomy. It is a class that is relatively autonomous, possessing the resources and skills to challenge the establishment (Cleveland, 2003: 176). This class could be said to be liberal, in the sense that it is relatively independent and ready to fight for its interests. It is a new type of liberalism. If the classical liberals were predominantly people from the private sector, independent of the state, today’s liberals are professionals who often have professions that are directly or indirectly related to the state. If classical liberals relied more on capital, modern liberals rely more on competencies. What both groups have in common is that they had the relative independence, resources, and skills to challenge the establishment and change society. Among the members of the new middle class, who are considered to be the vanguard in society, the transition from materialistic to post-­ materialistic values took place (Inglehart, 1990). People who had material and economic security from birth strive to be respected, recognized in society. To achieve this, they show a greater sensitivity to the problems of modernization and a greater willingness to change society and transform it from modern to postmodern. It is a process similar to the one that was carried out by the middle class (liberals) in the process of transformation of pre-modern to modern society. Most of the empirical research indicates that the new middle class supports environmentalism, as a general support, but also in the form of activism. The differences in results regarding the relationship between the new middle class and the new social movements were primarily due to the ambiguities in the definition and measurement of the new middle class. When it comes to education, higher education is a key feature of the new middle class. Empirical results confirm that people with higher education have more sympathy for environmentalism and new social movements than people who did not manage to acquire higher education. Research

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has shown that income, which was a key characteristic of the traditional classes, is not such a significant characteristic for the new middle class. The incomes of members of the new middle class can vary significantly. Hence, income as a predictor of support for environmentalism and new social movements is inconsistent. According to the income of an individual, it can hardly be said that someone will be a supporter of environmentalism, just as it can be said that higher education gives indications that there is a high probability that the individual will support environmentalism (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 119).

4.7  The Demographic Characteristics of the Environmentalist Movement The younger population is generally more critical of the status quo in society. Hence, that population is more supportive of the goals of environmentalism and new social movements. The level of support for environmentalism and new social movements especially grows among young people who are materially better established, that is, who have higher incomes and higher education (Inglehart, 1990). Those who support and are activists of environmentalism are younger than those who are not activists. It seems that age as a factor influencing the attitude toward environmentalism is related to the worldview and values of individuals. Namely, the first generations that showed serious support for environmentalism and new social movements were those born after the Second World War. These are the same generations who lived in material well-being and who had post-materialist values (Crasso, 2014). In terms of gender structure, there are more women than men among the sympathizers and activists of environmentalism and new social movements. Given that women have traditionally been less engaged in politics than men, their interest in engagement in environmentalism warrants in-­ depth research. Some analysts argue that because of motherhood, women develop more empathy than men, and environmentalism builds on empathy toward nature (Chodorow, 1978). The very socialization of women to take care of the people around them, for the family, provides a prerequisite for such an attitude to be applied to the protection of nature. On the other hand, the social status of men is related to the profession, professional success, which in turn depends on the progress and growth of the economy. This makes men less prone to criticism of modernization than women (Mertig & Dunlap, 2001: 119).

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Women traditionally participate less in political activities, social activism, etc. The results of empirical research on the gender structure of activists and supporters of environmentalism are not always consistent. Some research indicates that there is no relationship between gender and environmentalism. But environmentalism and new social movements have characteristics that do not always allow them to be equated with traditional social movements. For example, animal rights studies have concluded that most of the activists are women (Jasper & Nelkin, 1992). According to the urban-rural divide, a different attitude toward the environmentalist movement can be observed. People living in the countryside have an authentic relationship with nature that resembles the first stage of the development of environmentalism. It is distinguished by a personal contribution to the protection of nature, but does not go beyond that in seeking collective action. People who live in urban centers more often witness the degradation of nature and show a greater level of willingness to engage in protest activities (Guigni & Grasso, 2015: 343). The social context, the concentration of many people in a small space, the possibility for them to mobilize for certain ideas is a significant factor that contributes to people living in urban centers being more involved in social movements in general, as they are also more involved in the environmentalist movement.

4.8  The Difference Between Movements and Parties (Why Movements Grew into Parties) Environmentalism as a social movement from the 1970s began to show political ambitions. During that period, political parties started to appear that appealed to environmentalism. Toward the end of the 1980s, the new social movements, especially the environmentalists, became pragmatic reformist movements loosely connected to politics. The milieu of new social movements was a significant institutional factor that shaped the formation of the Green parties (Carter, 2007: 92). The connection between the Green parties and environmentalism is so obvious that it can be recognized by the names of the parties. The majority of European Green Party member parties implicitly or explicitly refer to environmentalism in their party name (Price-Thomas, 2016: 8). Of course, environmental protection is not a new topic on the public scene, on the contrary, the concern about the degradation of the environment is an increasingly present topic

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in the second half of the twentieth century. The Greens have no right to exclusivity and ownership over the topic of environmentalism, but the ideology of the Greens has long been associated with radicalism on the issue of environment protection. For a social movement to grow into a political party, it is necessary to find a context that will enable it. The factors that make up the context include, among others, the openness or closedness of the political system to new initiatives, stability or instability of the political system, the electoral system in the country, the political culture, etc. (McAdam, 1996). The Greens are not the only parties that are heirs to pre-existing social movements. Such is the example with the socialist parties that expressed the interests of the labor movement in politics, something similar is also the case with anarchism. The difference in the relationship between the labor movement and the socialist parties on the one hand and the environmentalist movement and the Green parties is that the labor movement and the environmentalist movement belong to different generations of social movements and in that sense have different structural characteristics. The same applies to political parties. The fact that the Green parties have environmentalism as their personnel, organizational, and ideological basis facilitated the process of forming those parties. But social movements and political parties operate on different principles. Unlike social movements, political parties fight for votes and power. Parties originating from social movements usually try on the one hand to keep their roots dating back to the time when they were movements, and on the other hand they try to be hierarchically organized in order to coordinate their activities and get as many votes as possible in the elections. In parties that originate from social movements, it happens that they get stuck between the organizational structure that characterizes social movements and the one that characterizes parties (Bomnerg, 2005: 25). This was also happening with the Green parties. So what seemed like an advantage during the formation of Green parties, a little later it started to show itself as a weakness. There were groups in the environmentalist movement who felt that Green parties should be small, radical protest parties. The Green parties had to find a way to reconcile the relationship between the fundamentalists who held firmly to the party ideology and the pragmatists who believed that the Greens in politics should behave rationally (Wiesenthal, 1993: 88). A significant part of the Green parties went through a process of deradicalization, but it was a process that caused intra-party tensions, upheavals, and misunderstandings.

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CHAPTER 5

The Green Parties

5.1   Introduction Behind the establishment of Green parties is the belief that something must be done to protect the environment. Given the limited results achieved by environmentalism, the idea was for social movement activists to get directly involved in politics, rather than delegating that work to incompetent and corrupt politicians willing to profane the goals of environmentalism and make unacceptable compromises. Green parties in almost every country have a similar background. They began as a network and alliance of civil movements that existed at the local level, gathered around social and environmentalist concerns that were neglected by the established parties and the opposition (Müller-Rommel, 1990). After the establishment, the Green parties tried to change public attitude toward the environment, they are less willing to protest in the street unlike the environmentalist movement, they are more insiders in the political system than outsiders, especially if they are a coalition partner in the government, but they still challenge the basic forms of power in society in an effort to protect the environment, support the protests of environmentalist groups, and sometimes participate in the protests themselves. Green parties have formal ties to the environmentalist movement from which they emerged, and their members have informal links to activists in environmentalist organizations. It often happens that the same activist is formally a member

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of a Green Party and simultaneously a member of an informal group of environmentalist activists fighting for the protection of nature (Doherty, 2002: 17). Greens are a reflection of the desire to change the established principles of industrial society and try to change society’s attitude toward nature. Today, after five decades since the establishment of the first Green parties, it can be said that they have gone through major transformations. Some of them had significant electoral results and became part of national governments, while others remained on the margins of political developments, but it is undeniable that we can talk about party continuity in terms of party membership and organizational structure (Price-Thomas, 2016: 1). Environmentalist and ecological parties began to form in the 1970s in Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, West Germany, but left-libertarian parties in the Scandinavian countries, France, the Netherlands began to form before the emergence of Green parties under the name of the New Left. Bitter rivals of the New Left were the established communist and social democratic parties because they claimed the same electorate (Kitschelt, 2019: 9). Already at the end of the 1970s, there was a programmatic and electoral convergence of the environmentalist and ecological parties with the parties of the New Left. The fusion was characterized by the increasingly frequent use of the term Green parties. By 1984, there were 12 Green parties in Europe (Gökpinar, 2019: 165). From its formation until today, the Greens have transformed from loosely organized protest social movements into serious political parties. The election results of the Greens differed from country to country. In some countries they remained marginal political entities, but in a significant number of countries the Greens entered the parliament and even coalition governments. In their beginnings, Green parties saw themselves as an expression of wider protest movements sparked by the protests of 1968. They channeled activism opposing the nuclear arms race, consumerism, greed, endless economic growth, oppressive social norms, etc. As a result of the multitude of topics they covered and the decentralized party structure, the Greens hardly and rarely achieved unity and had many internal divisions and factions (McBride, 2022). At times, one got the impression that the Greens represent a conglomerate of similar ideas, and not a coherent, harmonious ideology. Among the most significant characteristics of Green parties are: grassroots democracy, non-violence, decentralization, community-­ based economics and economic justice, gender equality,

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respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, and system self-­ sustainability (Sargent, 2009: 282). In political practice, the Greens followed the environmentalist movement and drew membership and sympathizers from there, while in the ideological sense, as parties of the New Left, they were based on the ideas of left libertarianism. Thus, Vromen (2005) points out that it is undeniable that the Australian Green Party draws its ideological inspiration from left libertarianism. The situation is similar with Green parties like Ecolo and Groen in Belgium, Alliance 90/Die Grünen in Germany, Green Progresove Accord, and GroenLinks in the Netherlands (Neumayer, 2003). The environmentalist movement began to transform into the Green parties sometime in the early 1970s. The first Green parties were formed in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. In 1972, the British Peoples Party was the first in Europe to declare itself a Green Party. The party was formed as a reaction to the ideas of the Blueprint for Survival, which was an influential environmental text warning of ecological collapse, signed by several dozen highly respected British scientists (McBride, 2022). In Switzerland, in 1979, the first representative from the Green Party was elected to the national parliament. By the late 1990s Green parties in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, and Italy had become part of government coalitions (Carter, 2007: 88). In the elections of 1980 and 1983, the Greens in Germany became part of the established parties and entered the parliament. Although opinion polls indicated that the Greens in Germany might not have enough votes to enter parliament, in the 1990 elections, with the help of cooperation with Alliance 90 and the votes they received in East Germany, the Greens still succeeded to maintain parliamentary status (Rüdig, 1991: 7; McBride, 2022). From that moment on in this decade we see the growth of the Greens, especially in Germany. A favorable moment for the success of the Green parties in the 1990s is the fall of communism and the intellectual and practical bankruptcy of socialism. It gave importance to the political offer of the Greens. If you wanted to vote for a radical option in politics, at that point you had no choice but the Greens (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 278). In the early 1990s, Green parties gained voter support to enter parliaments in many European countries such as Finland, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Romania, and Bulgaria (Rüdig, 1991: 7).

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5.2  The Reason for the Emergence of the Green Parties (New Social Cleavages, Emancipatory, and Post-Materialist Values, Crisis of Established Political Parties) The emergence and development of Green parties is an indicator of the decline of trust in established political parties. The current events in which the established parties do not manage to do their best, such as the global economic crisis that began in 2008, the waves of terrorist attacks, the pandemic and its consequences, the aggression against Ukraine contribute to the fact that voters are increasingly turning to parties that are an alternative to the established left and right-leaning political parties (McBride, 2022). In addition to the authentic political reasons, the emergence and growth of the Green parties was caused by deeper social changes that were reflected in the changing of the political paradigm. The development of environmentalism and the Green parties in a certain sense meant the rejection of anthropocentrism, the preoccupation of people with themselves, and the greed for material goods. Cohen (1985: 691) indicates that environmentalism is characterized by a specific type of activism, which is distinguished from the strategic or instrumental rationality characteristic of previous social movements. The development of environmentalism is a part of much larger social changes, that is, of the change in value priorities and the political culture of the West. That transformation that is “silent revolution” consists in the fact that instead of prioritizing classical materialistic values such as economic stability and physical freedom, in modern society more and more priority is given to issues that have a cultural, social dimension, to the issue of belonging, self-expression, quality of life etc. These are post-materialist values (Inglehart, 1977). Namely, in his investigations of values within the framework of the World Value Survey, Inglehart gave respondents the possibility to prioritize 12 items. Those who prioritized material and economic security were considered to have materialistic values, and those who prioritized values such as esteem, intellectual and aesthetic expression were considered to have post-materialistic values. Attitudes that reflected materialistic values included: • Fighting rising prices • Maintaining a high rate of economic growth • Maintaining a stable economy

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• Maintaining order in the nation • The fight against crime • Making sure that this country has strong defense forces The first three attitudes are a reflection of economic security, while attitudes 4, 5, and 6 are a reflection of physical security. Attitudes that reflect post-materialist values include: • Seeing that people have more say in how things get decided at work and in their community • Giving the people more say in important government decisions • Progress toward a less impersonal, more human society • Protecting freedom of speech • Progress toward a society where ideas are more important than money • Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful The first three attitudes reflect needs of belonging and esteem; the fourth and fifth attitudes reflect intellectual needs, while the last sixth attitude reflects aesthetic needs (Inglehart, 1977: 42). Some researchers indicate that post-materialist attitudes give less importance to ownership of objects and products (Salonen & Ahiberg, 2013: 279). People who hold post-materialist attitudes are more likely to have a preference for renting rather than owning. Inglehart noted a trend in which more and more people were prioritizing post-materialistic over materialistic values. Accordingly, the transformation of politics was interpreted, which instead of relying on social classes increasingly began to rely on post-materialist values. Materialist values are based on the idea that we live in a society of scarcity, while post-materialist values are based on the idea that we live in a society of abundance (Clarke et al., 1999). Values are related to the way individuals think and act, what they consider an acceptable and desirable way of behaving, and what does not fall into that category. Green parties achieved the best results in countries with a developed welfare state, which created a sense of freedom from the uncertainties of the market among citizens and opened up space for people to deal with issues not related to economic security. The transition from materialistic to post-materialistic values has caused a debate in scientific circles. Among the reasons for the transition to post-­ materialist values were stated the constant economic growth, material and

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economic security, the growth of education, that is, the number of people with higher education, the availability of an increasing amount of information etc. 5.2.1   Hierarchy of Needs Post-materialism is in some sense related to the concept of “hierarchy of needs” developed by Abraham Maslow (1954: 38). According to this concept, people’s behavior is dictated by the attempt to satisfy certain needs that are hierarchically arranged according to how important they are to ensure the survival of the individual. The lowest on the pyramid of values and the most priority values to achieve are those related to physical needs, shelter, food, money, and physical security. People are willing to sacrifice their lives to secure food. What is considered a material need is not fixed, but can change over time. Something that was considered a luxury in the 1960s like a washing machine is now considered a basic necessity. In a similar way, the possession of a mobile phone and a computer is considered a basic need today (Carter, 2007: 94). But regardless of what the basic material needs are, as soon as they are satisfied, people move on to satisfying the needs that are higher in the pyramid, such as the need for belongingness, esteem and self-actualization, intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction, etc. They can be considered post-materialist values. Post-­ materialism is a state in which the material scarcity that motivates selfish and appropriative behavior has been overcome. The wealth that was created after the Second World War created conditions for a significant part of people to stop worrying about material survival and economic issues. A significant part of the generation that grew up in Western Europe after the Second World War, because they were raised in prosperity and abundance, began to take survival for granted, as something given. In such conditions, a significant part of this generation developed post-materialist values (Inglehart, 1990). Post-materialist values are acquired in the process of socialization, if a generation was born, was socialized, and grew up in a time of material abundance and security. The people who internalized post-materialist values were not interested in the question of survival, of the economy, because they were already secured and it seemed that there was no way to lose them, but they began to worry about other topics such as the protection of the rights of women, of foreign workers, to homosexuals, to the disabled, to the elderly, to the environment. They asked questions related to morality, social justice, personal fulfillment, feminism,

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world peace, racial harmony, environmentalism, animal rights, etc. People who had post-materialistic values could not be interested in politics and mobilized by the perspective offered by traditional political parties with materialistic political agendas. Therefore, new social movements and later Green parties began to appear on the political horizon. 5.2.2   Reasons for the Change in Values There are at least four reasons why a change in values occurred, namely the transition from materialist to post-materialist values (Inglehart, 1977: 11). These are: physical security, economic security, education and information. 1. People in economically developed countries after the Second World War felt a high level of physical security. The absence of war in the lives of the generations born after the Second World War allowed them to concentrate more on the quality of life, rather than on the struggle for survival. 2. Technological development and increase in productivity led to economic growth, richer countries, and richer population. The basic needs of the majority of the population in the most economically developed countries were met. Inglehart’s research shows that the growth of post-materialist values is correlated with the growth of countries’ GDP per capita. The higher the GDP per capita in a country, the higher the number of people who have post-­materialistic values. The largest numbers of people who develop post-materialist values are people who belong to the middle classes. 3. A significant indicator of changing values and the transition to post-­ materialist values is the growth of higher education. Through higher education, individuals, among other things, develop their cognitive abilities and become more aware of politics. In the educational process, people learn how to get more and more relevant information, how to process and critically perceive it. Inglehart notes that there is a correlation between the growth of education and changing values. When individuals start studying, they don’t just receive information, but begin to critically analyze information, make comparisons, analyses, generally develop cognitively, and form a certain pattern of thinking. People who graduate from universities have a wider circle of acquaintances, which are not only local, they have a cosmopolitan

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worldview, they have more channels for communication and receiving information, which ultimately results in developing post-­ materialistic values. 4. Living in an information society, the availability of a large amount of information can have an impact on the development of post-­ materialistic values. This means that people will develop the need to question the characteristics of the government more, to participate more in making decisions on important social issues. The media play an important role here, in modern society that role is increasingly being taken over by the social media. Changing dominant values in society is part of a larger social process in which society itself was transformed from industrial to post-industrial (Bell, 1974). In that process, the class structure of society changed, higher education expanded, and the decision-making process became bureaucratized. In the relationship between economic growth, changing social values, and concern for nature, as claimed by Lowe and Goyder (1983), something paradoxical happens. The inclination to show concern for environmental problems is the result of a change in the value system. The paradox here is that economic growth makes it possible for people to live better, in greater well-being, to become richer, to be better and more educated, to be emancipated, to enjoy more nature, which is increasingly being destroyed due to economic development. In other words, the same factors contribute to the increase in the standard of living and the destruction of nature. 5.2.3   The Consequences of Changing Values With the change of values, issues related to lifestyle became more relevant in politics. Such issues were environmental protection, quality of life, the role of women in society, the redefinition of morality, etc. At the same time, trust in the institutions, in the government, in the established political parties declined. According to Inglehart, the events of May 1968 in France and the student protests in the United States in the 1960s should be seen in the light of changing values in highly industrialized societies. Post-materialist values related to self-esteem and self-actualization mean that citizens are more critical of authorities and institutions, they want to have a greater influence on social processes, the government, they want their opinion to be taken seriously, to protect freedom of speech.

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Post-materialism for individuals means diversification of lifestyles, putting much more focus on political issues, reducing trust in authorities and the level of identification with consumerism, consumer goods, and services that are used. Such changes at the individual level were associated with greater concern for environment protection, the type of political participation, and gender equality. Greater interest in political issues combined with the cosmopolitan identity characteristic of people with post-materialist values leads to greater concern for the environment. Taking into account that individuals with post-materialistic values do not see themselves only as part of a certain local community, but at the same time they are also considered part of the whole world that is “the global village,” they show a greater affinity for global issues such as sustainable development. The political participation of those with post-materialist values is specific. On the one hand, they show a great interest in the decisions of the authorities, both at the national and local level, which indicates an interest in influencing the processes, but on the other hand, people with post-­ materialistic values showed less trust in the authorities. People with post-­ materialist values do not use traditional channels of political participation, such as voting in elections. Instead, they prefer alternative channels of political participation such as involvement in public life and thus exerting pressure and controlling the work of the authorities. It can have an impact on the election results of parties that count on votes from people who have post-materialist values. If the number of individuals who want to be more involved in political activities and distrust the authorities grows, there is a high probability that they will become involved in new political movements. If they fail to fully achieve their goals, then there is a possibility for them to try to achieve the indicated goals through direct participation in politics, with the support of new political parties. Theories of cultural modernization indicate that post-materialist values are a prerequisite for the emergence of new types of political parties. They begin to dominate the political arena and enter the parliaments. Post-­ materialist parties offer an alternative type of politics compared to traditional ones. Post-materialist parties mobilize on the ideals of pluralism, participation, libertarianism, and even anti-capitalist democracy. They are concerned with issues of ecology, feminism, peace, and collective political action. The new parties that counted on the support of people with post-­ materialist values indicated a new type of political conflict that did not polarize society along class lines, whether one owned the means of

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production or not, and the redistribution of scarce resources and goods in the state, but along the lines of what is his position in relation to the quality of the environment, unconditional disarmament, nuclear disarmament, feminism, women’s rights, etc. Post-materialist values are compatible with minimizing economic growth and maximizing concern for quality of life and quality of the environment. They come together with a different type of participation in political activities than the traditional one. Post-­ materialist values are compatible with an informal approach to political activities. A study by Inglehart (1995) in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and Great Britain indicates that Green parties in these countries have more support from voters with post-materialist values than from those who have materialist values. Parties that have the support of a post-materialist electorate are less hierarchically and authoritarianly organized, and have more grassroots participation than established political parties. They could also be expected to show a greater degree of willingness to defend democratic values and rules (Belcoit, 2010). Post-materialist parties have fragile leadership and unstable party loyalty. These parties have deliberative strategies adopted by rational leadership, which is under the constant surveillance of their supporters. 5.2.4   Critical Reviews of Post-Materialist Values Criticisms of the concept of post-materialist values usually go along the lines that post-materialist values are not as stable as one might expect them to be, given that they are internalized in the process of socialization. If the social context changes, society begins to feel a lack of material goods, firstly the social context in which the new generations will be socialized will change, secondly, those who have already been socialized with post-­ materialist values will change their behavior, but considering that they are socialized in one way, and find themselves in a completely different situation, they could be expected to behave inappropriately. Some authors have questioned the assumption that satisfying material needs automatically will lead to the development of post-materialist values (Martell, 1994: 125). Goodin (1992: 56) even goes so far as to argue that people who support Green ideology develop post-materialist values as a consequence, and not the other way around as other authors claim. But it is also possible for the majority of people who enjoyed material comfort and security in childhood to continue to enjoy material goods as adults without changing their

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focus and seeking even more material goods. This explains why the support of the new social movements is not as high as one might expect. But at the same time, a part of people who live in material abundance may develop post-materialist values and be those who support the Green parties. People, communities, and societies that have not reached the dominant development of post-materialist values, criticize the policies of the Greens and see them as a form of environmental imperialism. They claim that the concept of the Greens hinders them, disputes their right to develop economically, to use natural resources, as developed countries did at the time when they were developing economically (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 285).

5.3  New Conflicts Social cleavages that shape party divisions in Europe occurred at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967). The conflicts are on different grounds, but mostly the conflict between the workers and the owners of the capital is officialized and institutionalized in politics. The division between parties is the division between those who protect the interests of workers and those who protect the interests of the owners of capital. This means that the division is not only political, but much deeper—social. It is rooted in social facts like status and religion. The transformation of social characteristics into cleavages does not follow the path of automatism. It interacts with the mobilization of elites. Additionally, people who are on the same side of the divide, for example workers, have the same interests, but above all a common identity. From the perspective of social cleavage, being a worker is not so much a matter of common interest as it is a matter of common identity. The institutionalization of conflict is crucial to the political system. Cleavages that were institutionalized when party systems took shape in the early twentieth century still dominate party systems across Europe and America. The dividing lines are not frozen (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 12). The growth of post-materialist values among the population and the Green parties was a reflection of deep structural shifts of the post-­industrial society. The decline in the importance and scope of traditional industries and the growth of the service sector was accompanied by a transformation of the occupational structure of the population. Blue collar working class jobs were decreasing at the expense of the growth of the white collar sector. In the same period, the standard of living, the material conditions of

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life increased; there was an expansion of higher education, of the information society. All these processes have contributed to the blurring of class distinctions and loyalties in postmodern society. The new middle class that emerged in this process was more alienated from the traditional political system than the working class. She was highly critical of established parties, bureaucratic structures, and a predominantly materialistic agenda (Carter, 2007: 92). In the industrial society, the class conflict was automatically reflected in the left-right political polarization. Sociological analyses indicate that in the period after the 1960s we are witnessing the emergence of a new conflict in society, left libertarianism versus materialism. It implies new challenges for the classic political parties such as the Social Democratic, Conservative, Liberal parties, as well as the emergence of new political parties such as the Green parties. Green parties mobilize votes from the left-libertarian, post-materialist side of the new social divide, while all other parties are on the other side, on the side of materialistic values. The emergence of the left-libertarian-Green parties is a reflection of the risk of environmental pollution brought about by the implementation of new technologies, the bureaucratic limitations of individual autonomy, and the limitation of the possibility to effectively influence decisions through participation in politics. The growth of the level of education and thus of the expectations that people have from themselves and from society, the differentiation and individualization of life styles, and the accelerated social and cultural mobility contributed to the development of a negative sentiment toward the dominant way of development of society. It opened up space for the emergence of new parties that will express such negative sentiments. At least two generations before the emergence of the new Green parties in the 1970s, in most societies there was a stable social cleavage based on class, religion, ethnicity, and center/periphery relations (Kitschelt, 2019: 9). Stable social divisions began to loosen already in the 1960s, and can be felt through electoral dealignment and realignment. The new social divisions created conditions for the establishment of new political subjects (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 12). According to Kitschelt (1988), the reason for the emergence of the Greens as left-libertarian parties is a series of structural changes, primarily in countries with a strongly developed welfare state, strong labor corporatism, and frequent participation of left-oriented parties in government. The new demands of post-industrial society could not be successfully

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channeled through the old established political channels. That is why new political parties were created. They questioned and undermined the postwar compromise between labor and capital in industrial societies, as they criticized the prioritization of economic growth over non-material interests such as environmental protection. When the Green parties appeared, they were a rebellion against the established balance between the centralized interest groups and the political leadership. According to Kriesi et al. (2012) the social division libertarianism versus authoritarianism has arisen based on the emergence and acceleration of globalization. On one side of the divide are the winners and on the other the losers of the globalization process. The political reflection of this conflict can examine the policies of integration as opposed to those of demarcation. That conflict can still be interpreted as a conflict between universalism versus particularism. If the place of the individuals involved in the conflict in the economic sphere is analyzed, the conflict could be described as a conflict between investors and consumers. The conflict has its own cultural dimension, signs of which could be seen as early as the 1960s and 1970s. It can be said that globalization has added a new dimension to the cultural conflict that has been going on since the 1960s. Based on this conflict, the populist right-­ oriented parties are mobilizing the losers of globalization. Sometimes the battle to mobilize the losers of globalization involves traditional right-­ wing parties that transform into nationalist parties. The new social division and the attempt to mobilize the electorate on it come with a new set of policies and political issues that the parties raise. Some of the issues raised by parties that mobilize the losers of globalization are immigration, integration, loss of sovereignty of nation-states, etc. As the conflict between the state and the market was manifested in various macroeconomic policies, labor policies, social policies, etc., so the conflict between integration and demarcation based on the globalization process is manifested in Euro integration policies, immigration policies, etc. On the other side of the line of conflict is the insistence on order, politics of sovereignty. The question of where the protection of the human environment stands here is interesting. It is an issue that is related to transnationalism (it has an international dimension), to the issue of European integration. It seems that in all dimensions of this cleavage, the Green parties have an ambivalent attitude. In general, a large part of the activists of environmentalism were part of the anti-globalist movement, but the Green parties are not Eurosceptic parties, they are not opposed to migrations, on the contrary, they lead a

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policy of protecting diversity and advocate for the best possible integration of migrants. Regarding the issue of particularism versus environmentalism, the Green parties insist on the importance of local communities and decentralization, but at the same time have elements of cosmopolitanism in its policies. On the question of democracy versus authoritarianism, the Greens generally demand a reform of democracy, that is, a radical participatory democracy, although especially in the time when they were a social movement and in academic circles, voices can be found that point to the effectiveness of authoritarian tactics in the realization of political goals. At the time it emerged in the 1960s, environmentalism called for social change to protect the human environment. At that time environmentalism was the opposition to industrialism, to the establishment, to the status quo. In that sense, as noted by Lowe, Rüdig (1986: 537) environmentalism was based on a new type of social cleavage. But the interesting question is how it was later integrated into politics, through the incorporation of nature protection into traditional left-oriented agendas, but also through the launch of authentic environmentalist political projects. Through integration into politics, environmentalism became part of the system, of the institutions. Social conflicts in the electorate seem to be changing. New conflicts emerge such as authoritarianism versus libertarianism, integration versus demarcation, universalism versus particularism. Parties are emerging that mobilize support for issues that were not present in politics before. Right-­ wing populist parties mobilize support based on the issue of immigration, while Green parties mobilize support based on the issue of environmental protection. The growth of awareness about the importance of the environment, to the extent that it mobilizes social engagement in social movements and political energy to support political parties, is the result of changing the awareness of citizens, that is, changing values from materialistic to non-materialistic.

5.4   Issues Politics Rüdig (1990) is critical of the fact that most researchers do not evaluate the Green parties as parties that represent one issue—environment protection. The declarations of the Greens that they stand for the protection of the environment are seen as something non-essential, marginal, irrelevant. The emergence of the Green parties is seen as part of a larger, deeper social

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background related to the emergence of new societal conflicts. The Green parties do not see themselves as single-issue parties, although it is undeniable that the Archimedean point around which Green politics revolves is environment protection. But the topic itself, protection of the environment, includes a whole political universe. The issue of environmental protection cannot be treated adequately if there is no systemic view of society and politics and if consistent public policies are not conducted. The protection of the environment is related to a policy of sustainability, of limiting growth, which has consequences for economics, education, urbanism, and foreign policy (Dobson, 2000: 24). When the Greens organize campaigns against acid rains or against the cutting of forests, they point to urgent problems, but at the same time they demand a systematic, consistent, and sustainable policy that will prevent such acute problems from appearing in the future. It is ironic that precisely the parties that point to the connection of various aspects of economic, social, and political life with the protection of the environment are perceived as single-issue parties. If for something the Greens can be said to be a single-issue party, it is not because they solve only one issue, but because they have opened a new issue according to which politics in modern society is shaped. In a similar way, the socialist parties can be talked about as single-issue parties, because for the first time they systematically opened up the issue of class. Just as the opening of the class issue led to a different view of the economy, politics, education, sports, and led to the conception of authentic public policies in all spheres of human life, so the opening of the issue of environment protection led to a different view of individual areas from human life and toward specific, authentic policies in each area. Party policies across Europe have been going through significant transformations for a long time. Gone are the days when party politics were based on social class and parties had mass membership. Instead, politics is based on certain issues, and parties compete to present their views and policies on the issues that dominate the political agenda. In today’s politics, it is very significant how the parties present their policies to the media. The voting body is not stable, it often changes its political preferences, new political parties appear that impose issues in the political space. A good example of that is the growth of populism and Euroscepticism. The consequences of the growth of populist parties are enormous. It is increasingly difficult to form coalition governments that will not include Eurosceptic parties, somewhere such parties form governments that lead

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Eurosceptic policies; Great Britain has left the European Union, the EU enlargement process has slowed down considerably, etc. (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 1). But some theoreticians point out that precisely these issue or niche parties, created by non-traditional socio-economic cleavages, do not refer much to the change of public opinion. They have one issue that they thermalize regardless of what changes in public opinion regarding that issue occur. While such an issue for the Greens is the protection of the human environment, for the radical rights it is the issue of migrants (Abou-­ Chadi, 2019: 417). The question arises whether the association of certain parties only with certain topics is exclusively the intention of those parties or the perception of the public, which sees all the policies proposed by these issue parties through the prism of the issue with which they associate the identity of the parties. It seems that there is an evolutionary development among issue parties. They appear as parties on a single issue, but over time they develop a detailed political philosophy, political theory, and practice that cover all spheres of social life, but the public continues to perceive these parties as parties on the issue they initially posed to society (Rüdig, 2019: 31). Such a perception is partly due to the inertia of public opinion, but in a significant part it is due to the fact that the entire political philosophy and theory is developed in accordance with the axiomatic approach to the initial question. Hence, in an attempt not to be treated as a single-issue party, the Greens today promote their positions on many other issues, but in the perception of the public, the identity of these parties is predominantly related to environmental protection. A reason for the emergence of the Green parties according to Müller-­ Rommel (1990: 211) is that the issue of environmental protection was not well channeled into the public sphere. Hence, the emergence of parties that sharpen the focus and deal with only one question those they put at the center of their political activity. Depending on the interest of the public, the parties started to focus on certain topics. Hence, a serious change in the issues treated by political parties in their programs appeared. Dramatic changes have taken place in that sphere. The issue or niche parties themselves are treated as “issue entrepreneurs.” They contribute to the politicization of certain issues on which they sense that society could be divided, and which have not previously been treated by politics. Thus, right-oriented populists have politicized the issue of European integration (Abou-Chadi, 2019: 417). It seems that whether a certain party will pay

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attention to a certain issue depends on three factors: what are the characteristics of the indicated issue, who has the monopoly on that issue, that is, which parties identify with the indicated issue and what are the consequences of treating the issue in terms of the coalition capacity of the parties (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 1). • The characteristics of the issue are related to whether relevant problems could be solved through appropriate policies such as environmental problems. • Issue ownership means whether the public sees any of the major, systemic parties as competent to solve the issue. • Coalition considerations are related to whether solving the issue is in line with generally accepted standards for left- or right-oriented politics, which later reflects on the willingness of smaller parties from the respective camp to form a coalition with an established system party. Political parties focus on certain issues by promising certain policies. Once the parties give importance to certain issues, it cannot fail to reflect on the party’s electoral support. Environmentalism as an issue received more serious treatment in the 1990s. Later, interest in this issue began to decline. Although this issue was not at the top of the priorities, it still remained relevant for a significant part of the electorate. Public opinion surveys clearly show that, although not among the most significant, environmentalism is one of the relevant issues that the public is interested in (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 8). The basis of politics has shifted in the past period. If earlier it was based on the issue of class, today it seems to be based on policy issues. It corresponds to the weakening of the importance that classes have in modern society. Party policies are more related to specific issues, because citizens have started voting on specific issues and not on the basis of class division. However, it seems that the general division of left and right remains, but within the framework of left and right ideologies, certain questions stand out, to which political parties, depending on their ideological orientation, give appropriate answers. However, the newly formed parties try more to provide answers to specific questions, for example environment, euro integration, than to ideologically position themselves along the old demarcation lines.

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5.5  The Organizational Structure of the Green Parties The organizational structure of political parties is a field that is increasingly researched in political science. It has implications on the ideological positioning of the parties, the potential internal conflicts in the parties, but also the conflicts that the parties have in the political system as a whole. Through understanding the organizational structure of parties we can understand their true nature (Taggart, 1996: 110). This is especially true for the Green parties. The first analysts who wrote about the Greens pointed to the fact that for understanding these parties, their organizational structure is more significant than their ideological orientation (Rihoux, 2016: 298). The organizational structure of the Green parties is inseparable from the concepts of grassroots democracy and decentralization. Neumayer (2003) points out that Green parties such as Ecolo and Groen in Belgium, Die Grünen in Germany, Green Progressive Accord and GroenLinks in the Netherlands insist on spontaneity in membership self-organization, participatory democracy, decentralization, as opposed to bureaucratically organized traditional parties. For the organizational structure of the Greens, a good illustration is the fact that some of them did not have real presidents during one period of their operation, but a group of spokespersons who rotated in those positions (Rihoux, 2016: 298). Over time, the Green parties became institutionalized, organizationally transformed, and began to resemble other conventional political parties. The organizational structure of the Green parties is set up in such a way that most of them attach great importance to local organizations, which they give great autonomy in decision-making. Local Green Party organizations have the autonomy to organize themselves and plan their activities (Burchell, 2014: 108). They have a greater opportunity to articulate their interests through the influence they have in the formation of party policies. The idea is to balance the power at the local and central level and thus lead to more transparent policies (Müller-Rommel, 1990). Compared to the established parties, the Greens have 1. weak mechanisms for committing activists to the parties, which has affected the limited number of party membership and activism, 2. rejected traditional bureaucratic party organizations at the expense of horizontally positioned mobilization of activists and 3. insistence on greater participation of activists in decision-making (Kitschelt, 1990). If we judge according to the organizational structure of

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the Swedish Green Party, then the organizational structure of the Greens is based on the principles of: decentralization, influence of local structures in party affairs, direct democracy, and diffusion of power (Burchell, 2002: 108). The organizational structure of the Green parties cannot be understood without considering the unconventional and specific activism of the new social movements and especially the environmentalist movement (Burchell, 2002: 9). Green parties are children of new social movements (Rihoux, 2016: 299), which had a low level of formality in relations, amateur activism (as opposed to professional), egalitarianism in the organizational structure (as opposed to hierarchy), limited prerogatives of leaders and their frequent rotation. The new social movements were proud of their organizational structure, they considered it avant-garde that had the potential to transform society. The Greens took over both the organizational structure of the new social movements and the attitude toward it. For the Greens, decentralization in the organizational structure, amateur activism, egalitarianism in relations was so significant that it became a component of the Green ideology. The organizational structure of the Greens at the time they appeared was the antipode of the organizational structure of the then established parties (Williams, 1999: 11). As many have mentioned, in organizational terms, when the Greens emerged they were an anti-party party (see Table 5.1). At that time, the Greens expressed open distrust toward the political elites in general. They believed that politics was bureaucratized, professionalized, and oligarchized. The Greens made their party organization based on the principle of openness and membership participation in the decision-making process (Price-Thomas, 2016). The members of the executive bodies of the Green parties were elected directly from the membership. Party meetings were held at all levels, all members had the opportunity to participate in them, and decisions were made by consensus, after long debates. There was a tendency for the party authorities to consult with people who are not members of the Greens on certain issues. There have been examples of the Greens proposing people who are not party members for public positions. The Greens had a collectivist approach to running the party, limited the mandates and resources available to the leadership, prohibited the same individual from having a party function, and being an MP at the same time. In 1983, Die Grünen made a rotation of deputies at half-term. The MPs gave most of their salary for the implementation of environmental projects. Although in the 1980s Die Grünen’s membership grew from 18,000 to

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Table 5.1  List of organizational characteristics of Green parties

List of organizational characteristics of Green parties Collective leadership Imperative mandate (control of mandate from party membership) Rotation of leadership positions (through rules governing that process) Openness to membership Autonomy of local organizations (giving priority to the lowest organizational levels) Separation of party and state functions, first of all the parliamentary function Using different forms of direct democracy Absence of professional leadership Guaranteed representativeness of minority groups Limiting the financial income of mandate holders, especially members of parliament Source: Rihoux (2016): 300

40,000, the leadership did not aggressively push for an increase in membership. They did not want to trade membership growth for a reduction in internal party democracy (Frankland, 1995: 21). In order to avoid professionalization, Green parties resort to establishing collective leadership, while at the same time prohibiting the same people from holding party positions and being members of parliament. In addition, in order to avoid the possibility of activity in the party being seen as an opportunity to make a professional career, members of parliament from the Green parties rotated. People who worked in the Green parties received no wages or at best minimal wages for their work. Seeking to end male dominance in the political sphere, the Greens encouraged equal representation of men and women on party commissions and committees, as well as on party lists (Burchell, 2002: 105). In the 1980s, the majority of Green parties across Europe had a largely participatory model of party organization. They rely on party structures to take unconventional political actions. In the 1990s, they began to change the model of party organization and move from a grassroot model to a

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more professional party structure. Practically it was a transformation from a social movement to a political party. In that period, the Greens became part of the system, that is, they established themselves as political parties (Burchell & Williams, 1997). The reason for the transformation of the organizational structure of Die Grünen in Germany was the weak electoral results of the party in the 1990 elections. It was realized that the alternative way of organizing the party in conditions of party competition is not effective in the fight to attract votes. The need for organizational changes would have been imposed even without the weak election results in 1990. Namely, the rotation of MPs allowed a larger number of people to gain parliamentary experience, but such a solution had its weaknesses. While the parliamentarians mastered the mechanisms of work in the parliament, the time for rotation was coming, so a new group of deputies went through the same process. In addition, there were practical difficulties in the functioning of the Greens. Namely, the horizontal organizational structure and the restrictions on the executive bodies of the parties required a large and active membership, and analyses showed that only 10% to 30% of those who were registered as members were truly active (Burchell, 2002: 107). The debates and multiplicity of opinions that were characteristic of the Greens when they were social movements proved harmful when they transformed into political parties. It was not possible for the Greens to represent a whole range of different opinions when promoting their policies. It left an impression that they don’t really know what kind of politics they really stand for (Burchell, 2014: 25). Since 2000, it can be said that the Greens have a more centralized party organization, and they believe that the decentralization of the party organization was a reflection of the immaturity of the then new parties and that it is impractical for serious engagement in politics and gathering votes in elections. While in practice and in the organizational structure they professionalized and bureaucratized, declaratively the Greens remained advocating for grassroots democracy. They talk about democratization of society, democratization and openness of institutions, democratic control over institutions, participation of citizens in decision-making, etc. The changes to the organizational structure of the Greens did not happen without resistance, especially since the Green parties had a decentralized party structure and a contestation of power between different party structures. Resistances varied from country to country depending on the local context and internal party dynamics. Internal divisions have occurred in

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many Green parties. Such examples were Die Grünen in Germany and Groen Links in the Netherlands (Bolleyer, 2013: 106). After the 1989 elections in the UK Green Party, the initiative Green 2000 appeared, which required the formation of an Executive Committee, which will have a Chair, a Regional Council, a more centralized party structure, and a change in the nature of party conferences. Such proposals led to intra-party conflicts and division of the party. It was alleged that the changes would have implications for intra-party democracy. Those who supported changes to the organizational structure of the party prevailed, and Sara Parkin became the party chair. Such changes met with great resistance among the party membership. Many note that the conflicts over the organizational structure have turned into personal rivalries and a struggle for dominance with the party and the party structure. The results achieved by the UK Green Party in the 1992 parliamentary elections were far below expectations and Sara Parkin resigned before the Green Party Conference (Burchell, 2002: 117). The organizational reforms in Les Verts began in 2002 in order to solve the organizational dysfunctions, and they affected the issues of the regional focus of the party organization and the degree of autonomy and independence in the decision-making of the regional groups. The reforms affected the entire party apparatus, from the way information is circulated through the party structures, through the functioning of the national secretariat, to the disposal of party resources. There was no great resistance to the organizational changes of the party, mainly because the changes were not dramatic and large, and at the same time the membership of Les Verts felt that there were more serious issues to focus on. The party has found a balance between being more effective in elections and still maintaining direct democracy. After the reforms, the party was more hierarchically organized, and greater importance was given to the executive bodies (Burchell, 2002: 118; Villalba, 2008: 54). After the reforms, in the Green parties the highest party body remained the party conferences, the parties still encouraged regional autonomy, the majority of the members of the party conferences are regional delegates, but what is new is the development of smaller and more efficient executive bodies. A significant feature of the transformation of the Green parties is a gradual transition from direct democracy with direct involvement of members in the decisions of the party conferences to a delegate system of functioning of the party conferences. Where the changes were perhaps most visible was in the abandonment of the principle of rotation in the

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performance of fictions (Burchell, 2002: 124). After the reforms, the Green parties became professional, they started to use an approach that is more similar to the organizational structure of traditional political parties. With all the changes, the organizational structure of the Green parties, however, remained specific and more oriented toward participation and direct democracy compared to that of the traditional parties. With all the changes to the organizational structure that led to professionalization, the Green parties remained the most decentralized parliamentary parties in Europe (Bolleyer, 2013: 106).

5.6  The Social Structure of the Green Parties Green parties in most countries are supported by similar segments of the population. The social structure that supports the Green parties differs from the one that supports the other established parties. Several studies indicate that the electorate of the Green parties consists of younger people, members of the new middle class. These are people who mainly live in urban centers, highly educated, generally left-oriented. The typical Die Grünen voter in the 1990s was under 36, while for the UK Green Party it was 41 during the same period (Gibrowski, 1999: 24; Bennie, 2004). In both cases it is less than the average age of the electorate in both countries. Although the Greens are working to attract working-class supporters and voters, it is widely perceived that the Greens are mainly voted by well-to­do citizens (McBride, 2022). The number of women who support the Green parties is greater than that of men. A study done on the Finnish Green Leaugue shows that the majority of the voters of this party are women (Zilliacus, 2001: 50). Supporters of Green parties generally have less affiliation with the dominant religious denomination in the countries in which they live. In general, Green Party voters are not very religious (Carter, 2013: 80). They are white collar workers, administrative workers, workers in the field of education, health, and culture where class conflict is not so pronounced. Although they are left-leaning, Green Party voters are more part of the postmodernist than the classical left (Müller-Rommel, 1990). According to Dolezal (2010), members of the new middle class predominantly come from three sectors: managers, technical experts, and socio-cultural specialists. Greens especially support socio-cultural specialists who work outside the hierarchical structures of conventional organizations, who possess a strict connection with their clients and hence libertarian values. The

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members of the new middle class do not represent material interests, neither of their own, nor of any other class in society (Cleveland, 2003: 164). Green voters have sympathy for new social movements such as environmentalism, feminism, and the peace movement (Kitschelt, 2019: 10). These are people who are associated with environmental protection, with pro-immigration views. The voters of the Green parties behave rationally, they constantly observe their behavior on the political scene and if they are not satisfied with the positioning of the Greens, it may happen that they change their electoral preferences. Hence it can be said that the electorate of the Greens is not stable or varies more compared to the established political parties.

5.7  The Policies of the Green Parties The formation of Green parties around the world, regardless of their election results, indicates the growing trend of recognizing environmental problems on a global level. Green parties conceptualize their policies on the basis of their basic goal—protecting the environment and achieving sustainability. In theory, more and more began to talk about ecological modernization of policies, which implies transforming the traditional macroeconomics that is based on the premise that economic growth can be reconciled with environmental protection. Hence the introduction of instruments like eco-taxes (Carter, 2007: 7). The politics of the Greens is based on their core values. Depending on the day’s political developments and the context, the Greens can offer a range of solutions to the day’s political issues, but they must all rely on and be in line with the core values of the Green ideology. Sometimes issues that are not at the center of the Green ideology, because they are high on the general agenda that affect the whole society, come to the fore. So, for example, as a central issue, during entering the Government in 1998, the Greens in Germany raised the issue of reducing unemployment. It is clear that the politics of the Greens, although springing from environmental protection as the party’s top ideological priority, cannot end with that issue alone (Rüdig, 1991: 28). In the 1980s, the key four pillars of the Green Party policy in Germany were: ecology, social responsibility, grassroot democracy, and non-violence (Williams, 1999: 9). The party priorities of Les Verts in France were the same—environmentalism that is protection of nature, criticism of industrialism, and greater participation and direct democracy. These priorities came under the motto: responsibility, solidarity, and citizenship.

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Responsibility was focused on society’s role in protecting the environment. People had to take responsibility for protecting the environment that was to be protected from the onslaught of modern industrialism. Solidarity referred to support for people who suffer the consequences of pollution, to those who are excluded from society on various grounds, to redistribution of work, to people from developing countries. Among other things, solidarity also applied to people who are unemployed. Like Die Grünen, Les Verts struggled to overcome the problem of unemployment. Citizenship focuses on the need for people to be more involved in decision-­ making. The Swedish Green Party Miljöpartiet de Gröna in their party program from 1997 also indicate solidarity, but in their case the solidarity was directed toward nature, the global ecological system, and toward the next generations considering the long-term consequences of the pollution of nature. Greens in Sweden prioritized reducing consumerism in the most developed countries, fair trade, and helping developing countries (Burchell, 2002: 135). In 2022, McBride (2022) lists almost the same four pillars of Green Policy: environmental sustainability, grassroots democracy, social justice, and non-violence. The success of the Green parties is due to the fact that the public recognized the need to perceive and take a stand on environmental issues. It caused changes in the behavior of other established parties, which also began to develop their own environmentally responsible programs. The Greens have a holistic and integrated view of politics. Separate policies are more interrelated, intertwined, and influence each other. For example, housing policy affects transport and health policies, and vice versa transport policies, road construction can affect housing policy. Greens believe that there is a link between lifestyle, urban infrastructure, and health. People who live near green areas generally have fewer health problems than the rest of the population. Health is also related to community. According to the Greens, people who live in a community that is more inclusive and more tolerant have fewer risk factors that threaten their health, are happier, and feel more satisfied with life (Salonen & Ahiberg, 2013: 383). Hence, the Greens imposed a specific narrative on a complex of issues. They oppose the destruction of nature, wars, and the military industry, especially oppose the production of nuclear weapons, show skepticism toward global trade arrangements and consumerist industrial society, support decentralization, localism, and cultural autonomy. Greens support Third World countries, are committed to social justice, support women, racial equality, and the rights of foreign workers. The groups that

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benefit from Green policies and the Greens’ positions on these entire issues can sometimes seem incoherent. But what is significant for all of them is that these issues are very important for certain segments of the population and the traditional parties have rarely treated them. Among the things that are of key importance to the Green parties is respect for and implementation of international agreements relating to the environment. Such are agreements on resources and pollution for example the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement on global warming. A comparative study investigating the experiences of EU countries indicates that in situations where the Green parties are in power, there is a greater degree of adherence to the goals of the Kyoto agreement (Carter, 2013: 73). Also, the appearance of the Green parties caused changes in the politics of the mainstream parties, which slowly began to include environmental issues in their party programs and envisage environmental protection policies, so that the issue of environmental protection became a matter of competition between separate political entities. A comparative study of environmentalist policies, made on 18 member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), showed that the governments that make up parties with pro-­ environmentalist positions have better results in preserving the environment than the rest. This means that party positions and attitudes are not only declarative (Carter, 2013: 73). The Greens have a unique position on some key issues for them. Namely, the Greens are one of the few, if not the only political force in the Western world that criticizes industrialization and consumerism. In today’s information society, the Greens support work from home and work in general should be close to home (Kennedy, 2013: 52). Greens have a specific view of work and employment. Namely, the conventional understanding is that work is considered only that labor for which material compensation is received in the form of salary. According to the Greens, this is a reductionist view of the job. People often work without being paid for it. The Greens believe that work builds the identity of individuals and their relationships with the community (Dobson, 2000: 86). They are of the opinion that if the productivity of formal jobs grows, people should be given more space to work independently of paid jobs. Les Verts in France initiated a change in the legislation and enabling a 35-hour working week. It was probably the most significant promise of this party in the election

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campaign of 1993. Today, Les Verts advocate for an even greater shortening of the working week, and the long-term goal is that the working week amounts to 28 working hours (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 595; Burchell, 2002: 138). On issues not directly related to the environment, the Greens seek to separate nationality and citizenship and allow migrants to obtain citizenship in the countries they migrated to. So, for example, Die Grünen in Germany initiated a change in the citizenship law in order for people who are not German by nationality, but live in Germany, to get German citizenship sooner. A similar initiative was launched by Les Verts in France. Referring to the tradition of the revolution and the republic, they indicate that everyone living on the territory of France should receive French citizenship, regardless of nationality, religion, faith, etc. (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 595). Regarding the issue of migrants, the Green Party in the UK advocates for a more open and humane immigration policy. Such a policy has been criticized by some of the party members who believe that the increase in the number of migrants will make the prospects for environmental protection less probable. Those who defended the party’s positions considered that migrations are sometimes caused by climate change, which destroys the living and working conditions of millions of people, especially in developing countries (Randall, 2013). According to the Greens, social policy is a defensive form of public spending, which is a consequence of economic policy. The Greens are critical of the large, bureaucratized health care system and more generally of the welfare state that developed to deal with the effects of industrialization. Most of the health problems are the result of efforts to achieve the greatest possible economic growth. The increase in road transport is also the result of efforts to increase economic growth, and as a consequence there is an increase in transport accidents. The increase in the number of people who are injured or killed in traffic accidents cannot be isolated from the transport policy and the policy of economic growth, and it cannot be seen in the context of the consequences it has on the health system. The Greens are of the opinion that social policy should take into account and try to address the issue of environment pollution (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 595; Walsh et al., 2000: 18). When it comes to education, the Greens point out that we still have mass education that was a product of industrialization and the social context that dominated the nineteenth century. Greens believe that one sample cannot be good for everyone and equally applicable for all children.

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The Greens criticize the standardization of knowledge and curricula. They support the organization of education at the local level (Kennedy, 2013: 52). The link between the educational and economic systems leads to an overemphasis on certificates and formal diplomas for completed education. The purpose of education has shifted. People are not educated to learn something, but to get a certificate, which they will later use to get a higher paying job (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 595). People should be more committed to lifelong learning. The Greens have a specific understanding of health policy. They had a holistic approach to health care and supported a universal health care system. The health of the ecosystem is a prerequisite for the health of individuals. Prevention is important for the health of each individual, as well as the combination of using modern medicine, healthy food, and a healthy lifestyle (Kennedy, 2013: 53). The manifesto for the British Green Party states that good health is one that enables an individual or a group to realize their full physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual potential. A healthy society is one that provides its citizens with a healthy and clean living environment, material security, good work, adequate and healthy housing, clean water, adequate education, safe transportation, and maintains a perspective for the future. Green parties advocate for the health of individuals, communities, and societies. According to the Greens, health care is influenced by and must be connected to all other policies. Increasing only the budget of health care funds, without interventions in transport, educational, economic, and other policies will not help much in correcting the causes of health problems. For example, improving the transportation system means fewer traffic incidents and fewer cases requiring medical attention (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 596). The Greens’ transport policy aims to limit and reduce the use of cars. Greens welcome the use of electric cars, at the expense of cars that use fossil fuels. Citizens should use public transport and walk more (Kennedy, 2013: 53). In their programs, the Greens promise investments in public transport, both buses and railways. Thus, the Green Party of England and Wales points out that the use of a car is not a right, but a privilege and demands that cheap rail transport be available to citizens. In the United States, where public transport is not as developed as in Europe, the Green Party promises to expand the network of public rail transport (Wall, 2010: 90). The Greens aim to reduce the need to travel long distances. Travel, especially when it is unnecessary, is an unreasonable waste of resources.

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The Greens talk about limited mobility, which is part of the concept of decentralized, self-organizing communications. Citizens should receive as many services as possible in the local community in which they live. In that sense, the policies of the Greens are compatible with the new urbanism. Housing, workplaces, recreational centers, shopping centers should be designed in such a way that they minimize the need for citizens to travel long distances (Barry & Doherty, 2001: 597). If people live in small communities, and they produce everything they need, it is cheaper because transport costs are reduced, and at the same time it is healthier, that is, less harmful to nature. The general policy of the Greens is for citizens to meet their own needs as much as possible, without relying on third parties, especially industrial production. When we go to the market, we should ask ourselves what our wants are and what our needs are. If we want to buy oranges, do we really need to buy apples? Transportation can sometimes use up a lot of resources unnecessarily. For example, apples from North Macedonia are transported to countries like Slovenia, to be processed there and transported again in the form of a finished product to the markets in North Macedonia. In that sense, some authors claim that every country should be independent, that is, it should produce the basic products to satisfy the needs of its population. Each country should produce enough food, clothing, energy, health services, educational services to meet the needs of its own citizens. In that sense, the economic policy of the Greens is based on protectionism of domestic production (Dobson, 2000: 83). This policy opposes the dominant liberal view of free trade, which is promoted by almost all political options in contemporary politics. According to the Greens, the growth of international trade threatens the independence and security of states (Gökpinar, 2019: 171). Of course, this view of the economy goes against the basic principles of the World Trade Organization. The economy promoted by the Greens is not based on mass production, but on meeting the needs of the local community. The volume of trade would decrease significantly. And the trade itself would be based on the local exchange trade system (LETS). Trade would take place in the local community, and its purpose would be the exchange of goods and services, not their accumulation. According to the Greens, greater importance should be given to work activities that are not given adequate attention in the modern economy. Work activities that are currently not paid, such as parenting, housework, volunteering, should receive greater recognition from society. Every

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individual should get economic security. Individuals’ lifestyles should be dictated more by individual preferences and less by market-imposed constraints (Carter, 2007: 50). Greens advocate agriculture with organic food production. This especially as an opposition to the production of genetically modified food. The Greens call modern agricultural practices industrial agriculture. They are unacceptable and unsustainable. Intensive monoculture agricultural production uses many chemicals, primarily pesticides, pollutes water, leads to soil erosion and end products with no taste or nutritional value (Dobson, 2000:93). Agriculture should produce healthy food in a sustainable way. But the ambition goes beyond food production. Agriculture should show people’s relationship with nature, make people part of natural processes (Porritt, 1984: 180). There are debates about what exactly is called organically produced food. Namely, the original idea of organic food production was for production to take place on small areas, by local farmers at a short distance from the markets where it is sold. Today most organically produced food is produced on large acreage owned by corporations and transported over long distances (Sargent, 2009: 293). The issue of genetically modified food is quite controversial. Those who advocate the use of genetically modified food point out that farmers have been genetically modifying their crops for centuries. They indicate that genetically modified food will increase food production, solve the problem of world hunger, and help make new medicines and biofuels. Opponents of genetically modified food point out that there is no scientific evidence about the impact that genetically modified food can have on humans. They believe that until this is done, genetically modified food can only be produced experimentally. In the largest supermarket chains in Europe, suppliers provide certificates that they do not deliver genetically modified food. Such practice occurs on a much smaller scale in the United States. In Europe, some restaurants inform their guests on their menus that they do not serve genetically modified food. In their energy policy, the Greens advocate the elimination of nuclear energy and the use of energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind power. Nuclear energy is produced from limited resources such as uranium and it will hardly solve the problems of lack of limited resources which are being depleted more and more every day. The second argument of the Greens against the use of nuclear energy is the damage to the environment. Nuclear power can potentially seriously destroy the

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environment, even if only minor damage to production facilities occurs (Dobson, 2000: 81). Greens typically focus on producing energy from renewable sources, saving energy, and reducing energy consumption. Energy from renewable sources is a symbol of sustainable development policy, because its production neither destroys nor dehumanizes the environment. However, the technology for producing electricity from renewable sources is not that simple. When producing electricity from solar cells, the technology itself pollutes the environment. A problem has arisen in the production of electricity from wind because wind turbines are quite noisy and kill migratory birds. Here the problem arises especially with the industrial type of wind power generation. This is also reflected in the name wind farms. Wind farms are usually owned by large companies and are places where there are many wind turbines concentrated in a small area. In Germany, which is the largest producer of wind power, production takes place on different principles. Usually there are two to three turbines in one place that are owned by the local community, group of citizens, or cooperatives. They make less noise and are less likely to kill migratory birds. Because they are owned by local communities, such wind parks have their support, unlike sites with many turbines, the installation of which is often opposed by local communities (Sargent, 2009: 292). The Greens indicate that in parallel with the use of renewable energy sources, work should be done on changing the habits of the citizens. This means reducing consumerism or possibly keeping it at a reasonable level. Namely, renewable energy sources can satisfy people’s energy needs, but not their greed. It seems that the emergence of Green parties and the actualization of environmentalism as a policy are yielding results. Namely, the measurements of environmental pollution from the 1990s until today show that today we live in a healthier environment. Improvements in Sweden began in the late 1980s, while in Germany, Great Britain, France, Denmark, improvements began in the 1990s (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 123). At the same time, it seems that the electoral success of the Green parties does not go along with the importance that the public gives to the issue of the environment. Namely, some analyses show that in the moments when the Green parties have the best results and insist on the issue of environmental protection in the public, that issue is least present in the public discourse. The other parties, considering that it is an issue on which the Green parties collect political points, ignore the issue of environmental protection and focus on other issues.

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Gökpinar, F. (2019). Green Theory and International Relations. In A. Tayyar & T. Elif (Eds.), Theories of International Relations 2. Anadolu University Press. Goodin, E. R. (1992). Green Political Theory. Polity. Green-Pedersen, C. (2019). The Reshaping of West European Party Politics: Agenda Setting and Party Competition in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press. Harrison, K., & Boyd, T. (2003). Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press. Inglehart, R. (1977). The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics. Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1995). Public Support for Environmental Protection: Objective Problems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies. Political Science and Politics, 28(1), 57–72. Inglehart, R. (1990). Values, Ideology and Cognitive Mobilization in New Social Movements. In M. Keuchler & J. R. Dalton (Eds.), Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies. Polity Press. Kennedy, P. (2013). Key Themes in Social Policy. Routledge. Kitschelt, H. (1988). Left  – Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovations in Comparative Party Systems. World Politics, 40(2), 194–234. Kitschelt, H. (1990). New Social Movements and the Decline of Party Organization. In R.  Dalton & M.  Kuechler (Eds.), Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies. Polity Press. Kitschelt, H. (2019). The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Cornell University Press. Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Dolezal, M., Helbinger, M., Hoglinger, D., Hutter, S., & Wuest, B. (2012). Political Conflict in Western Europe. Cambridge University Press. Lipset, S.  M., & Rokkan, S. (1967). Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross National Perspectives. Free Press. Lowe, P., & Goyder, J. (1983). Environmental Groups in Politics. Allen & Unwin. Lowe, P. D., & Rüdig, W. (1986). Political Economy and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art. British Journal of Political Science, 16(5), 513–550. Martell, L. (1994). Economy and Society. Polity Press. Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and Personality. Harper and Raw. McBride, J. (2022). How Green Party Success is Reshaping Global Politics. Council of Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-­green-­party-­ success-­reshaping-­global-­politics Müller-Rommel, F. (1990). New Political Parties and New Social Movements in Western Europe. In R. Daloton & M. Küchler (Eds.), Challenging the Political Order. Oxford University Press.

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CHAPTER 6

The Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties

6.1   The Difference Between Ideology and Politics (Is Environmentalism an Ideology or a Policy) Ideology is a meaningful construction, a structure of beliefs and a set of discursive practices through which social reality is produced and which directs political action (Stavrakakis, 1997). Specifically, ideology is a set of ideas (political philosophy) that individual political actors (political parties) try to implement through collective action. The ideas are based on widely accepted beliefs about what is good, right, just in a society, that is, on social values. The germs of ideology that influence the creation of social discourses are found in the writings of authors who systematize certain ideas related to politics in an authentic way (Van Dijk, 1998). When certain social groups and parties begin to identify with those ideas, take them as a basis for their political and electoral platforms and build a policy based on them, we are talking about a rounded political ideology. The Greens have their own evolutionary development from environmentalism as civic activism, through the development of a political philosophy based on left libertarianism, to the creation of political parties that implement policies in accordance with the interests of the layers that were dominantly behind the environmentalist movement, and later also behind the Green parties, and which are based on the principles of left-libertarian political philosophy. Hence, the Greens can be said to be a fully rounded contemporary political ideology. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Sharlamanov, The Left Libertarianism of the Greens, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39263-4_6

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Every political ideology has a certain ideal that it strives for, a certain vision of society that it wants to achieve. If for the conservatives it is the establishment of a society in which tradition and order will be respected, for the liberals it is the establishment of a society in which the freedoms and rights of the citizens will be respected, for the socialists it is a society in which social justice and equality will be achieved, for the populists it is a society in which the will of the people will be followed, for the Greens it is a restructuring of the relationship between people and nature and the establishment of a sustainable society in which nature will be protected. Achieving a sustainable society that will not degrade nature is the motive that stands behind the principles of Green political ideology. For a political ideology to be established as a system of ideas, it is necessary for it to identify a serious social problem, which calls into question the existence and identity of society, to build its own representation of the world, of society, which will be based on a series of ethical-political concepts, to set his own vision for the development of society and to take practical action through political activism and public policies for building the ideal society, that is, for realizing the vision. These elements can be found among the Greens. They identify environmental pollution as a fundamental issue that threatens the future of society and its identity. The attitude of people toward nature as the cause of the environmental problem is subjected to serious criticism from the Green ideology. The green ones indicate the reasons that cause and maintain the wrong attitude of people toward nature. One of the serious problems is the atomistic rather than holistic way of thinking. People from the leaves are not able to see the tree, that is, taking care of their own comfort, they are not able to see the problems they are causing to the ecosystem. An ecosystem can only survive and sustain itself as a whole, not atomized (Humphrey, 2013). At the level of values, the Greens insist on the community, the ecosystem, the diversity of human life as values that fundamentally differ from those of other political ideologies such as class (socialists, social democrats), free market (liberals), tradition (conservatives) etc. The Greens had a specific attitude toward the values they rely on, which are more connected to other political ideologies. Thus, for example, freedom as a value is more associated with liberalism because at the time when liberalism was developing as an ideology, it was an open question, a question that provoked debate. At the time when the Green ideology appeared, the conceptualization of individual freedom was already absolved. But unlike the liberals, for whom freedom means the opportunity for each individual to make

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decisions about his own life and behave according to them, as long as it does not harm others, for the Greens, an additional condition is that it does not harm nature. That additional condition, not to harm nature, that is to show concern for the sustainability of natural resources, is placed by the Greens before the conceptualization of each of the basic values of the established ideologies. Refusing to base their politics on a conceptualization of class has brought the Greens criticism. For example, Weston (1986: 22) criticized the Greens for focusing too much on the issue of industrialism and community, while neglecting the issue of class as irrelevant and outmoded. The Greens had an authentic view of human nature as part of the ecosystem. Greens offer a series of concepts through which they create their own view of the world. They represent a basis for political action. Those concepts include sustainable development, environmental justice, ecoregions, Green state, and green citizenship. Finally, the Green parties have developed and implement concrete policies that are based both on the interests of the social groups that support the Green parties (dominantly the new middle class), and on ethical-political concepts of the Greens. Those policies cover all the most important areas of modern life. The agenda of the Greens is ambitious and it envisages the protection of nature, a change in the way of production and consumption of goods, a change in the way people deal with waste, a change in attitude toward science and technology, etc. Through their policies, the Greens strive to achieve their ideals of a society created by self-sustaining communities that will coexist in harmony with the environment. The specificity of the Greens as an ideology is that it tries to impose obligations on its sympathizers about how to live their own lives, that is, to impose a lifestyle on them. This way of life includes abstinence from consumerism, consumption of organic products, use of bicycles and city transport, collection of plastic in separate containers and its recycling, vegetarianism, etc. In that respect, the Greens are more like a pseudo-religion than a political belief. But it is nothing new for ideologies that have emerged as a result of social movements to show traits of pseudo-religiosity (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 278). There is no consensus in the literature as to how Green political ideology should be treated and what goes into it. Some authors have a narrower approach and reduce the ideology of the Greens to environmentalism, while others have a broader approach to the ideology of the Greens and conceptualize it as left libertarianism. The reductionist approach emphasizes the issue of environmental protection, but neglects the sociological

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and political dimensions of ideologies. The second approach, on the other hand, sees the political ideology of the Greens as a set of several topics that are related to the New Left and new social movements. This is more sociological than approach of political science and deals with the social basis on which the ideology is based, that is, with the characteristics of the citizens who accept the Green ideology, rather than with the ideas that it promotes. It can be said that sociologically speaking, the Green ideology is left libertarian, while speaking from perspective of political science it is a new type of ideology that strives to protect the environment and proposes a series of policies to achieve that goal. But it seems that the categorization of whether the Greens are more left libertarian or a new ideology is not at the level of whether it is studied through the prism of the sociological or political science categorization apparatus, but at the level of whether we consider the Greens at the level of political philosophy or at the level of political theory. At the level of political philosophy, Green ideology is left libertarian, at the level of political theory; Green ideology is a new type of ideology that seeks to protect the environment. The protection of the environment as an axiom leads the Green ideology to take a specific attitude toward the economy, morality, and social organization. There are authors who go so far as to suggest that it is problematic to call the Greens a political ideology (Price-Thomas, 2016: 281). Connelly, Smith (1999: 47) indicates that there is no Green ideology, but a Green political thought that is critical of the existing political tradition. Vincent (2010: 204) gives at least two reasons for this. The first is the problematic relationship between the philosophy of nature protection that is eco-­ philosophy, the action of environmentalist movements, and Green parties. Second, the differences that arise within the schools of thought that deals with the protection of nature. Among the Greens there are divisions of dark greens and light greens, deep and shallow greens, ecologists and environmentalists, radicals and realists (Awe & Adedoja, 2020: 13). Price-­ Thomas (2016: 282) further points out that the Greens have not yet stood the test of time to plead to be called ideologies. Namely, they had a history of five decades of existence on the political scene, but it is insufficient compared to the centuries-old history of conservatism, liberalism, socialism, etc. Although it can be said that Meadows’ “The Limits of Growth,” published in 1972, is the manifesto after which the Greens enter the political scene, even though the environmentalists and ecologists already existed on the public scene before, the Greens still do not have thinkers of the caliber of Mill or Marx, who will canonize and promote their ideas. Among

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the reasons why it is difficult to speak of a pantheon of Green political thought is of course the fact that the Greens are divided into many different groups. Some authors still use the dichotomy environmentalism-­ ecologism, so they claim that environmentalism is a thin ideology following the example of populism, while they consider ecologism to be a full-­ blooded ideology (Buzogany & Mohamad-Klotzbach, 2021: 322). Although they have a different approach to the protection of nature, these two orientations, with the formation of the Green parties, united under the aegis of the Green ideology. Although the contradiction surrounding the approach is a serious internal problem of the Green ideology, it does not have the capacity to cause existential problems to this ideology. A more serious problem is that the Greens themselves sometimes try to avoid the term ideology when talking about themselves. Thus, in the program of Die Grünen in 2002, it was written that they represent a set of values, not an ideology. The reason why some of the Greens refuse to be called an ideology, despite having clearly expressed ideas about politics separate from those of other political orientations is in the disputes over the definition of ideology. Ideology as a concept was used in the struggle between liberalism and communism. Communists’ defined ideology as a false consciousness imposed on people. When communists talked about ideology as a false consciousness, they meant liberalism. Liberals, on the other hand, defined ideology as a set of dogmatic ideas that reduce political thought, that is, it is an inflexible way of thinking about politics. When liberals talked about ideology as a narrowing of consciousness, they meant communism. But it seems the political reality and the notion of political ideologies as a system of rigid ideas about politics in the period after the fall of the Soviet Union and the “end of ideology” have changed. It seems that there is a tendency to rationalize the term “ideology” itself. Ideology, among other things, meant stubbornness, rigidity, idealism to a level in which goals were set that were considered ideals, were fetishized, and which in reality, relying on knowledge, could not be achieved. The abyss between ideology and politics was rationalized in two directions. On the one hand, politics was criticized for profanization of ideals, for incompetence, inefficiency, corruption, etc. A certain difference between the original ideas that can be found in a certain ideology and the level of implementation in practice by a specific political entity can always be found. They are due to many factors, but most of all the social, cultural context, the balance of power between political entities, etc. Such differences can be found between the Greens as an ideology and as political

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structures in terms of policies implemented by political parties that declare themselves to be Greens. The growing gap between politics and ideology is going in the direction of deideologization of politics. On the other hand, ideology was accused of distortion of reality, self-delusion, messianism. This process leads to the depoliticization of ideology. In that sense, contemporary postmodern politics does not have as much ideological ambition as modern politics. Postmodern politics is more based on practice than on abstract ideas. Postmodern ideologies can only be a set, not necessarily a system of ideas. They may raise issues that affect a segment of the population, not the entire population as before. In the words of Talshir (2002), the notion of ideologies in advanced industrial democracies has been reconceptualized. The contemporary term ideology does not require an unrealistically high level of coherence between ideas, for an ideological orientation to be declared an ideology (Della Porta & Diani, 1996: 66). With all these caveats, if we agree that political ideologies are a set of abstract, logically consistent ideas about politics, we must note that the Greens possess such ideas and require political action to implement them. The Greens seek social changes, changes to established policies, to the behavior of individuals, and offer strategies to make this happen. In that sense, they represent a political ideology (Dobson, 2000). The transformation of environmentalism into a Green ideology did not happen overnight, immediately after the formation of the Green parties, but Talshir (2002) locates it sometime in the 1990s. Each ideology appears as a result of a certain social crisis, tries to identify the problem and offer a solution for it. Green ideology identifies environmental pollution as a key social problem, tries to find a solution to it through a series of ideas such as sustaining growth, using renewable energy sources, reducing consumerism, etc. Environmentalism is one of the few issues that in the new deideological societies could excite and mobilize at least part of the citizens, if nothing else due to inertia from the time when it was an issue that was dealt with by the civil sector. Greens can be treated as a political ideology, but it is a specific, new type of political ideology. Unlike other ideologies, the Greens raised the question of nature and its protection. Natural resources are limited, and economic growth has its own natural limits. Unlike all other ideologies, the Greens do not put people and their well-being at the center of their ideology. At the center of the political ideology of the Greens is life, in all forms that exist on the planet (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 278). If we agree that nature protection can be and is a political ideology, then the next question is what the ideological orientation of the Greens is. Specifically, whether that ideology is left- or right-oriented.

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6.2   The Ideological Direction of the Green Parties Although discussions about the ideology of the Greens, in general, do not cause much interest in scientific circles (Price-Thomas, 2016: 280), the appearance of the Green parties on the political map initiated discussions about their ideological orientation, organizational structure, and social groups that support them. Green parties are recognizable by their policy of prioritizing environment protection and related issues, rejecting the dominant economic paradigm for economic growth, and opposing the use of nuclear energy (Carter, 2013: 75). Green parties are ideologically oriented toward equality of rights for all citizens, especially minorities. In that sense, an important principle of the Greens is respect for others, those with different identities, pluralism, multiculturalism, tolerance. A strong streak of anti-nuclear thinking, solidarity with Third World countries, demand for unilateral disarmament, and generally left-oriented egalitarianism can be observed among them. What are completely unacceptable to the Greens are nationalism, the use of nuclear energy, and animal abuse. A significant segment of the Greens’ advocacy is international pollution control. Green parties raise the question of economic growth and its connection to environmental pollution. They look for an alternative lifestyle and question the meaning attached to material goods, individualism, self-­ realization, etc. in modern society. The Greens stand in solidarity with the Third World countries and raised the question of a fair distribution of resources between the richer and poorer countries of the world. The Greens make attempts to help the underdeveloped countries of the world build self-sustainable economies free from the financial dominance of industrialized nations (Müller-Rommel, 1990). Due to their status as outsiders in politics, the Greens can hardly be held responsible for the problems that deter voters from voting for established political parties. The ideological positioning of the Greens allows them to attract voters from the traditional spectrum of both left and right. Regarding the positioning in the political spectrum, there are remarks that the Greens do not have much room for maneuver to attract the votes of the extreme right, because their policies are too focused on the political center, with the support they provide for international institutions such as the EU and NATO (McBride, 2022). Green parties are not completely homogeneous and different ideas can be found among them. These ideas point to political perspectives that differ in terms of their priority demands, ideological strongholds, and social support. Despite all the differences,

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what unites these perspectives is that they contain principles that are post-­ industrial and immaterialist. The demands of these perspectives are related to the quality of life. Their principles are respect for cultural differences, respect for the principle of tolerance in society, and participatory democracy in politics (Belcoit, 2010).

6.3   Theoretical Determination of the Place of the Greens in the Political Spectrum (The relationship of the Greens with other political ideologies) Green ideology has commonalities, but also many differences, with respect to classical political ideologies such as conservatism, liberalism, and socialism (Awe & Adedoja, 2020). So for example, the Greens as well as the conservatives recommend modesty. Modesty among the Greens begins with modesty in relation to nature. Modesty toward nature means to respect natural regularities, for people to adapt to nature, and not to show arrogance and use it only for their own benefits. Greens have a skeptical and critical attitude toward Enlightenment ideas, toward people’s capacity to make rational decisions that lead them to progress (Martell, 1994). They are skeptical of progressive ideas, especially technological changes that contribute to the greater use of nature for the benefit of people. Greens are more about conserving nature than experimenting with it. It gives the Green ideology a thread of conservatism. What distinguishes the Greens from conservative political ideology is the demand for radical changes in economic, political structures, basic values in society and lifestyle. Greens would trade economic progress and prosperity for the benefit of nature. In addition, the Conservatives’ intention of hierarchy is incompatible with the ideal of decentralization and egalitarianism of the Greens. The Greens have an ambivalent attitude toward liberalism. Greens respect the rights and freedoms of the individual developed by liberalism. They implement and expand the concept of individual rights in all spheres of society, thus advocating for the rights of women and future generations. Greens expand that concept and talk about animal rights. The points where liberalism and Green ideology clash are individualism, economic growth, and innovation (Awe & Adedoja, 2020). Greens are more about the community than the individual. The protection of nature necessarily leads to restrictions on some of the freedoms of individuals in relation to

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nature. It also means changing the lifestyle, especially consumerism and replacing it with modesty in behavior, that is, with a minimalist lifestyle. Although it relies on some of the ideas of liberalism, the Green ideology distinguishes itself from it and manages to build its own authentic identity. Socialists have not traditionally expressed much concern for nature (Dobson, 1994: 13). In general, they are of the opinion that the race for profit, for the accumulation of property, alienates people from nature and conditions nature to be seen as an asset to be manipulated for one’s own benefit. Greed for profit is the biggest cause of overexploitation of natural resources. Socialists believed that not regulating the market gave opportunities for employers to exploit to the maximum not only the workers, but also the natural resources. The Greens argue that socialism treats nature as an object upon which to express the creativity of the working class. In this way, nature transforms and adapts to the needs of people. As for the socialist criticism of the unregulated market, the Greens note that even in the socialist countries until 1990, in which the market was fully regulated, there was devastation of nature. Hence, the problem with the devastation of nature is primarily in the industrial way of production and in the use of technology that allows the use of huge natural resources.

6.4  Neither Left nor Right, but Ahead Green ideology, among other things, incorporates in itself a combination of elements, views, ideas from other previously established ideologies. At the same time, the mix of ideas in the Green ideology is made in such a way that what is on the periphery, on the margins of the larger, previously established ideologies, is in the center of the Green ideology. This means that the ideas of the Green parties are not mutually exclusive with those of larger, previously established ideologies and that adherence to Green ideas is a matter of preferences. However, the non-acceptance of economic growth and materialist values unequivocally places the Green parties outside the classical division of the political spectrum, left-right. The left supports socialism, the right supports capitalism, but both socialism and capitalism are based on industrialism, industrial growth, materialistic ethics, mass production, consumerism, which according to Porritt (1984) is a super ideology. Therefore, for the Greens, the terms left and right are synonymous, and the Greens are outside them (Dobson, 2000: 19). As Green activist Derek Wall has argued, the Greens are neither left nor right (McBride, 2022). They developed a new set of values and concepts for

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understanding and explaining the world. Greens are neither left nor right because they emphasize things that the left and the right ignore—the relationship between people and nature. As the slogan of the German Greens said, “neither left or right, but ahead” (Heywood, 2017). This means that the Green ideology is not determined by the issue of the classical ideological division, but considers itself as an ideology that goes above and beyond those divisions. Politics and ideologies are a reflection of the time in which they appear. Politics dominated by environmentalist issues cannot be the same as politics dominated by social class issues for example. Hence, the Green is a new type of political ideology and provokes a new type of politics. However, the dominant view is that the Greens are a critique of modern industrialism and hence a left-oriented political project (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 116). Although it is left-oriented, the green left is substantially different from the red left. When ideologies appear, they appear on the level of ideas, but also on public policies, as counter-ideologies to those that already exist and dominate the public space, otherwise they would not appear. When the Greens emerged, they were extremely critical of the dominant ideology of economic growth and the dominance of humans over nature (Bahro, 1986: 11). They were a counter-ideology not only to the liberals, but especially to the socialists and social democrats from whom they sought to differentiate themselves in order to build their political identity. According to Kitschelt (2019: 22), the very emergence of left-libertarian Green parties happened most easily and best in countries where socialist and social democratic parties were in power for a long time, more than a decade, and the right was divided. In such cases the Green parties were an alternative to the dominant left parties. In the countries where the left-oriented parties had only one term in power or were a credible opposition to the right, there was not so much space for the development of Green parties. Left-leaning parties generally support environment and business regulation, while right-leaning parties are more pro-business and oppose environment regulation. Social liberal parties like the Dutch D66 or Danish Social Liberals often take pro-environmentalist positions. On the issue of environmentalism as well as on the issue of migrants, these parties are closer to the positions of the mainstream left-oriented parties, in contrast to macroeconomic issues, on which these parties are closer to the positions of the right (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 116). Noting that the business sector and industry oppose environmentalist reforms because they cost a lot of money, that environmentalist reforms could increase the role of the state

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in public affairs, that environmentalism essentially promotes social change. Dunlap (1975) suggests that in the American context democrat-liberals would be more inclined to embrace environmentalist values than republicans. Gillham (2008), analyzing the situation in the EU, points out that the left shows a slightly greater tendency to accept environmentalist positions, but the differences between the left and the right on this issue are not very large. Taking into account that this way they can get more votes, social democratic parties play on the issue of the environment. In addition to that, bearing in mind the clash between the left-right political blocs, and considering the Green parties as their natural ally in the struggle to obtain a majority and form a government coalition, the social democratic parties know how to support the Green parties or at least express understanding of their policies. The entry of the Green parties into the competition between the left and the right made the issue of the environment much more attractive and created conditions for debates to be conducted on topics that are more suitable for the left, that is, topics that are closer to the left than to the right (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 117). Depending on whether they are determined to advocate more strongly environmentalist positions or are inclined to form coalitions with left-oriented parties, Green parties can be categorized into green-green parties such as Les Verts in France and De Groenen in the Netherlands and green-red parties such as Die Grünen in Germany (Bomnerg, 2005: 24). When it is necessary to form grand coalitions between social democratic and Christian democratic parties, the issue of the environment is not a problematic issue on which these two parties have disagreements, but it is a less attractive in contrast to the situations in which the social democratic parties do coalitions with the Green parties or the social liberal parties. Accordingly, whether and how much social democratic parties insist on the issue of the environment depends on who they form a coalition with (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 117). Since the 1970s, the Greens, referring to the idea of the end of ideology, which in the 1960s was promoted by Daniel Bell (1960), considered that they have a special place in politics and in that sense they do not belong to the classical left, nor to the classical right. The idea of the end of ideology claimed that societal conflicts lose their importance, are overcome, and society moves to a stage in which plurality does not imply mutual exclusion of ideologies. The idea was that the era in which ideologies are mutually exclusive is coming to an end. Daniel Bell gave a personal

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example when he wrote that on some issues he feels closer to the conservative way of thinking, while on other issues he is closer to the socialist way of thinking. The Greens accepted this explanation of ideology and used it as an argument when they claimed that the Greens were neither a left-­ wing nor a right-wing ideology. The members of the Green parties themselves consider that they are outside the political spectrum and belong neither to the left nor to the right. The situation is not always like that when the analyses are done by theorists, sociologists, political scientists, etc. They determine the place of the Greens in the political spectrum depending on their definition of ideology. Heywood (2017: 247) indicates that Green ideology initially started as an extension of environmentalism to later develop as a separate ideology. The question arises whether the Greens are left- or right-oriented parties, that is, where do the Greens stand on the issue of the classic division of the political spectrum into left- and right-oriented political parties. This is still a relevant question, even though the left-right division itself is losing importance more and more. The internal debates between the left and the right are less exciting to both intellectuals and young people who wish to realize their ideals through participation in politics. The political ideology of the Green parties on the horizon poses new challenges, requiring the design and implementation of new policies. They are in touch with the left, but also with the right-oriented understanding of politics. At the same time, on certain issues, the policies proposed by the Greens come into conflict with the traditional understanding of the politics of the established left-wing and right-wing political parties. Hence the difficulties that the established parties had to integrate the issues of environment protection into their own party platforms. Some issues raised by the Greens conflict with traditional understandings of politics and conventional party priorities of both left-wing and right-wing parties. Such is, for example, the issue of limiting economic growth. It can be said that the appearance of the issue of environment protection opened a new dimension on the political field. In that way, the political game became more complex, and the playing field expanded. But it can also be argued that over time, the established political parties have adapted to the new circumstances and managed to find a way to include the issue of environment protection in their own political programs and offer to the voters, as they have done with several issues that, prior to the emergence of the environmentalist question, had the potential to mobilize public support. It seems that left-­ leaning parties were more exposed to pressure to lose some of their

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traditional voters, so they were more inclined to adopt Green policies than right-leaning parties (Carter, 2013: 74). As a result of the incorporation of Green policies into the political offer of traditional parties, the Greens in the Scandinavian countries were politically neutralized (Lester & Loftsson, 1993: 122). It is indisputable that the Greens are new political ideologies (Poguntke, 1993a), which offer new policies that are not related to only one issue— the protection of nature (Price-Thomas, 2016: 5). If we want to be more precise in the ideological orientation of the Greens—they are left-­ libertarian parties (Kitschelt, 1988). Although the slogan that they are neither left nor right but аhead was very popular among the Greens, a more comprehensive analysis shows that they are still predominantly left-­ oriented. Greens advocate more for equality not only between humans and other species living on the planet, but also within the community. But it should be taken into account that the Greens are far from the general worldview of the traditional left, which believes that people have the right to reshape the world and adapt it to their needs (Dobson, 2000: 19). The claim that the Greens are neither right nor left has irritated many political commentators. They considered that such a claim indicates that the Greens do not have a clear ideological orientation, that they have a one-dimensional policy dedicated to one issue, that they know what they are fighting against, but will hardly formulate a policy for which they stand (Lipietz, 1995). For those reasons, the slogan, neither left nor right, but ahead threatened the political future of the Greens. That slogan can be said to be ideological, although it does not speak about ideology itself. The slogan neither left nor right but ahead owes its popularity among the Greens to the fact that it indicates that the Greens are not part of the traditional political spectrum, of traditional policies, but are a new type of political ideology that offers new solutions for modern society. The Greens hardly fit into traditional dualisms of state versus market or equality versus hierarchy. According to the first dualism, the Greens have distrust toward the state, but they also do not fully trust the market, which creates consumerism and negative consequences for the environment. It can be said that the Greens stand for a small, decentralized state, but also for the “small market” which would be the result of reducing consumerism and the self-sufficiency of individuals living in small communities. According to the second dualism of equality versus hierarchy, the Greens advocate a fair distribution of natural resources, but oppose the redistribution of resources through the state. The slogan, “neither left, nor right, but right”

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cannot be said to be wrong, because really the Greens are neither the classic right nor the classic left—as it existed until the time of the appearance of the Green parties. Keeping in mind the specificity of the Green parties, Carter (2007: 78) makes a new categorization of the political spectrum in which there is technocentrism on one side, and ecocentrism on the other. Technocentric are the ideologies that believe that there should be no limits to economic growth, that have a certain amount of scientific and technological optimism, believing that human rationality will find a solution to the problems of environmental pollution. Technocentric ideologies emphasize materialistic values, have an anthropocentric worldview, and believe that elites should be involved in solving key societal problems. Ecocentric ideologies, on the other hand, believe that there are environmentalist and social limits to growth, respect the complexity of ecosystems, try to economize the resources they use in the implementation of their policies, and have immaterialistic values. In such a spectrum, the most technocentric ideology is communism, followed by the new right, then welfare liberalism, and finally comes social democracy. In the ecocentric part of the spectrum, the most radical are deep green, followed by ecofeminists, eco-anarchists, eco-socialists. If this pattern intersects with the traditional left-right dichotomy, the Greens can be argued to be a left-­ ecocentric parties.

6.5   The Greens as a New Type of Parties There are two types of Green parties. Some are oriented toward environmental issues, but at the same time they take sides in the political spectrum. Whether it’s left or right. The second type of parties concentrates only on environmental issues, without taking traditional ideological divisions into account. The success of both party models depends on the context in the country in which they appear (Rüdig, 1991: 29). It can be said that the Green parties are pragmatic in relation to traditional ideological issues and do not always act consistently in relation to the left-right ideological division. They try to establish new values, alternative to those promoted by the larger established ideologies and parties. The Greens especially challenge conventional economic and security policies. Sympathy for such policies seems to grow with increasing distance from the production process. Hence it seems that the new middle class has greater sympathy for the policies of the Greens, in contrast to the marginalized segments of the population (Müller-Rommel, 1990).

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The comparative analysis of how much attention is paid to the environment by different types of parties from the early 1980s to today, shows that the Green parties pay the most attention to the issue of the environment, in second place are the liberal-socialist parties, in third place are the mainstream social democratic parties, and in fourth place are the parties of the right (Green-Pedersen, 2019: 119). Paying serious attention to environmental protection is significant because it gives the Greens a specific political identity, but it can also be dangerous, because it does not allow the emancipatory aspirations of the Greens to be sufficiently promoted in other aspects of social life. However, the perception that the Greens pay too much attention to environmental protection seems to stem, among other things, from the fact that it is the foundation of the Greens’ political philosophy and policies. The rest of the policies in which the Greens bring an emancipatory spirit are based on their compatibility with the protection of nature. A survey of the ideological orientation of the Green parties shows that they are very homogeneous in terms of ideological orientation. The ideological orientation of Green parties consists of a strong insistence on environmentalism, libertarianism, and left-leaning policies, although there are some smaller Green parties that are centrist-oriented (Carter, 2013: 74). A significant number of authors claim that Green parties are a new type of political parties in terms of ideological orientation, organizational structure, and electoral support (Müller-Rommel, 1990; Poguntke, 1993b). The values of the Greens include equal rights, participatory democracy, environmentalism, disarmament, solidarity, etc. In that sense, they have a specific political style. It can be said that the Greens are parties with authentic values that represent different interests in politics than those of traditional parties. Greens are an expression of a new social conflict and focus on specific issues related to the protection of the environment. As such, the Greens often refuse to declare whether they are left- or right-­ oriented parties. More precisely, they say that they are neither left- nor right-oriented parties, pointing out that the left and the right are responsible for the problems with environment pollution.

6.6  Concluding Observations Regarding Ideological Orientation of the Green Parties The initial determination of the Greens not to define themselves along the left-right divide came under increasing pressure after the Green parties began to enter parliaments and the possibility of forming coalition

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governments opened up. When forming coalitions the Greens had difficulty sticking to their fundamental values and principles on the one hand and maintaining the coalition on the other (Burchell (2002: 53). Thus Die Grünen went through a complex evolutionary development from completely rejecting a coalition with the SDP to accepting it. The acceptance of a coalition went through intra-party struggles between fundamentalists who firmly held to the party’s values and goals and realists who saw the possibility of promotion of the party’s policies on a national scale, through the formation of a coalition (Rüdig, 1991: 29). In France, Les Verts formed a coalition with the Socialist Party in 1996, that is, they formed the Red Green Coalition. After early elections in 1998 this coalition came to power and Les Verts had influence in the management of public affairs (Burchell, 2002: 94). In Britain, the situation with the ideological orientation of Green voters is completely different. Namely, the number of those who vote for the Green parties, who are left-oriented, is smaller. Most of the supporters of the Green parties are centrist and rightwing-­oriented. But compared to other countries, the British case is an exception (Rüdig, 1991: 29). Most of the voters of the Green parties are left-leaning. Green parties generally try to attract center-left-oriented voters. Hence, the biggest rivals of the Green parties in the race for votes are the social democratic parties and other smaller left-oriented parties. One of the reasons for the formation of the Green parties is to break the illusions related to the policies of the left parties. When the Social Democrats are in opposition, they try to attract the electorate of the Green parties, but their power of persuasion significantly decreases during periods when they are in power for a long period of time. A good illustration is the situation in France. While Socialist President François Mitterrand was in power for more than a decade, public opinion polls showed that the Greens had increasing support. The reason was that the socialist government pursued restrictive monetary policies and made cuts to the welfare state. The Greens have mobilized quite a lot of protest votes, which usually vote for left-leaning parties (Rüdig, 1991: 30). According to the ideological differences between the Green parties, a distinction can be made between “Green reformist parties,” “realists,” “electoralists” on the one hand, and “Green radical parties,” “fundamentalists,” “anarchists“ on the other hand. The first type of parties, “Green reformist parties,” advocate more moderate economic policies, which put environmental issues on the table, but do not lead to a conflict with the

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established parties on the issue of the welfare state and foreign policy. The Green reformists cooperate more with the social democratic parties than with the parties of the new radical left. Such are the Green parties in Belgium, Great Britain, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, and France. The second type of Green parties is “Green radical parties.” They require a fundamental change of social and political institutions. Most of these parties reject cooperation with the social democrats and advocate cooperation with the parties of the radical New Left. Such are the Green parties in Luxembourg, Austria, and Italy (Müller-Rommel, 1990).

6.7   The Response of the Mainstream Parties to the Emergence of the Green Parties After the emergence of the Green parties in the 1970s and 1980s, the question arose as to how the mainstream parties would respond. They had three options before them. The first was to ignore and give no importance to issues related to the environment, especially if they contradicted the traditional policies that these parties promoted and implemented. The second option was to adapt to the new situation and start bringing their positions and policies closer to those of the Green parties. Parties that would accept such a strategy should give space to the issue of environmental protection in their programs, use green rhetoric in public appearances, and over time integrate the issue of environmental protection into the division of the political spectrum to the left—to the right. The Green parties, with their very foundation, although they declare themselves as a separate group of parties, were more inclined toward the left part of the political spectrum. With that, they naturally aspired to take part in the electorate of the social democratic and socialist parties. Hence, they felt threatened and called to respond to the challenge by inserting the issue of environment protection into their own programs. The Social Democrats in Germany, for example, soon after the emergence of Die Grünen, adopted a green agenda in their program. They indicated that Die Grünen raise significant issues, but do not have a programmatic solution to the same. The accusations against the Greens were that they were an irresponsible political option, lacking a concrete program for reforming society (Burchell, 2002: 130). The third option available to the established mainstream parties after the emergence of the Green parties was to have a hostile attitude toward the treatment of the issue of environment

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protection. This option was unattractive to the established mainstream parties because there was a high degree of agreement in the public about the relevance of the issue of environmental protection and a negative attitude toward this issue could be counterproductive for the parties that would represent such positions (Carter, 2013: 76). However, there were circles among conservatives and neoliberals who accused the Greens of imposing government regulation on the fossil fuel sector and shutting down profitable businesses without providing a solid justification (Stoddart et al., 2022: 7). It seems that most of the mainstream parties, facing the danger of losing votes from the Green parties, nevertheless accepted an eco-­friendly policy, which practically made it impossible for the Greens to have exclusivity on the issue of nature protection. This strategy hid a risk, because by accepting an eco-friendly policy, the mainstream parties gave importance to the topic of environmental protection, which the public considered to be under the patronage of the Green parties, which are the most competent in that domain. But not all mainstream parties had the same strategy. Namely, the left-oriented parties adopted an eco-friendly strategy, hoping to attract a part of those who support a policy of environmental protection. The right-oriented mainstream parties, who did not hope for votes from those who sought a policy of protection of the human environment, tried to ignore the topic, or rather to lower the public’s interest in this topic as low as possible (Abou-Chadi, 2019: 218). An additional problem for the Green parties is that the supporters they have are a small niche of the overall electorate. They are not always consistent in following the policies recommended by the Green parties such as recycling or using organic food. But the biggest problem facing the Greens is that it seems that a large number of environmental activists are active in the anti-­ globalist movement (Heywood, 2017). In that way, the Greens may lose a significant part of their sympathizers, who turn to a new type of protest social movement.

6.8   The Green Parties Family The concept of categorizing parties into families is undertheorized, but is often used by political party researchers. This concept is necessary, because it indicates a specific set of ideas about politics (political philosophy and theory), which are recognizable in different national contexts and which differ from the ideas about politics of other ideological families (Price-­ Thomas, 2016). There are at least four criteria according to which one can

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determine to which political family a certain political party belongs. Such criteria are the name of the party, the international connection of the party, the origin and social base of the party, and the party’s policies (Mair & Mudde, 1998: 214). Theorists usually recognize the Greens as a special type of ideologically oriented party. Green parties are homogeneous and different from parties belonging to different political-ideological families (Price-Thomas, 2016: 3). Analyzing Green parties from 18 European countries, Carter (2013: 79) confirms that all of them use the term “green” or “ecology” in their name. All these parties are members of The European Green Party (EGP), which has its own parliamentary group in the European Parliament. In the first sentence of the statute of the European Green Party, it is declared that it represents the Green parties throughout Europe and that it is part of the Global Green family (European Green Party, 2017). The Green parties in 1980 were quite enthusiastic about the possibility of cooperating with each other in an international joint organization that would include the Green parties. Membership in transnational federations of Green parties indicates that these parties felt that they shared common values and goals with their sister parties from other countries and established cooperation on that basis. Third, Green parties across Europe have a common origin that can be traced back to the milieu of the New Social Movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Fourth, the same strata of the population—the members of the new middle class— vote for the Green parties in almost every state (Carter, 2013: 80; Kitschelt, 2019: 25). When it comes to the number of Green parties around the world, in the global green network there are close to 80 parties that are full members of the network (McBride, 2022). The first form of international cooperation of the Green parties was called “Coordination of Green and Radical Parties in Europe.” It was formed in 1980 and, as the name suggests, it did not include only Green parties (Ladrech, 2006: 495). The first organization that included only Green parties in Europe was the European Coordination of Green Parties (ECGP). It was founded in March 1984 by nine European Green parties. The congress at which the ECGP was founded was held in Liège. The ECGP had its own secretariat. It actively discussed the question of which parties can be considered Green and can be part of the ECGP. That issue was resolved in 1989. Parties that were considered Green were those that identified themselves with the Greens, had such a name, tradition, primarily defended such views in public, and implemented such policies. In 1993, the European Federation of Green Parties (EFGP) was founded. EFGP

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was established following the example of the other federations of parties operating in Europe: European People Party (EPP), Party of European Socialists (PES), European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR). Members of the EFGP can be parties that are established and active in Europe and that accept the basic principles and statute of the Federation and that have been admitted to membership by the Council of the Federation (Bomnerg, 2005). Parties and movements that accept the principles of the Federation, but are not admitted to membership, may have observer status in the Federation. Although there is a possibility that the members of the Federation disagree on a number of issues, it remains indisputable that all members of the Federation are aware that they belong to a special family of parties, that is, to the family of Green parties. The basis of common policies of the Green parties can be found in the “Guiding Principles of the European Federation of Green Partiers,” which lay the foundations for a pan-European strategy for environmental and social reform (Williams, 1999: 5). After the establishment of the EFGP, greater coordination between the party and the parliamentary group in the European Parliament was evident, but the degree of coordination was still far from the required level. In the spring of 2004, the EFGP transformed into the European Green Party (EGP). A significant difference in relation to the EFGP was that in the 2004 European Parliament elections, the EGP came up with a common platform, which was promoted by all the Green parties at the national level in their campaign (Ladrech, 2006: 495). 6.8.1   The Greens in the European Parliament The Greens have a history of participating in the work of the European Parliament, in all its compositions except the first, when in the first elections for the European Parliament in 1979 the Greens did not get a single MP, although they tried to do it by establishing international cooperation through the Coordination of European Green and Radical Parties. In the second elections for the European Parliament in 1984, the European Coordination of Green Parties (ECGP) won 11 parliamentary seats. The Greens from Germany won the most parliamentary seats, 7, two deputies come from Belgium and two from the Netherlands. In the European Parliament, the Greens formed the Green Alternative European Link (GREAL). This group in the European Parliament was even better known under the name Rainbow group. In the European Parliament, they worked closely with the regionalists, with the anti-EU MPs from Denmark, and

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with the Italian Radicals. GREAL essentially had a left-libertarian parliamentary group, which, in addition to environment protection issues, covered nuclear energy, animal protection, and other issues recognizable to the left, but not necessarily directly related to environmental protection. They concentrated on topics such as peace, human rights, social equality as crucial for the European Union (Bomnerg, 2005: 72). Respecting the principles that the Greens stood for, GREAL MPs were members of the European Parliament for 2.5  years, when they were replaced by other GREAL representatives. The Greens seriously established themselves in the European Parliament after the 1989 elections, when they won 30 seats. In addition to Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, deputies from the Green parties also had France, Italy, and Portugal. The UK Greens won 14.9% of the votes, but due to the electoral system they did not have their own member of the European Parliament. After the 1989 elections, the Greens formed their own parliamentary group, the Green Group in the European Parliament (GGEP). It was the fifth largest of the 11 parliamentary groups that existed in that mandate of the European Parliament. The largest number of deputies were from France—9 and from Germany 8. Within the group there were many differences, depending on the country from which the deputies come from. It seems that in the Green Group of 1989, the local contexts from which the MPs come were more important than the common ideology that should theoretically connect and unite them. As a significant topic to which the Greens paid the most attention in this composition of the European Parliament was regionalism—the Europe of the regions. It was a key theme especially in 1991. The Greens linked regionalism with the common agricultural policy (CAP) and demanded that regional imperatives be determined during the formulation of the CAP. In this composition of the European Parliament, the Greens were critical of the Maastricht Treaty because, according to them, the treaty went against the green vision of Europe, and environmental sustainability was not given the appropriate treatment. Important topics for the Greens in this term were climate change, given that the Greens were active participants in the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, which laid the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol and the peace policy that the Greens promoted in the context of the first Gulf war in 1991 . In the 1994 European Parliament elections, the Greens came out with the “electoral platform of the Green Parties of the European Union.” The platform had over 40 pages. It was devoted to pragmatic issues, including issues from the economic sphere. The document stipulated that the Greens would

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commit to the introduction of eco-taxes (Bomnerg, 2005: 75). In this election, the Greens in France and Portugal did not get a single MP, but the Greens in Germany and some other countries like Italy, Luxembourg, and Iceland got MPs in the parliament. The total number of Green Group MPs in this composition of the European Parliament was 23, but it increased to 27  in 1995 when Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU. In the absence of more fundamentalist MPs from France, the Green Group was more influenced by the pragmatic approach imposed by the MPs from Germany (Brack & Kelbel, 2016: 220). Green group had a higher level of cohesiveness, but was individualistically oriented. Each MP had his own projects and areas of politics that interested him. Despite their hard work, the Greens rarely managed to build common positions on many important issues. One of the more media-significant events in this mandate of the European Parliament was the Green Group’s protest of French President Jacques Chirac’s speech at the plenary session of the European Parliament in June 1995 due to the nuclear tests in Mururoa Atoll. In the 1999 elections, the Greens won 38 seats in the European Parliament. The European Green Party (EGP) integrated with the European Free Alliance (EFA)1 group which had ten seats in the European Parliament. The group also included several other smaller parties such as the European Pirate Party (PPEU), Volt Europa (Volt), as well as part of Animal Politics EU (APEU). The parliamentary group in the European Parliament was known as the Greens/EFA. In the period 1999–2004, the dominant topic for the Greens was climate change. They called for a boycott of American oil companies that blocked measures against climate change. During this period the Greens promoted organic food production and opposed genetically modified food. In the 2004 campaign, the European Green Party had a common manifesto and slogan in every EU country. In those elections, the Greens won 34 deputies from 11 European countries (Carter, 2007: 88). But the Greens did not win a single MP in the new EU member states. In the European Parliament, the Greens together with the EFA and some independent MPs had 42 MPs. As part of the European Parliament, Green/EFA group played a significant role in the fight for stricter control of the use of chemicals in the EU. In 2006, the Greens launched a pan-European campaign on climate change and 1  EFA is a political formation made up of parties that represented ethnic groups that are minorities in their own countries. It represents regional and minority political interests in the European Parliament.

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called for stricter measures to prevent climate change. The Greens continued their fight against the nuclear industry’s efforts to increase nuclear power production. From the congress that took place on March 27th and 28th, 2009, the European Green Party started its campaign for the European Parliament “A Green New Deal for Europe.” In these elections, the Greens won 46 parliamentary seats and none of the 12 newest member states of the EU. After the elections, the Greens renewed their alliance with the EFA and several independent MPs. Together the Greens, the regionalists, and the independent had 59 deputies in the European Parliament. In this term of the European Parliament Green/EFA group promoted sustainable solutions to the issues facing the EU. In response to the financial crisis, the Green/EFA group demanded greater transparency in the global financial market and the provision of social justice. As in past compositions of the European Parliament, the Green/EFA group worked for the EU to be a leader in the response to climate change and advocated for the phasing out of nuclear energy. In the period between 2014–19 Green/EFA group counted 50 MPs. They were involved in the adoption of the “clean energy for all” legislation. At the moment Greens/EFA in the European Parliament have 74 MPs and are the fourth largest parliamentary group in the European Parliament. The electoral behavior of citizens for the European Parliament is a reflection of structural factors such as the economic and social conditions of a given country. Rüdig (2019: 31) indicates that there is a correlation between the level of economic development and the level of support for the Green parties. The level of support for the Greens is higher in Northern and Western Europe than in Southern and Eastern Europe. The cohesiveness of parliamentary groups in the European Parliament has many dimensions and can be measured in different ways, but it seems that the most significant is the voting behavior of the MPs. Seen according to that criterion; it seems that today the Greens/EFA group has a higher level of cohesion than the other parliamentary groups. It is a significant improvement from the time when the rainbow group had the lowest level of cohesion compared to all other parliamentary groups in the European Parliament. At the same time, the differences in views on many issues between the deputies of the Greens/EFA group remain, but this does not affect the cohesiveness of the group in the European Parliament. Namely, when Whitaker and Lynch (2004) measured the ideological differences between members of parliamentary groups in the European Parliament on the left-right question and the pro-anti-EU question, they determined

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that the Greens/EFA parliamentary group was the second most heterogeneous. According to that, the ideological coherence of the Greens cannot be considered as the source of the cohesion shown by the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament. The high level of cohesiveness of the Greens/ EFA is even more significant given the fact that many of the Green parties have internal misunderstandings and turmoil within the states in which they exist (Brack & Kelbel, 2016: 222). Behind the cohesiveness shown by the Greens/FPA in the European Parliament are two types of factors, internal (intra-party) and external factors. Internal factors certainly include the small number of deputies of the parliamentary group. Small groups, and in terms of the numbers Greens/FPA have a relatively small number of MPs, usually have a specific social dynamic, a greater number of contacts between members, a greater level of involvement in the activities of the group and a greater level of cohesion. In addition, the organizational structure of the Greens is based on decentralization, which means that the members of the European Parliament are given more autonomy due to the organizational set-up of the Green parties at the national level. That factor combined with the intensity of contacts within the relatively small parliamentary group of Greens/FPA results in greater cohesiveness in voting in the European Parliament.

References Abou-Chadi, T. (2019). Niche Party Success and Mainstream Party Policy Shifts – Hoe Green and Radical Right Parties Differ in Their Impact. British Journal of Political Sciences, 46(2), 417–436. Awe, K. S., & Adedoja, A. M. (2020). Green Political Ideology as a Imperative for Sustainable Society. International Journal for Advanced Academic Research, 6(6), 13–25. Bahro, R. (1986). Building the Green Movement. Heretic Books. Belcoit, A.  M. (2010). Are Green Parties More Post-Materialistic then Other Parties? An Assessment of Post Materialistic Forecast. European Societies, 12(4), 467–492. Bell, D. (1960). End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties. Free Press. Bomnerg, E. (2005). Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. Routledge. Brack, N., & Kelbel, C. (2016). The Greens in European Parliament: Evolution and Cohesion. In E. Van Haute (Ed.), Green Parties in Europe. Routledge. Burchell, J. (2002). Development and Change within European Green Parties. Earthscan Publications Limited.

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Buzogany, A., & Mohamad-Klotzbach, C. (2021). Environmental Populism. In T. M. Oswald (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Springer Nature. Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press. Carter, N. (2013). Greening the Mainstream: Party Politics and the Environment. Environmental Politics, 13(1), 73–94. Connely, J., & Smith, G. (1999). Politics and the Envirinment: From Theory to Practice. Routledge. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (1996). Social Movements: An Introduction. Blackwell. Dobson, A. (1994). Ecologism and the Relegitimation of Socialism. Radical Philosophy, 67, 13–19. Dobson, A. (2000). Green Political Thought: An Introduction. Routledge. Dunlap, E. Р. (1975). The Impact of Political Orientation on Environmental Attitudes and Actions. Environment and Behavior, 7(4), 428–454. European Green Party. (2017). Statutes of European Green Party. Gillham, F. P. (2008). Participation in the Environmental Movement: Analysis of the European Union. International Sociology, 23(1), 67–93. Green-Pedersen, C. (2019). The Reshaping of West European Party Politics: Agenda Setting and Party Competition in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press. Harrison, K., & Boyd, T. (2003). Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press. Heywood, A. (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. Humphrey, M. (2013). Green Ideology. In M. Freeden, T. L. Sargent, & M. Stears (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. Kitschelt, H. (1988). Left  – Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovations in Comparative Party Systems. World Politics, 40(2), 194–234. Kitschelt, H. (2019). The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany. Cornell University Press. Ladrech, R. (2006). The European Union and Political Parties. In S. R. Katz & J. W. Crotty (Eds.), Handbook of Party Politics. Sage. Lester, P. J., & Loftsson, E. (1993). The Ecological Movement and Green Politics in Scandinavia: Problems and Prospects. In S. Kamieniecki (Ed.), Environmental Politics in the International Arena. State University of New York Press. Lipietz, A. (1995). Green Hopes. Polity. Mair, P., & Mudde, C. (1998). The Party Family and Its Study. Annual Review of Political Science, 1, 211–229. Martell, L. (1994). Economy and Society. Polity Press. McBride, J. (2022). How Green Party Success is Reshaping Global Politics. Council of Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-­green-­party­success-­reshaping-­global-­politics

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CHAPTER 7

A Critical Review of the Green Political Ideology

7.1   The Greens and Democracy Green parties achieved their greatest successes in parliamentary and local elections. They do not dispute the legitimacy of the elections and what emerges as a result of the elections. On the contrary, the Greens call for greater participation in politics and the decentralization of power in all its forms. According to the Greens, every citizen should be involved in politics, because in order to achieve significant political goals such as a sustainable society, only the involvement of the government is not enough. On the contrary, every citizen must contribute to the realization of political goals. The insistence on individual contribution, on the responsibility of the individual, at the expense of government indicates a libertarian understanding of politics and democracy. Some authors such as Price-Thomas (2016: 286) call this conceptualization of politics radical democracy. The Greens borrow the concept of radical democracy from anarchism. Part of the concept of radical democracy is giving support to citizen-initiated referendums, which is a particular feature of the French Green Party Les Verts. Die Grünen call radical democracy grassroots democracy, that is, decentralized direct democracy. This type of democracy is based on opening a discussion in the decision-making process, as well as seeking and obtaining consent for the widest possible range of social and political issues at the local level (Bomnerg, 2005: 10).

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Green parties are very open, transparent parties with democratic internal structures and a very high degree of internal democracy. But at the same time, some of the questions that are raised in public implicitly call into question some of the basic principles of democracy. Namely, Green policies, especially the policy of sustainable development contain an element of urgency. The use of natural resources has an exponential growth and requires urgent measures to prevent the total destruction of nature. But the question arises, what if the majority of people, even if they are existentially threatened, do not want to lead a minimalist life, live in small communities, change their lifestyle, that is, follow the advice to avoid an ecological disaster. Some authors such as Martell (1994: 160) indicate that to implement the policy of sustainable development at the very least, centralized coordination and intervention is needed to coordinate markets, capitalism, and decentralization. Here one can see tensions between the consequentialism of the Greens and the proceduralism of democracy. The Greens, under the pressure of the terrible catastrophic scenarios that would follow if urgent measures are not taken, could insist on taking measures even at the cost of endangering or violating democratic procedures. Some authors such as Hardin (1968) pointed out that not limiting the freedom in the pollution of nature can bring the ruin of the whole society. Hence he proposed illiberal solutions for the protection of natural resources. Goodin (1992) faces a similar dilemma when he points out that under the imperative to do something urgently to save the future of humanity, the Greens could trade democracy for the protection of nature. It is possible to imagine a scenario in which the Greens would impose an authoritarian type of government that would take drastic and decisive measures, if this would save nature and the future of humanity. Such a government would not worry about whether it will win the next elections, whether it will protect the rights of the citizens. On the contrary, such a government would impose solutions that in the short term go against the wishes of selfish individuals, if in the long term it would go in favor of protecting collective interests. Such a government, in addition to being undemocratic, would also cover the principle of non-violence against people and property. On a theoretical level, the Greens oppose violence against people and against property. But among the activists of the Greens there are people for whom the attitude of using violence against property to protect nature is acceptable. They call for the uprooting of genetically modified plants, the destruction of McDonalds outlets, etc. (Doherty, 1996). The Earth Liberation Front of the United States has been

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designated a domestic terrorist threat due to campaigns of property attacks, which the FBI treats as violent acts of terrorism (Humphrey, 2013). Some authors such as Paterson (2005: 243) indicate that one can imagine a situation in which the imposition of authoritarian rule would be inevitable. Humphrey (2013) calls it eco-authoritarianism. Paterson, indicates that eco-authoritarianism would be acceptable only if it is at the local level and in an attempt to change people’s consumerist habits, that is, the unsustainable practices of industrial society. Humphrey (2013) attributes eco-authoritarianism to environmentalism and finds it incompatible with the radical participatory democracy advocated by the Greens. Doherty and de Geus Marius (2003: 8) are of the opinion that the instrumental approach that the Greens have toward democracy opens up space for them to agree to authoritarian solutions. Freedom and egoism produced the environmentalist crisis. The ways to overcome it and establish a sustainable society can be painful and require serious sacrifices from each individual. An authoritarian government, even if it is at the local level, would not care much about the procedures of adopting and implementing policies, but about their long-term consequences. Democracy, on the other hand, is, among other things, a procedure. Perhaps it is mostly a procedure. It is blind to the consequences. In the words of Goodin (1992), to defend democracy is to defend procedures, while to defend environmentalism is to defend substantive consequences. Centralized and authoritarian states would make decisions much faster and more efficiently and deal with the problem of pollution, resource depletion, and achieving sustainability (Carter, 2007: 52). Arguably, it is more important to do the right thing (to establish sustainability and avoid environmental disaster) than how to do it (using democratic or non-democratic methods) (Goodin, 1992). An old ethical dilemma arises here: do the ends justify the means. That is, is it fair to use ethically dubious means to achieve the ultimate, ethically correct goal. The radical Greens would probably support the use of authoritarian methods, even violent techniques for establishing a sustainable society. But sustaining development will only be possible if major changes are made in the lifestyle of individuals, especially among those who consume the most. Most of the people would hardly give up their comfortable life, their own lifestyle. The policy of the Greens requires so many sacrifices, so many changes in the way of life of individuals, that it is difficult to imagine that the majority of citizens would support such changes. If such changes do have to happen to avoid the catastrophic, apocalyptic scenarios the Greens talk about, they will have to be imposed by an authoritarian

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type of regime. The urgency of action and the imposition of policies against the will of the citizens have elements of undemocratic behavior. Regarding the first question, democracy requires time and respect for procedures. Regarding the second question, democracy is based on respect for the autonomy of individuals. In a democracy, people have the right to make mistakes. They have the right to make a wrong political decision. But with the Greens, citizens have no right to make a mistake, to make a wrong political choice, because it leads to an environmental disaster. This means that they do not have the right to free choice, but that they are condemned to make choices according to the priorities of the Green parties (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 186). In that sense, the theoretical discussions raise the question whether the Greens can develop an authoritarian type of ideology or political behavior. Some authors such as Dobson (2000: 63) speak of enlightened authoritarianism as one of the options for imposing environmentalist policies on sustainable development. It would be imposed solutions that most people would not agree with at the moment, but in the long run such solutions would be in their interest. Decisions related to nature protection should be made by those who have superior knowledge, not the majority of citizens, especially when the majority of citizens are biased and prioritize their short-term comfort over the long-term sustainability of the entire system (Saward, 1992). In a democratic society, it is hard to imagine making decisions that would violate conformity and go against the dominant public opinion, in order to prevent an environmental disaster. Especially for things that require large sacrifices from citizens, such as the ban on the use of cars or the drastic taxation of car fuel. Such measures would be unpopular and any government that would adopt them would have great difficulty winning elections. Hence, among some authors who analyze the Greens, the idea of enlightened authoritarianism appears. Dobson considers the idea of enlightened avoritarianism as an option, based on the proposals of O’Riordan (1981) for centralized authoritarianism and authoritarian communes in which a policy of sustainable development would be implemented. However, Dobson (2000: 91) rightly notes that the idea of enlightened authoritarianism contradicts the idea of the Greens’ principle of autonomous development of self-sustaining communities. Giving moral authority to autonomy imposes political arrangements that would enable human nature to work toward realizing the principles of social justice, non-violence, and grassroots democracy (Eckersley, 1996: 223). In addition to the autonomy that communities should enjoy at the local level,

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individual autonomy is of particular importance. There may be many social agents working to protect the environment, but real change can only happen if individuals change their attitude toward nature. Taking away the autonomy of individuals and imposing solutions about nature can only lead to revolt. Individuals should be given autonomy and work should be done to increase the awareness of nature protection. In that way, it is possible to work on changing the awareness of taking measures aimed at protecting nature, even at the cost of great personal sacrifices. The imperative under which decisions are made and measures taken, if things are seen from the perspective of the Greens, is more ethical than political, in the sense of making political decisions. However, there are authors who go so far as to speak of eco-fascism, alluding to the strong strands of nature protection among the National Socialists (Vincent, 2010: 203). Not disputing that in the 1920s and 1930s the National Socialists had concrete plans for the protection of nature,1 the contemporary ideology of the Green parties rests on the environmental movement of the 1960s, which is closely related to democratic ideals and the idea of social justice. But one should not lose sight of the fact that the insistence on the protection of nature being the only ideal, above all other social ideals, can lead to authoritarianism. The problem with authoritarianism is that the measures that are adopted do not go through a public discussion and for that reason, almost as a rule, they are not the best that are available at a given moment. The second problem with authoritarianism is that it has the characteristic of spreading and taking over the entire social reality. If measures for the protection of nature were carried out in an authoritarian manner, there would be a tendency to make decisions in the same way for other spheres of social life. At the value level, the Greens, speaking about the community, actually impose the principle of collectivism over that of individualism, so the question arises when the Greens would be given the opportunity to independently impose their own policies in society, how would that correspond with democracy. Some ideas about it are given by Ophuls, Boyan (1992:285) when they say that Green politics should move from the freedom of the individual to the authority of the community. In doing so, the community should impose its conditions and demands on the individual. At the same time, the authority of the community should not be authoritarian and capricious, but constitutional and limited. Authority should 1  Himmler established an organic farm at the Dachau concentration camp, and Himmler and Hitler were vegetarians (Dobson, 2000:23).

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derive from competence and informed consent. He should know how to self-control and show self-restraint. In that sense, in addition to the elements of covert, implicit authoritarianism, an element of illiberalism can be found among the Greens. Illiberalism does not necessarily have to be undemocratic, but given the symbiosis of some liberal mechanisms such as constitutionalism, checks and balances, human rights and democracy, it is highly probable that tensions with liberalism could also cause tensions with democracy, or rather with the liberal democracy. At first glance, it may seem that the Greens’ insistence on the autonomy of communities can create tensions with the individualistic understanding of human nature, and even with liberalism. Democracy is based on individualism. Communities do not vote in elections, but individuals. Hence, when voting in elections, one does not vote and make decisions for the good of the community, but rather votes and makes decisions for the good of the individuals living in a given community (Goodin, 1992:124). The solution to the relationship between the Greens and democracy may be to integrate basic postulates of Green ideology into democracy, just as the relationship between liberalism and democracy was solved by integrating the liberal principles of autonomy and justice into democracy. But on the question of the priority of the postulates of the Greens in the political space, there is no consensus, which does not give the Greens the right to be ambitious about integrating such issues into democracy as a political system. The integration of green values into the democratic political system could begin with the expansion of the moral community. If we answer positively to the question, are people a part of nature? The question of the nature of a democratic political system will be raised. It would not go so far as to question the right to vote for other forms of life, but to take into account their interests when making decisions in democratic societies (Doherty & de Geus, 2003: 7). Green values should be immanent values of democracy, just as liberal values are. As democracy is based on the right to freedom of the press, political association, freedom, equality, etc., it could also be based on the principle of nature protection. But since the Greens are constantly talking about an environmental crisis, introducing the principle of nature protection into the contours of a democratic political system could only deepen the crisis of legitimacy in which democracy finds itself. On the other hand, the possible inclusion of the indicated principle would dislocate that issue from the sphere of party struggles, as it is at the moment, to the sphere of ultimate goals on which democracy as a political system is based.

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The Greens are critical of liberal democracy. It is hierarchically arranged, bureaucratically organized, individualistic, and contains material inequalities. It enables voting, but basically discourages citizens’ participation in politics. At the very least, liberal democracy does nothing to stimulate citizens’ participation in politics, their influence in the decision-making process between elections. When exercising their right to vote, individuals are more concerned about their lives, privileges, comfort, about the affairs of their private sphere, than about the public interest. The Greens advocate replacing representative democracy with participatory democracy. Deliberative democracy could be used as a model of participatory democracy (Carter, 2007: 55). This means active participation of citizens in the management of institutions, in the work of political parties, local self-­ government, local communities, non-governmental organizations, etc. Citizens should fully and actively participate in the decision-making process. Here, the Greens draw their inspiration from the direct, immediate democracy in ancient Greece. The concept of radical, participatory democracy goes hand in hand with raising citizens’ awareness of the importance of environment protection and decentralization of politics. Direct, immediate democracy is impossible at the central level, if the states are centralized, but it is possible at the local level, which would be the most significant level of government organization, if the states are decentralized. Face-to-­ face democracy is a natural kind of democracy. The government in a participative face-to-face democracy would be more responsible, brought down to the local level, accessible to more citizens who would have real influence on the decisions it carries and implements. It would be democracy at the level of bioregions, which according to Sale (1991: 64) should not have more than 10,000 inhabitants. According to some other authors such as Dobson (2000:91) the number of people in bioregions should be less than 10,000 inhabitants. Membership in such a community would be a source of identity for the people living there. People would be competent, they would have enough information, and they would feel responsible to talk openly about solving the problems of the community. They would be motivated to do so, knowing that they had real influence in making decisions. Participatory, environmental democracy complements rather than replaces liberal democracy, which, according to Eckersley (2004), is unable to best represent the interests of those concerned about the environment. First, the interests of those who are not citizens of a certain country and live in it are not represented, as are the interests of future generations who will have to live with the consequences of

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environmental decisions made by the current generation. Second, groups interested in nature protection have a limited number of resources, unlike those who advocate for unlimited and as high economic growth as possible, who have almost unlimited financial resources. Participatory democracy is more post-liberal, that is, Green democracy than anti-liberal democracy, although some authors note that the liberal nation-state has democratic deficits in the sense that its liberal character does not allow it to respond in a real way to the environmentalist challenge (Eckersley, 2004: 14). It should provide more opportunities for more people to participate in the decision-making process. Decentralization may be the condition whose satisfaction is more likely to establish participatory democracy. But no one guarantees that decentralization necessarily leads to participatory democracy and respect for the key principles of liberalism. Perhaps small local environments (bioregions) will be intellectually and culturally poorer; more inclined to exclusivity, to discrimination of those different from themselves and as such more inclined to establish an authoritarian type of government. It is highly likely that small communities would be more homogenous, with a lower degree of diversity which is not very compatible with the Green ideal. If the bourgeoisie was the avant-garde, with whose efforts liberal democracy was established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the proletariat and the labor movement in the twentieth century were the basis for the formation of the welfare state, the environmentalist movement and the new middle class are the social subjects that are the basis of the rise of Green Participatory Democracy (Eckersley, 2004: 2). The goal of the Greens is environmental protection, not a specific political system. If this is so, then democracy is a system that can be used as a means to achieve a cleaner environment. But the question arises, what if the same thing could be achieved with another political system. What if authoritarianism is more effective in achieving a clean environment? It is not the same in what way the desired goals will be achieved, in general in life, even in politics. An authoritarian system, due to the fact that there are no control mechanisms, would probably be more effective in protecting the environment if it set this as its goal. But also, since there are no control mechanisms, it would be more harmful to nature if it puts profit and efficiency before environment protection. The advantage of democracy is not the efficiency, but the mechanisms of control in bringing and implementing solutions. That makes the prospect of making mistakes with environmental protection less. Additionally, the vision of the Greens reflected in

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the way the Green parties are structured is for democracy to be open and participatory. The government should be as close as possible to the citizens. In that sense, in ideal conditions, they would be more inclined toward direct rather than representative democracy. But precisely such a democracy would cause more tensions between the imperative to do something to protect nature and democratic procedures. Direct democracy brought down to the micro level would abolish the room for maneuver that the representatives have to maneuver between the imperative to act and respect for democratic procedures, always trying to harmonize these two postulates with each other. Concrete predetermined results cannot be expected from the relationship between the Greens and democracy. After all, democracy has a procedural nature. The minimum that must be satisfied is compliance with procedures. But no one can guarantee what will be the results of following the procedures regarding the development sustainability policy. If democracy cannot guarantee the final results, then the question arises whether decisions that undermine or defy democracy can be considered legitimate. What would happen if in a democratic society, respecting the procedures, a series of decisions were made that lead to systematically unsustainable policies? The question is similar, what would happen if a government was elected through democratic elections that would put an end to democratic processes (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 186). For democracy to function the issue of the electorate to which parties addressed is important, that is, which is the political unit within which the electorate is cultivated. Here comes the problem of constituency. Environmental problems are not the problems of only one country. They are neither produced nor solved by a single state. Decisions made in one country have an impact on the quality of life of citizens in other countries. The question arises whether those who are affected by the decisions in a certain country, even though they are not citizens, have the right to be represented in the political process, because regardless of the fact that they are not citizens, they suffer the consequences. Second is the issue of future generations. They are not currently present, but they will also suffer the consequences of the environmental decisions made by this generation of citizens and their representatives in politics. The question arises, whether future generations should have representatives in the current political developments (Barry & Dobson, 2004: 186). It should also be borne in mind that the political decisions of democratically elected governments suffer other forms of life, not just humans. If they cannot vote in elections,

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then at least when political decisions are made, the consequences they will suffer should be taken into account (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 283). When considering the question of the quality of political processes compatible with the Green parties, the question of the quantum, that is, of the extent of the political community that should solve the challenges related to nature protection, is relevant, and not only their quality in terms of whether the Green policies are democratic. When it comes to the extent of the political community that should implement Green policies, various ideas circulate. The first is that the environmentalist challenge is so big, significant, existential, and universal that it cannot be solved by just one country. If the challenge of environment protection is solved by only one country, and the others ignore the issue, its efforts would be meaningless. From here ideas arise that the issue of the environment must be solved at the supranational level. The next question here is to what extent the mechanism of the United Nations is adequate or sufficient for initiating, coordinating, and implementing concrete policies. The second option, considering the tradition of the Greens, is related to bringing the fight down to the local micro level. Here the question arises whether the citizens can be left with enough autonomy to introduce Green policies themselves, or whether they should be imposed by central authorities, through legal solutions. In this sense, care should be taken that libertarianism does not slip into authoritarianism. Such elements may be found in the way of reasoning, but the danger is not real given the limited support that the Green parties currently enjoy. The Greens’ treatment of the state is linked to the issue of democracy. The state should be the framework in which the democratic processes take place, but among the Greens there is a tendency to see the state as an insufficient political unit for solving the issue of the environmental catastrophe. In addition to that, a constant for the policy of the Greens is a permanent insistence on decentralization of power and localism in action. Localism insists on smaller units of political organization, geographic decentralization and making decisions as close as possible to the citizens to whom they will be applied. Political units (communities in bioregions) are formed on the basis of natural, geographical, and not social-political criteria. Communities that are decentralized and cooperate with each other are the most favorable way of organizing society and politics, because they are self-sustaining and the least harmful to nature. Price-Thomas (2016:13) points out that in the British and German Green Party, one can find tendencies to insist on localism and decentralization of power. For example,

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in the program of the Green Party of England and Wales, the term community is mentioned 25 times. Some currents of the Greens, more related to eco-socialism, emphasize the need for a strong progressive state, that is, an eco-state that seems to have authoritarian tendencies (Vincent, 2010: 2013). The task of such a state would be to deal with the problems of poverty and social justice that could be related to environmental problems, but also to deal with powerful multinational corporations. In that sense, there is a need to indicate the ecological character of the state in the constitution. Democracy itself, on the other hand, should be extended beyond the sphere of politics and democratic principles should be applied in the sphere of labor relations. It would give people more autonomy in the workplace, while at the same time it could reduce the gap between highly skilled aristocracy labor and unskilled workers in precarious and low-paid jobs. Greens who advocate the thesis of radical democracy advocate a more egalitarian structure of corporations (Doherty & de Geus, 2003: 5).

7.2   Why the Greens Do Not Have the Success of the Populists One of the reasons why the Greens in politics do not have the success of the populists is that there are serious weaknesses in their political theory. First, it is not clear if and how the Greens can become a global politics ideology and force. Developing countries show reservations toward the Greens, because they believe that the ideology of the Greens does not allow them to develop economically and catch up with developed countries. They explain that when developed countries were developing, they continuously polluted the environment. Now, when they are supposed to develop, they are denied the right to unhindered use of natural resources. The developed countries of the West also show reservations toward accepting the theory of the Greens, because if they are guided by it, they have to give up the standard of life they currently have. Greens do not associate the standard of living with the possession and use of as many material goods as possible, that is, with consumerism, but with the availability of natural resources and sustainability. Second, industrialism with its values creates economic globalization. Globalization is accelerating the destruction of the environment on a planetary scale. Greens oppose globalization with the concept of bioregionalism. Globalization causes the stratification and disintegration of local communities (Kindell & Demers, 2014: 213). The connection between the Greens and anti-globalism is not accidental,

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but due to the global dimensions of the environmentalist problem when the Greens advocate anti-globalist positions, they are not authentic enough. Populism, which takes the lead among anti-globalists, has much greater credibility in the representation of anti-globalist views. Third, policies of zero economic growth may be unattractive to voters. Even from the perspective of the Green parties, problems with the protection of the environment can be solved if certain resources are used for it and they can be solved by countries with a high level of economic development. Fourth, the theory and policies of the Greens can only be a whim of the urban centers, that is, a form of post-industrial romanticism. This means that the awareness of responding to industrial progress may be limited to young and relatively well-off people, and lack support among the general masses (Heywood, 2017). The Greens, as well as the populists, are an ideology that is rooted in the tectonic changes that took place in society after the Second World War, although both ideologies have their roots in the beginning of the twentieth century. It can be said that the populist movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as agrarian populism in the United States and Narodniks in Russia, idealize the beauty of nature, so you can also find ideas for the protection of nature. But from the time of agrarian populism until today, the development of populism has followed a different trajectory than that of the Greens. In agrarian populism, regret for the lost natural beauty was used to attack the elites. Among the populists, the main goal is the attack on the elites, regardless of the reasons for which they are attacked. For the Greens, the primary goal is the protection of nature. That sometimes includes attacking the elites, but that is not the primary goal of the Greens. Unlike the populists, they do not look for other topics on which to criticize the elites. Populism and the Greens have several common points. Both ideologies can be said to be anti-systemic to a certain extent, they reject the classical division of left and right. In that sense, both ideologies are transgressive, with populists having a greater degree of indignation and anger, while the Greens have a greater degree of urgency in solving environmental problems. On that basis, both ideologies come close to committing democratic fouls (Buzogany & Mohamad-­ Klotzbach, 2021a: 322). Elements of authoritarianism can be felt in both ideologies. While among the Greens, it stems from the urgency and necessity of taking measures that will save society from an ecological apocalypse, among the populists, authoritarianism stems from the desire to shorten the distance and intermediaries between the leader and the people. A

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similar tendency is present among the Greens, but among them it ends with radical decentralization, while among the populists it leads to the creation of leadership parties. Hillier (2010) points out that the Greens, like the populists, are not looking to the future as much as they are looking to the past. At the same time, both ideologies idealize the agrarian society. In the case of Australia, the turning of the Greens to the past and to the agrarian type of society ends in nationalism. Green populism is based on creating a green vision for the world and expressing the general will interpreted as the will to protect nature. The green populists create a Manichean image of the world through a constant repetition about threat from ecological crisis of cosmic proportions, through the victimization of people who are victims of the pollution of nature, and the overexploitation of natural resources. The elite, on the other hand, is demonized and blamed for the pollution of nature and the excessive use of natural resources. The implementation of the general will for the protection of nature is based on the scientific support and indisputability of the fact of pollution of nature, on specific actions taken for the protection of nature and on the concept of intergenerational justice. Green populism goes in the direction of radicalization of people. It seems that at the moment Green populism does not have any serious success, but considering the successes achieved by right-oriented populism in Europe, it seems that the Greens could play that card more seriously. Mouffe (2022) notes that especially after the financial crisis of 2008, there is a growth of left populism. The reasons for the growth of left populism can be sought in the consequences that the neoliberal hegemony established in the last 30 years has on two basic pillars of democracy: equality and popular sovereignty. The established center-right and center-left parties give the impression that citizens do not have much choice to choose from. In the conditions of postmodernity, of the disintegration of the consciousness of belonging to social classes, people as the basic subject of populism are constructed more politically than sociologically. Podemos in 2015, Corbyn and Mélenchon in 2017 ran left-wing populist campaigns. In conditions where the old, traditional themes of the left have lost their magical appeal, left parties have begun to play on the issues of climate change and the environmental crisis. It affects many people and in itself there is an appeal for immediate measures to overcome the situation. It has the potential to differentiate between the small elite who would be held responsible for the destruction of the environment and the people who are innocent victims of the selfishness of the elite, which in search of profit

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destroys the environment. Shrecker (2017) also indicates that in conditions where social and economic policies in the Global North, after the financial crisis of 2008, reduce access to public health, reduce life expectancy, increase mortality, an alternative Green can be expected to develop. Populism that would blame the elites for all the misfortunes of modern life, especially those related to the destruction of the environment. The failure of Green populism is due to the low degree of credibility of the threat to the existence of the people, as well as the failure to precisely define the people, segregate them from the elite and victimize them. The Greens, unlike the classic populists, never managed to gain wider support from people belonging to the lower social strata. Hence the limit they have in terms of votes received in the elections. If the populist support is U-shaped, with people belonging to the lower social strata, with lower education and lower incomes, on one end, and people belonging to the middle strata with higher education and higher incomes on the other end, the Greens predominantly vote people who belong to the new middle class, younger individuals who have higher education and higher incomes. In addition, the social context does not favor the Greens. They get more votes when the economy is doing well. But in the last few decades, we witness constant economic and financial crises, which make more and more people think about meeting the basic existential, material needs. In such conditions, it is much more difficult for the Greens to get a larger number of votes. Populists, especially right-wing populists, on the contrary, get more votes when the economy is in crisis. It can even be said that they are mobilizing support based on opposing the issue of environmental protection and especially climate change. For example, right-wing populists oppose the energy transition as a project driven by detached urban elites. Climate change policy is seen by the right-wing populists as projects of the elite, basically as projects led by experts, bureaucrats, and international bodies. For populists like Trump in the United States and Bolsonaro in Brazil, the growth of the economy has priority over the protection of the environment (Buzogany & Mohamad-Klotzbach, 2021b; Oswald et  al., 2021). Jylha and Hellmer (2020) show that right-wing populists not only criticize Green policies, but show skepticism and reject the climate change thesis. The higher the level of anti-establishment sentiments, the higher the degree of rejection of the climate change thesis. For right-wing populists, the idea of protecting nature is imposed by the establishment. In addition to that, populists oppose pacifism, feminism, and human rights (Buzogany & Mohamad-Klotzbach, 2021a: 322).

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Part of the reason for the differences in popularity between the populist parties and the Green parties is due to their organizational structure. Both ideologies are critical of elites and look down on ordinary people. However, in contrast to populists, which are leadership parties, the Greens are anti-­ leadership parties. Populist parties are recognizable by their leaders, who bring these parties votes in the elections, and the appeal to ordinary people comes down to immediacy in communication between the leadership and ordinary people. Appealing to ordinary people is used to eliminate party bureaucracy and give leadership more room to define and implement policies. Green parties, on the other hand, are really egalitarian. They reduce the prerogatives of leadership, often tending to rotate leadership. Thus, it is not possible to build a leadership with strong legitimacy and self-confidence that would attract a wider electorate.

7.3  Criticisms Toward the Greens Criticisms toward the Greens at the level of political philosophy, political theory, and policies of the Green parties are numerous. They indicate the relevance of the Greens in modern society. But as Humphrey (2013) notes, most of the criticism comes not from outsiders, but from people who are insiders of the Green ideology. Criticism is often caused by tensions between different wings in Green ideology. Critics mostly did not promote an alternative ideology to the Green one, but sought changes in the Green ideology so that it could more effectively achieve its goals. Some authors such as Hayward (1995) indicate that the rejection of anthropocentrism which is the basic premise of Green ideology is too radical and unrealistic as a position. The idea that people today will reject industry and the benefits it brings with it to work to realize the image of a romantic rural life is a fantasy (Adams, 2001: 253). There were circles that accused the Greens of challenging the values that underlie Western societies such as personal freedom, individual rights, success, material comfort, progress, etc. (Stoddart et al., 2022: 7). Streans et al. (2010) also indicate that the political positions of the Greens are quite radical, and radicalism itself is based on assumptions and expectations for policies that are unrealistic. It is not possible to change the entire political system, but even more so the worldview of the citizens in a short period of time as the Greens assume and wish. The policies motivated by the political platform of the Green parties are sometimes difficult to receive by the people belonging to the working class

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and the lower social strata. Thus, for example, the Yellow Vests strike in France was caused by an environmentally motivated increase in the fuel tax, which fell hardest on people with the lowest incomes. The leaders of the Green parties indicate that they have learned the lesson from the Yellow Vests and that in the future in proposing Green policies they will include a redistributive element to ensure that the costs of implementing Green policies are not disproportionately paid by the poorest strata of the population (McBride, 2022). Although the Greens generally have the sympathy of the general public, they have trouble getting more than 10% of the vote in elections. Greens have support for some of the topics they represent in public, such as genetically modified food. But it is not a topic on which the largest number of people decide which party to vote for in elections. The Greens generally have trouble convincing voters of their economic policy and political vision, which are issues that win elections. An additional problem for the Greens is that they have some success in developed countries, but have difficulty making inroads in developing countries. Green ideology must find a way not to be a luxury only for those who enjoy the benefits of industrialization (Freeden, 2004: 188). One criticism of Green political ideology is that it is too pessimistic about the future of the planet, that it is too preoccupied with apocalyptic scenarios that await the planet (Dobson, 2000: 16). In fact, the Greens are more pessimistic about the future of existing social and political practice than about the future of the planet. Appeals to concern were intended to mobilize political activism. The Greens indicate that protecting the environment requires a change in values, habits, and behavior, and they believe that this will happen. According to some authors such as Nordhaus and Shellenberger (2007), it is necessary to change the perspective, to move to post-environmentalism in order to accept new technologies for solving environmental problems and building a positive, optimistic picture of the future. Marxists criticize the Green ideology because it does not distinguish between social classes and appeals to the whole society to solve environmental problems. Environmental problems are a problem for the whole society, but the better social status of individuals can enable them to deal with environmental problems more easily. So, according to Marxists, the environmental problem is mostly produced by the people who belong to the ruling class, and its victims are the people who belong to the working class. Class analysis of the environmental problem is absent from the discourse of the Greens. Therefore, according to Marxists, there is no

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adequate treatment of the environmentalist issue in contemporary politics (Hughes & Hughes, 2000: 3). The Greens do not accept this criticism and consider that the Marxists are not a political entity that could offer a solution to the problem they themselves partly cause, given their glorification of rationality, technology, and industrialism. If you look at the practice, the socialist countries were not far behind in terms of environmental pollution compared to the capitalist ones. Criticisms of Green parties and policies go in three directions: intellectual incoherence, scientific unreliability, and difficulties in the practicing of politics. We will briefly review the central arguments in each of the directions along which the Green ideology is criticized. 7.3.1   Intellectual Incoherence Greens are not always consistent in terms of man’s place in nature. On the one hand, the Greens indicate that people are part of nature and should not claim superior, special treatment in relation to other forms of life. In that case, people have no more obligations to nature than other forms of life. On the other hand, the Greens point out that humans are the only form of life that has consciousness and hence a moral responsibility for protecting nature (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 287). The political philosophy and political theory of the Greens draws and uses arguments from theories that are seriously different, and at times contradict each other. Hence an amorphous politics. The leap from the observation of nature to the values of Green ideology is problematic at certain points. For example, the assessment that nature has predominantly female characteristics may imply that men are inferior. Such assessments are reminiscent of Social Darwinism when Darwin’s theory of evolution was used to justify the superiority of capitalism, totalitarian authoritarianism, race wars, etc. (Adams, 2001: 253). The dilemma arises whether the Greens have a problem with environmental pollution or with consumerism. Although, they often go together they are not necessarily related. The question arises whether it is the consumerist way of life or the consumerism that causes environmental pollution. For example, is the problem the desire to have a car or the pollution it causes? From a Marxist perspective, Hillier (2010) criticizes the Greens’ approach to social progress, which is based on technological progress and material abundance. The Greens have a romantic view of the world, especially nature, and when constructing their policies they look backwards. In

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addition to rejecting the class struggle, the Greens, especially at the organizational level, promote a populist approach to politics. The dilemma arises whether the Greens have a bio-centric or anthropocentric vision of the planet. That is, whether nature should be preserved for its own sake or because it is better for people, for their survival. For example, it is often argued that the diversity of species in forests should be preserved for its medicinal value, wilderness should be preserved for its aesthetic value, etc. For one part of the Greens (Dark or deep Greens), nature should be preserved because it has value in itself, regardless of how it affects the future of people (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 287). Barry (1999) points out that among the Greens there is a tendency not to connect the theoretical and practical implications of the values and principles they promote. Greens, like other ideologies, assume that there is harmony between the principles and values that would lead to the establishment of the desired civilized, sustainable society in the future. But the Greens neglect the issue of analyzing the consequences of a consistent implementation of the principles of sustainability. Green ideology should locate the causes, not the effects, which are visible in the environment and concentrate on their eradication. The Greens’ positions on animal rights can be controversial. Greens believe that animals have a right to life, just like humans. That would mean that flu viruses have the same right to life as humans. It would mean endangering the lives of many people. Greens who are more radical ask the question, if people have more right to life than other species that exist on the planet. They hope to solve such problems by returning to alternative medicine, pagan mysticism, and irrationalism (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 287). The attitude of the Greens toward rationality is disputed. They have an ambiguous attitude toward rationality and science. On the one hand, they claim to be scientifically based ideology. On the other hand, they have a deep and secret suspicion toward the scientific tradition and its rational and mechanistic explanation of the universe. Greens are not technophobic and embrace some of the latest advances in technology, for example renewable energy sources, but at the same time exhibit anti-rationalist impulses (Freeden, 2004: 189). Critics of the Greens argue that their worldview is based on myth, not science. They are especially dominated by the myth of the pre-modern man. But they go beyond that and point out that the pre-modern man lived in harmony with nature and that everything changed with the advent of agriculture. The Greens constantly looked for the culprits for the

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alienation of people from nature. In addition to the emergence of agriculture, the Greens blame the emergence of science in the seventeenth century, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century for moving away from nature (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 288). 7.3.2   Scientific Unreliability As a reaction to the development of environmentalism and the Green parties, skepticism has arisen toward claims that climate change is caused by environmental pollution. In a part of the public, there was skepticism that challenged the scientific consensus that climate change is really happening, that it is caused by humans, that it requires a serious response at the level of policies and the transformation of economic policy. The climate skeptic movement disputes the scientific basis of data indicating that climate change is occurring. To gain scientific legitimacy, this movement uses data from scientists outside of peer-reviewed climate science publications. They claim that if there are climate changes, they are not caused by humans, but are part of natural processes. Consequently, there is no need to take measures that would address the issue of climate change. Some studies show that the promotion of skepticism toward climate change is correlated with the promotional activities of fossil fuel companies (Stoddart et al., 2022: 8). Skepticism toward the data that the Greens use as an argument for the necessity of introducing Green policies is also expressed by people who belong to the environmentalist milieu. So for example Lomborg (1998) who developed skeptical environmentalism points out that many of the data used to show that nature and natural resources are in a disastrous state, if not inaccurate, then at least biased and one-sided. Greens assemble the picture of the catastrophic state in which nature finds itself based on a biased selection of examples. Making policy based on inaccurate or biased data is not only wrong, but can be costly to the societies in which it is done. For example, the cost of implementing a policy of deindustrialization based on wrong data could be enormous. It is an entirely different matter that the Greens criticized industrialism when industry was already declining relative to the service sector, but this was happening for other reasons than because industry pollutes the environment so much. In that sense, the policy of non-industrialization was like fighting a non-existent opponent. Lomborg’s main point is that a more honest analysis of the environmental problems facing the world is needed (Humphrey, 2013).

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Some of the key policies of the Greens, such as the policy of limiting economic growth, are based on research done in the 1960s and 1970s. They predicted the destruction of the Earth due to an ecological disaster. Such predictions were supported by detailed statistical data on the depletion of resources, on the raw materials that will begin to be lacking. The assumption was that this would lead to a large rise in prices, with economic turbulence and the collapse of the entire economic system. These apocalyptic scenarios were predicted to happen no later than 2000. But it didn’t happen. As a result, more and more people are dismissing the Greens’ predictions as unfounded (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 288). In order to gain credibility, Green policies must be based on modern research (Gökpinar, 2019: 172). If you look closely, the world is abundant with resources. The known reserves of many raw materials have grown since the beginning of the 1970s, due to the discovery of new sources. Due to the new discoveries, the price of most raw materials has a tendency of long-term falling prices. The rise in oil prices in the 1970s was due to Middle East politics and the cartelization of oil production. The high price of oil encouraged its saving and the search for new oil deposits. Technology has contributed to reducing the use of copper in telecommunications. Due to the development of technology, most of the manufacturers today need less raw materials to make a certain product (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 288). What is significant here is that the Greens, in general, think that we should not always and at all costs rely on technology. Changing life habits and values is more important than having unlimited trust in technology. Deforestation is a concern, but it is not as catastrophic as the Greens made it out to be. They exaggerate the dimensions of the crisis by invoking inadequate scientific methodology to create the impression of a major disaster (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 289). Lomborg (1998), for example, believes that the data on air pollution, reduced stocks of natural resources, overpopulation of the planet, the consequences of using pesticides, global hunger, the unsustainability of industrial society are selective and exaggerated. In addition, the Greens’ monopoly on environmental protection can be challenged, even though this is the topic on which they build themselves as a specific type of political philosophy and theory (Otter, 2017: 320). If you look at the Greens’ solutions to real problems like climate change, they are very expensive and ineffective. Lomborg (1998) believes that more rational measures should be applied, which will be based on a comparison between the cost and the effects that will be obtained.

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Of course, there are difficulties with the preservation of the environment and the use of natural resources, but they are not of the dimensions that the Greens represent to society. The market can help balance the use of resources, as happened with oil. When the price of oil rose, people began to save more, but at the same time it intensified the efforts to find new sources, which were discovered in Alaska and other places, the technology advanced in the direction of the production of electric cars, etc. Alternative energy sources are one of the ways to overcome the problems of renewable energy sources, but they will be used more when they are economically viable in terms of the cost of using this type of energy (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 289). The preoccupation of the Greens with the fate of the planet Earth, reduces their narrative to a parochial overemphasized, hysterical story that spreads fear that due to pollution of nature and excessive exportation of natural resources, the existence of the planet is threatened. There are limitless amounts of resources in space that humans with the development of technology may one day have access to. Overcoming problems by using rationality has been a characteristic of humans throughout their history. Stories that people will be afraid of have always existed. In Great Britain, for example, there was a time dominated by the narrative that there would not be enough oak trees to build ships, which would make Britain helpless on the seas. In the eighteenth century, the prevailing view was that a shortage of charcoal would put an end to the iron industry (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 289). In that sense there are accusations that the Greens are selling an apocalyptic vision of the world, seasoned with elements of conspiracy theory. According to some authors, the presentation of the Greens on the threat to the environment is general and unclear (Otter, 2017:320). It provides very limited space for developing a specific political agenda. Blühdorn (2000) is of the opinion that the Greens’ diagnosis of the environmental crisis is wrong, the utopia they propose is unattractive, and the theory of societal transformation is unconvincing. Claims that we are facing an ecological crisis according to Blühdorn are not based on empirical facts. He accepts that the measurements show an increase in temperatures, but the interpretations that this means that an environmental disaster is coming and that urgent measures are needed are exaggerated. Critics point out that many of the Greens’ concerns about the environment are reactionary. For the Greens, the past is better than the present, and it is highly likely that it will be better than the future. The Greens lack a more serious exploration of human history, the social, technological, and

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scientific achievements that have created a healthier, richer, and in many ways more environmentally conscious world. Insisting on the Greens’ policy could lead to poverty like that of Third World countries, but also a reduction in the average life expectancy of people, given that the Greens advocate a return to alternative medicine. Primitive people are no wiser than modern people. They had a far lower average life expectancy. Before industrialization, the societies in search for ensuring the existence, did not pay much attention to the protection of the environment, and in certain cases contributed to the reduction of biodiversity. Much of the environmental degradation is the result of the desperation of people living in poverty in the search for a livelihood (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 289). 7.3.3   Difficulties in the Practicing of Politics The common-sense view of the Greens’ vision of society is that it is impractical and utopian. At the same time, the utopia developed by the Green ideology is unattractive. The Greens call for the immediate abolition of industrialism and replacing it with something better, but they do not provide arguments about the urgency of the need to abolish industrialism, and the alternative offered from the majority of people was not considered better than what we already have. And literally the Greens are proposing that society abandon its current standard of living and return to the pre-­ industrial, pre-modern age. The supporters of the Greens are criticized because they are Westerners, white, members of the middle classes who have no direct experience of working in the industrial sector. They are teachers, doctors, secretaries, lawyers, etc. By definition these are impractical people who dream without understanding that a Green Society is a luxury that the poor people of the Third World cannot afford (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 289). Some Green policies have been criticized for returning society to earlier stages of its development, as well as people’s living standards. It is very difficult for such policies to gain mass electoral support. For example, the policy of decentralization and the establishment of the community as the basic subject of the policy of the Greens is under serious criticism. The accusations are that the Green Policy would create parochial communities that would be isolated and would neither be able nor cooperate with each other at the required level (Paterson, 2005: 246). Historically, but also in modern society, communities that are as small as the Greens would like to create, by their nature almost always have a parochial character. They would take care of their own interests, but they

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would not be too interested, or even informed, about what is happening outside their branches. In addition, such small, fragmented communities could hardly coordinate to solve general, global problems such as the problem of environmental pollution. More serious is the charge that there is no plan, no strategy to move society from where it is now to where the Greens would like to see it in the future. Greens are good at identifying the problem of environmental destruction, but they have trouble developing an alternative for society to move toward and how to do it. The Greens do not have a valid plan to bridge the gap between the state they reject and the one they want to achieve. As Freeden (2004: 188) notes, the Greens lack a theory of social change and related policies. That theory will have to indicate what changes should be made in the short, medium, and long term. It will need to define the factors that would contribute to achieving change, the priorities, degrees, and alliances that need to be built for the changes to succeed. Instead, the Greens, constantly talking about the environmental crisis, normalized it, it became part of the context in which people live, without having an action plan to change things (Blühdorn, 2000). Appealing to people’s rationality and pointing out arguments about the threat to the environment will not in themselves change things. Sometimes adopting a Green lifestyle from vegetarianism to waste recycling is presented as a way to transform society (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 290). In that sense, the Greens appeal to the transformation of the behavior of individuals, while in political games they do not have enough support to change society through the implementation of public policies. It seems that the Greens are content only with criticizing the situation with the degradation of the environment. Instead of contenting themselves with criticizing anthropocentrism, the Greens must promote and implement policies of ecocentrism. If the Greens want to change the direction of social development, they must be concerned about the steady progress of environmental destruction in almost every part of nature (Freeden, 2004: 188). Even when in government, Green parties are usually a junior partner and from that position have limited influence on societal processes (Doherty, 2002). In the words of Otter (2017: 316), the Greens should enter government majorities whenever they are given the opportunity, under reasonable conditions. On the other hand, it should always be kept in mind that there are limits to what can be done from the position of a minority partner in a ruling coalition under the conditions of a democratic political system.

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It seems that among the Greens there is no awareness that the powerful structures, groups of interests, the system of values that have an interest in maintaining the status quo in society will provide resistance and will not allow the transformation of society that the Greens advocate. Greens, unlike Marxists for example, are deficient in their revolutionary theory. They do not point to a social group, a layer of citizens who will be the bearers of change, as it was the working class for the Marxists. The assumption that every living being will benefit from the transformation of society according to the vision of the Greens and can therefore be the subject of change, is, according to many, naive and opens the way for the Greens to be accused of living in a fantasy world. The political left, in that sense, criticizes the Greens as distracting from the class struggle (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 290). Freeden (2004: 189) suggests that the Greens should reconsider their position in relation to the state. They believed that the state has a parasitic role in society. In the ideal Green society, the role of the state should be limited. The state should be the lever that connects the local policies that the Greens enthusiastically preach and the international coordination that should provide an answer to global threats. Green parties function within the liberal democratic political system. Although they have decent electoral results, it can hardly be said that the Greens have great electoral success or that they are close to winning some elections. In deep green, there is a tendency to consider the acceptance of democracy as a form of cooperation with the system, which is not part of the solution, but part of the problem. In addition to that, the traditional parties accept part of the policies of the Greens, thus further limiting their electoral results, but also preventing the radicalization of the demands of the Green parties. The electorate is vaccinated against radical Green policies by giving small, mild doses of environmental protection policies (Harrison & Boyd, 2003: 290). The Green parties themselves, when they came to power, showed that they were ready to give up some of their basic principles in order to get positions in the government. Thus, for example, the Greens in Germany noticed that by participating in the government from 1998 to 2005, they were moving toward supporting a neoliberal economic policy (Otter, 2017: 315). The Greens have been criticized for policy inconsistency, especially on the issue of their principled commitment to peace and non-violence. A more detailed analysis of the politics of the Greens shows that in practice they often do not adhere to their principled positions and tacitly or loudly accept the imposition of political solutions using military methods (Page,

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2007). The Greens in Germany were particularly criticized for the position they had on the invasion of Afghanistan, as well as putting the anti-­ nuclear program on the back burner (Otter, 2017: 315). Regarding the policy of deindustrialization and growth restriction, Nordhaus and Shellenberger (2007) concluded that the environmentalist paradigm was functional in the 1960s and 1970s, but today it is already outdated and should be replaced by post-environmentalism. According to them, the Green paradigm is narrow and based on the lack of resources and the pollution of nature. The Greens who demanded deindustrialization are unable to understand that environmentalism is only possible because of the prosperity brought about by the industrial society that they criticize. According to Heywood (2017), the failure of the Greens to gain more electoral support is due to the fact that their goals such as deindustrialization, abandoning conformism, and establishing life in small communities with a minimalist lifestyle are not attractive to the majority of the population. The Greens had no chance of greater success because their goals and values were foreign to the societies they wanted to reshape. But considering that they receive enough support to enter the parliament, to be part of coalition governments, and considering that the mainstream parties have also developed Green agendas, it seems that the Greens are still not strangers to the countries in which they operate. The problems pointed out by the Greens affect a respectable part of the population, and they will not disappear, so there will be room for the promotion, implementation, and improvement of Green policies. With all the weaknesses that the Green ideology had and the criticisms that it suffered, the Greens must be acknowledged that in more than half a century they managed to develop an original political ideology with concepts that cannot be found in traditional political ideologies. Among those concepts are ecocentrism, bioregionalism, participatory democracy, growth limitation, sustainable growth, etc. Regardless of the criticism they suffer, it is indisputable that the Greens will be part of the political landscape in the most economically developed countries in the future. It is highly likely that in the future they will be a more significant political force than they are today. Depending on how they fare in the political contest, they could have a bright political future.

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Barry, J., & Dobson, A. (2004). Green Political Theory: Report. In G. F. Gerald & K. Chandran (Eds.), Handbook of Political Theory. Sage. Blühdorn, I. (2000). Post-Ecologist Politics. Routledge. Bomnerg, E. (2005). Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. Routledge. Buzogany, A., & Mohamad-Klotzbach, C. (2021a). Environmental Populism. In T. M. Oswald (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Springer Nature. Buzogany, A., & Mohamad-Klotzbach, C. (2021b). Populism and Nature— The Nature of Populism: New Perspectives on the relationship Between Populism, Climate Change, and Nature Protection. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 15, 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12286-­021-­00492-­7 Carter, N. (2007). The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge University Press. Dobson, A. (2000). Green Political Thought: An Introduction. Routledge. Doherty, B. (1996). Green Parties, Nonviolence and Political Obligations. In B.  Doherty & M. de Geus (Eds.), Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Doherty, B. (2002). Ideas and the Action in Green Movement. Routledge. Doherty, B., & de Geus, M. (2003). Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Eckersley, R. (1996). Greening Liberal Democracy: The Right Discourse Revisited. In B. Doherty & M. De Geus (Eds.), Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Eckersley, R. (2004). The Green State. MIT Press. Freeden, M. (2004). Reassessing Political Ideologies: The Durability and Dissent. Routledge. Gökpinar, F. (2019). Green Theory and International Relations. In A. Tayyar & T. Elif (Eds.), Theories of International Relations 2. Anadolu University Press. Goodin, E. R. (1992). Green Political Theory. Polity. Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons. Science New Series, 162(3859), 1243–1248. Harrison, K., & Boyd, T. (2003). Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press. Hayward, T. (1995). Ecological Thought: An Introduction. Polity Press. Heywood, A. (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. Hillier, B. (2010). A Marxist Critique of Australian Greens. Marxist Left Review, 1. Hughes, J., & Hughes, R.  T. J. (2000). Ecology and Historical Materialism. Cambridge University Press. Humphrey, M. (2013). Green Ideology. In M. Freeden, T. L. Sargent, & M. Stears (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. Jylha, M. K., & Hellmer, K. (2020). Right-Wing Populism and Climate Change Denial: The Roles of Exclusionary and Anti-Egalitarian Preferences, Conservative Ideology, and Antiestablishment Attitudes. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 20(1), 315–335.

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Kindell, A., & Demers, С. E. (2014). Encyclopedia of Populism in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. Lomborg, B. (1998). The Skeptical Environmentalist. Cambridge University Press. Martell, L. (1994). Economy and Society. Polity Press. McBride, J. (2022). How Green Party Success is Reshaping Global Politics. Council of Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-­green-­party­success-­reshaping-­global-­politics Mouffe, C. (2022). Toward a Green Democratic Revolution: Left Populism and the Power of Affects. Verso Books. Nordhaus, T., & Shellenberger, M. (2007). Break Through. Houghton Mifflin. O’Riordan, T. (1981). Environmentalism. Pion. Ophuls, W., & Boyan, A. S. (1992). Ecology and Politics of Scarcity Revisited: The Unraveling of the American Dream. W.H. Freeman. Oswald, T. M., Fromm, M., & Broda, E. (2021). Strategic Clustering in Right-­ Wing-­ Populism? ‘Green Policies’ in Germany and France. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 15, 185–205. https://link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s12286-­021-­00485-­6 Otter, D. (2017). Environmentalism. In P.  Wetherly (Ed.), Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. Page, S. J. (2007). The Problem of the Pro-War Greens. Australian Quarterly, 79(4), 23–25. Paterson, M. (2005). Green Politics. In S. Burchill, A. Linklater, R. Devetak, & J. Donnelly (Eds.), Theories of International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan. Price-Thomas, G. (2016). Green Party Ideology Today: Divergences and Continuities in Germany, France and Britain. In E.  Van Haute (Ed.), Green Parties in Europe. Routledge. Sale, K. (1991). Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision. New Society Publishers. Saward, M. (1992). Must Democrats be Environmentalist. In B.  Doherty & M.  De Geus (Eds.), Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship. Routledge. Shrecker, T. (2017). “Stop, You’re Killing us!” An Alternative Take on Populism and Public Health. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 6(11), 673–675. Stoddart, C.  J. M., Tindall, D., & Dunlap, E.  R. (2022). The Contours of Anti-­ Environmentalism: An Introduction to the Handbook of ­Anti-­Environmentalism. In D.  Tindall, C.  J. M.  Stoddart, & E.  R. Dunlap (Eds.), Handbook of Anti-Environmentalism. Edward Elgar. Streans, J., Pettiford, L., Diez, T., & El Anis, I. (2010). Green Perspectives. In J.  Streans, L.  Pettiford, T.  Diez, & I.  El Anis (Eds.), An Introduction to International Relations Theory. Pearson Education Limited. Vincent, A. (2010). Modern Political Ideologies. Wiley – Blackwell.

Index1

A Animal rights, 88–90, 98, 102, 108, 111, 121, 133, 168, 204 Anthropocentrism, 13, 66, 67, 88, 130, 201, 209 Authoritarianism, 139, 140, 189, 192, 194, 196, 198, 203 B Bioregionalism, 51, 197, 211 Biosphere, 20, 76, 89 British Green Party, 14, 154 C Civil society, 52, 53, 69, 78, 80, 84, 86, 108–111, 113 Cleavages, 130–137, 142 Consumerism, 3, 7, 8, 16, 23, 25, 27, 28, 35, 53, 58, 68, 77, 78, 107, 111, 114, 116, 128, 135, 151,

152, 157, 163, 166, 169, 173, 197, 203 Cosmopolitanism, 86–87, 140 D Decentralization, 28, 51, 53–55, 57, 60, 65, 128, 140, 144, 145, 147, 151, 168, 184, 187, 188, 193, 196, 199, 208 Deep ecology, 67, 69, 89, 115 Democracy, 2, 6, 21, 26, 54, 57, 60, 65, 75, 79, 83, 104, 107, 128, 135, 140, 144–148, 150, 168, 174, 175, 187–197, 199, 210, 211 Die Grünen, 67, 71, 165 E Ecologism, 3, 10, 12–14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 165

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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Ecology, 12, 13, 30, 53, 67, 115, 135, 150, 179 Economic growth, 6, 22–24, 26, 28, 48, 56, 76–82, 102, 103, 108, 118, 128, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139, 150, 153, 166–169, 172, 174, 194, 198, 206 Eco system, 35, 50, 83, 154 Enlightenment, 18, 19, 60, 168, 205 Environmentalism, 1, 3, 4, 10–12, 14–17, 20, 23, 25, 27–29, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 67, 97, 99, 100, 103–108, 112, 114–122, 127, 130, 133, 139, 140, 143, 150, 157, 161–166, 170, 172, 175, 189, 202, 205, 211 Environmental justice, 69, 70, 80, 115, 163 Environmental movement, 105–108, 114, 191 European Green Party, 121, 179, 180, 182 F Feminism, 3, 21, 34, 46, 106, 111, 114, 132, 135, 150, 200 Fossil fuel, 74, 103, 116, 178, 205 Fundamentalists, 122, 176 Future generations, 54, 57, 72, 74, 75, 77, 100, 115, 168, 193, 195 G Grassroots democracy, 151, 187, 190 Green agenda, 52, 177 Green citizenship, 11, 83, 85–87, 163 Green ethics, 73, 74 Greens, 2, 3, 5–18, 20–30, 33, 35, 37, 46, 47, 51–56, 59, 60, 65–73, 75–77, 79–82, 84, 87, 90, 95,

96, 104, 107, 114, 122, 128, 129, 137, 138, 140, 142, 144–147, 149–157, 161–164, 167–169, 171–177, 179–184, 187–211 Green state, 11, 56, 57, 163 H Health care system, 153, 154 Human nature, 11, 29, 37, 67, 68, 163, 190, 192 I Ideologies, 3, 5, 12, 17, 21, 23, 30, 66, 68, 71, 143, 162, 164, 168, 169, 171, 173, 174, 198, 201, 204, 211 Immigration policy, 71, 153 Industrialization, 4, 10, 14, 19, 21–25, 76, 101, 106, 119, 152, 153, 202, 205, 208 L Labor movement, 34, 96, 108, 109, 112–114, 122, 194 Left Libertarianism, 10 Les Verts, 67, 71, 77, 148, 150, 152, 153, 171, 176, 187 Liberals, 11, 17, 20, 68, 69, 96, 119, 162, 165, 170, 171, 178 Lifestyle, 1, 7, 18, 28, 34, 51, 72, 75, 78, 80, 88, 108, 113, 134, 151, 154, 163, 167–169, 188, 189, 209, 211 Limiting growth, 27, 75, 77, 80, 141 Local communities, 22, 28, 53, 60, 140, 157, 193, 197

 INDEX 

M Market economy, 11, 11n2, 34, 58 Marxism, 14, 109, 110 Modernization, 2, 10, 16, 21–23, 25, 82, 112, 119, 120, 135, 150 N Natural resources, 3, 19, 20, 22, 26, 34–42, 44, 45, 48–53, 55, 57, 58, 65, 70, 73–78, 80, 84, 98, 102, 137, 163, 169, 173, 188, 197, 199, 205–207 Nature, 1–5, 7–11, 13–23, 25–30, 35–37, 40, 44–52, 54–56, 58, 60, 65–70, 72, 73, 76, 79–83, 87, 89, 96, 99–101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 116, 118, 120, 121, 128, 134, 140, 144, 148, 150, 151, 155, 156, 162, 164, 168–170, 173, 175, 178, 188, 190, 192, 194–196, 198, 200, 203–205, 207–209, 211 Nature protection, 16, 21–23, 49, 84, 102, 105, 166, 191, 192 New Left, 34, 96, 106, 110, 113, 128 New middle class, 2, 9, 55, 95, 97–99, 111, 112, 117–119, 138, 149, 163, 174, 179, 194, 200 New social movements, 2, 3, 12, 55, 97–99, 102, 103, 107–115, 117–121, 133, 137, 145, 150, 164 Non-aggression, 44–47 Nuclear energy, 3, 15, 20, 29, 76, 98, 102, 103, 156, 167, 181 P Participatory democracy, 140, 144, 193

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Parties, 2–4, 6–12, 6n1, 17, 21, 26, 29, 39, 42, 46, 51, 54, 55, 65, 67, 71, 72, 76, 82, 87, 90, 95, 96, 98, 100, 103–105, 107, 108, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 121–122, 127–138, 140–157, 161, 163, 164, 167–179, 181, 182n1, 183, 184, 187, 188, 190, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201, 203, 205, 209–211 Peace movements, 103, 104 Political philosophy, 2, 5, 9–12, 17, 33, 38, 44, 57, 87, 142, 161, 164, 175, 178, 201, 203, 206 Political spectrum, 12, 20, 27, 109, 167–169, 172–174, 177 Political thought, 5, 9–11, 14, 17–21, 33, 65, 76, 164 Pollution, 2, 4, 10–12, 15, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 35, 38, 41–45, 48, 49, 52, 57, 59, 66, 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, 96, 99, 101, 103, 118, 138, 151–153, 157, 162, 166, 167, 174, 175, 188, 189, 199, 203, 205–207, 209, 211 Post-materialist values, 2, 9, 80, 98, 109, 120, 130–137, 169 Progress, 2, 16, 21, 76, 120, 168, 198, 201, 203, 209 Property, 9, 11, 25, 33, 35–37, 39–45, 47–49, 52, 54, 69, 78, 98, 169, 188 R Realists, 164, 176 Recycling, 1, 3, 38, 79, 80, 85, 112, 163, 178, 209 Right libertarianism, 38

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INDEX

S Science, 7, 10, 13, 18, 21, 24, 28–30, 105, 144, 163, 164, 204, 205 Social conflict, 3, 4, 175 Social democrats, 34, 162, 170, 177 Socialists, 8, 17, 37, 68, 69, 71, 109, 162, 170 Social structure, 8, 9, 11, 12, 24, 98, 101, 109, 149–150 Sustainability, 58, 65, 70, 75–78, 83, 100, 129, 141, 150, 151, 163, 181, 189, 195, 197, 204 Sustainable development, 11, 55, 77–78, 80, 82, 116, 135, 157, 163, 188, 190

T Technology, 2, 19, 22, 24, 27–30, 43, 44, 76, 80, 157, 163, 169, 203, 204, 206, 207 U Utilitarianism, 73, 88–89 V Vegetarianism, 28, 88, 102, 163, 209 W Welfare state, 11, 45, 52, 54–57, 113, 131, 138, 153, 176, 177, 194 Women’s rights, 71, 136