Doyle and McEachern Excerpts | Politics And Environmental Studies PDF

Politics and environmental studies 17 Defining politics and envi onmental studies What is envir onmental studies? Environmental studies can be approached in a number of significantly different ways. It is possible to treat the fiel...

Politics and environmental studies 17 Defining politics and envi onmental studies What is envir onmental studies? Environmental studies can be approached in a number of significantly different ways. It is possible to treat the field as being coterminous with that of ‘ecology’, the study of the particular ways in which living matter combines in changing and stable patterns (Wilson 1992; Flannery 1994). Here ecology is a branch of science to be approached with the same methodological assumptions as other areas of scientific inquiry. Such an approach could generate studies of, for example, the ecology of a particular region (the redwood forests of North America, the moorlands of England, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, or the Karoo in South Africa). Even in such studies of nature and natural systems there would be some recognition of the part played by humans in this ecology. For example, human actions may destabilise a particular ecological balance and impose new, managed stability/instability, and this could be noted with the same kind of scientific detachment as for the study of other disturbances. Recognising the human element indicates one of the problems for defining environmental studies only in ecological terms. How are the actions of humans and human societies to be interpreted? It is certainly possible to invent a ‘human ecology’ and treat this as a sub-set of other parts of scientific study: it could form part of zoology, biology or human geography. It is certainly possible to gain some understanding of the character of environmental problems by considering population dynamics and the causes and consequences of ‘overpopulation’, but how good or useful is this interpretation? There is more to understanding the impact and dynamics of human social organisation than can be generated from this particular perspective. Here it is possible to extend the conception of environmental studies and to enhance the interdisciplinary element. Ecology itself involves forms of interdisciplinary study. To understand the interaction of life forms means crossing, at the very least, the boundaries between botany, zoology and soil science. But this interdisciplinary focus needs to be enhanced to include, at the least, the social sciences if we want to understand and assess the environmental consequences of humans as socially organised. From this perspective, environmental studies needs to combine understandings from both the sciences and social sciences and to be 18 Environment and Politics interdisciplinary in this sense. Knowledge derived from ecology and a whole range of individual disciplines should be combined with knowledge derived from the social sciences. For example, human impacts on their environments depend on a whole range of factors: cultural attitudes to nature; modes of social and economic organisation; and the kinds of political process that can either protect or harm the environment. Plate 1 Protest march in Munich against bombing of Yugoslavia by Nato forces, March 1999. Author’s private collection Depending on how environmental studies is defined, the form of political knowledge required will be quite varied. What is politics? What is understood as ‘politics’ and ‘political’ varies widely. Often politics has been defined in a particularly narrow way and the word is used to refer to processes of government; decision making and administration; elections; the machinations of political parties; and the efforts of groups to influence these political processes. This limited, ‘government-centred’ view of politics, according to Crick, emerged in advanced, complex, usually European, societies:  Politics and environmental studies 19 The establishment of political order is not just any order at all; it marks the birth, or the recognition, of freedom. For politics represents at least some tolerance of different truths, some recognition that government is possible, indeed best conducted, amid the open canvassing of rival interests. Politics are the public actions of free men. (1964: 18) This view of politics, which sees government as a public instrument of freedom, is associated with a ‘Western’ tradition, reaching back to the ancient Greeks and illuminated in the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Here politics is seen in a positive light, as part of the way in which citizens are fulfilled and the highest goals of a community are achieved. Involvement in public debate over common problems and their solutions was seen as part of civic duty: to be involved in politics was a high cultural and social ambition. In essence this is a conception of politics as some variant of democratic politics. Today, democracy and democratic politics are greatly valued but the practice of politics has separated out the role of citizen from that of the politician. Politicians are professionals elected to act on behalf of voters in remote parliaments and governmental processes. It is largely their job to reconcile conflicting and convergent societal interests through compromise and negotiation in a public sphere. In this view, politics exists ‘out there’. Most citizens are removed from its daily reach. Politics is regarded as that peculiar set of relationships forged in the parliaments and congresses of national and state capitals. It is important to note that Crick’s limited view of politics is shared by most people. Given this alienation, politics is often seen in a negative light, as something tawdry, deceitful, largely a battle between arrogant and egotistical men and, worst of all, a waste of time. Nonetheless, a ‘narrow’ view of politics provides workable boundaries for political enquiry. Critics of this perspective see politics in broader terms, as far more universal, capable of crossing cultural boundaries and existing within and outside the institutional boundaries of the modern state (and outside Europe!). Politics is not just confined to the actions of government but is also found in the so-called private sector of the business ‘community’ and in the more informal realms that often operate outside the state. In fact, Leftwich argues that politics exists ‘at every level and in every sphere’ of human societies, and that political activities are not isolated from other features of social life. They everywhere influence and are influenced by, the distribution of power and decision making, the systems of social organisation, culture 20 Environment and Politics and ideology in society, as well as its relations with the natural environment and other societies. Politics is therefore the defining characteristic of all human groups and always has been. (1983: 11) Politics, in Leftwich’s terms, occurs in homes, sporting clubs, workplaces and in the street, as well as in parliaments. A strength of Leftwich’s inclusive depiction is its capacity to analyse non-institutional politics. In this way, politics refers to our relationships to one another and our interactions, in many different collective and sub-cultural forms: as individuals; as members of families; as informal networks and groups; as organisations; as governments; as corporations; and our activities in a whole range of other institutionalised settings. All definitions of politics are contested and value-laden. There is no one universal definition. It is important for students of politics to be explicit about the reasons used to justify one definition over another. Either the narrow or the broad definition of politics could be used to frame a consideration of environmental politics, but quite different studies would be produced. Use of the narrow definition would give an account based on the constitutional design of the political process, its institutional characteristics, and the role of political parties and pressure groups as well as a consideration of the way in which environmental policy is made and administered. And, indeed, these topics are covered in this book. A broader definition would lead to the inclusion of non-institutionalised forms of environmental concern and activism, which are never simply captured by an organised mobilisation into normal politics. Attention is also directed towards the political debates and conflicts that occur within these informal movements and in the more non-institutionalised settings. These, too, are included in this study. A narrow definition keeps more things out of consideration, and hence makes the task of analysis more manageable. A broader definition brings in more things that need to be included but at the risk of a more diffuse and unmanageable study. There are costs involved in the use of either definition: it is good to be aware of what is gained or lost by choices made about preferred definitions.  Politics and environmental studies 21 What is the place of politics in envir onmental studies? Environmental studies’... essential interdisciplinarity is intellectually testing and touches not only on biology and ecology, but all the social sciences, most especially politics and economics. (Doyle and Walker 1996: 1) It is tempting to say that politics is just one discipline that should be incorporated into environmental studies, but far more is required than this: politics is central to environmental studies. The relationships between the two differ, depending on the definitions of each. Like politics, environmental studies is defined in numerous ways to include and exclude various modes of inquiry. Many of these differences emerge around conflicting views as to exactly what the environment entails. For example, if the environment is seen as a biophysical reality existing outside of humans, then environmental studies is the study of the relationships between human and non-human worlds. Often this ‘external’ view of the environment gives birth to instrumentalism; that is, the environment (or nature) is understood as a series of resources (natural products) or a series of processes, which need to be managed by humans in a renewable, sustainable, manner. Doyle and Walker argue as follows: environmental studies is fundamental in the fullest sense. Human existence depends completely on the continuing availability of inputs such as air, water, foodstuffs and other resources from the natural environment. Without ecology there can be no economy and no society. (ibid. 1) This instrumental depiction of environmental studies fits snugly with many definitions of politics. For example, Leftwich’s writings on politics portray the interface between humans and ‘natural resources’ as a centrally defining part of politics. He contends that the major organising activity at the heart of this history of cooperation, conflict, innovation, and adaptation in the use, production and distribution of resources has been and still is politics. (1983: 12) As society is seen as outside the environment in this view, the study of politics complements the natural sciences (and the many other disciplines involved in environmental studies) in allowing us to understand and manage our biophysical resources; to manage our environment; to formulate and to implement environmental policies. 22 Environment and Politics The role of politics in environmental studies increases in scope quite dramatically if we consider a different notion of the environment where humanity is part of nature and not distinct from it. Nature is no longer seen as a resource but as a more holistic construct that is far more open to interpretative possibilities. Being considered part of nature, there is a recognition that our relationships with the non-human world are socially, as well as (on occasions) biophysically constructed. So environmental studies now includes those relationships already mentioned between humans and non-humans, between differing non-human entities, and the relationships between humans themselves. Under this rubric, politics meets environmental studies in different ways. For example, issues of social democracy (participatory and representative), non-violence, social equity and justice as well as ecology now dominate the intellectual and green activist agenda. New types of relationship and entire human and non-human societies are analysed and imagined based on this more integrative, non-anthropocentric view of the environment. Concepts for the analysis of envir onmental politics Political r egime and envir onmental politics The particular way in which the political system is organised has a strong impact on the scope and effectiveness of environmental politics. There is a whole variety of different political regimes, and different ways in which rulers and ruled are connected and the institutions of politics are designed. The most significant impact political regimes usually have on environmental politics is at the level at which democratic participation in the political sphere is permitted within that regime. As the nature and expression of social and environmental activism within a particular society is often determined or framed by the type of political regime under which it operates, it is important to understand the importance of the existence, or otherwise, of levels of democratic accountability and political openness in the societies we study. Broadly speaking we could use a progressively authoritarian schema where regimes qualify as liberal democratic representative, hybrid or traditional authoritarian (Doyle and Simpson 2006). Ideal liberal democratic representative regimes epitomise the democratic freedoms of association and thought with regular free and fair elections. Traditionally, authoritarian regimes have been military dictatorships or one-party states with a lack of both democratic freedoms and competitive elections. 30 Environment and Politics opponents having access to the hearings through the use of police roadblocks and wire barricades. Students of environmental studies need to be aware of these different kinds of political regime since they have an impact on the fate of environmental politics. They also need to be aware that there are other kinds of regime, other ways of linking rulers and ruled, and that these too have different consequences for the ways in which environmental politics can work. Dimensions of power Power is involved in all environmental conflicts and policy making. Both doing environmental harm and protecting, conserving or saving the environment require an effective deployment of power to prevail against opposition and power to make and enforce decisions. Unfortunately, the very terms needed to understand the character and consequences of power are contested. Both academics and political activists are divided in their views on what constitutes power, how power should be analysed or can be effectively deployed and how to assess the legitimacy of the ends of power in the different political systems around the globe. What is involved in this complex area of analysis can be illustrated by some relatively clear examples. Having done that it is then possible to consider the different ways in which power may be analysed and the ends of power evaluated. Consider the problem of air pollution in the famous Italian city of Florence. From its ancient roots and its Renaissance pre-eminence through to its present, Florence has combined closely settled areas of housing and artisanal workshops with the grand monuments to its past. This has made Florence one of the great tourist centres of the world, but the number of tourists who flock to the city each year, coupled with a greater urban population, have meant an increased scope for environmental damage. Air pollution in the central area of the city is an intense and obvious problem as vast quantities of tourists, bus operators, normal cars and scooters rush their way through narrow streets, over the bridges in and through the city centre. Gradually and reluctantly, the city authorities have restricted traffic access to the centre. The problems of pollution have continued and a new campaign is under way to increase the zone subject to traffic restrictions. Some local residents and shopkeepers are openly hostile to these plans and campaign against them. Posters are  Politics and environmental studies 31 stuck on many doors and in many shop windows claiming that the city (or their area) will die if the restrictions are imposed. Life will leave the city as shops close and its character will be irrevocably changed. On the other hand, the problem of air pollution is continually cited as a reason for action. Power operates on both sides of this debate. The local state, in trying to rectify a serious environmental problem, has to use power to have a regulation imposed and policed to get a change in a pattern of human and social behaviour with negative consequences for, in this case, an urban environment. The local residents are seeking forms of power that will stop this regulation being effective. Their means to power include argument, publicity, lobbying and demonstrations and may even include blockades to illustrate and press their claims. Here power to regulate and power to resist are counterposed. Consider another kind of example. In the USA, major international mining companies have been involved in standard development versus environmental concern disputes. For example, in Wisconsin, Kennecott Copper, part of the global RTZ (Rio Tinto Zinc) enterprise, has sought to build an open-cut copper mine against the opposition of a coalition of Chippewa and white environmentalists (Gedicks 1993). The mining company has deployed considerable quantities of power, which are based on its wealth and its economic importance, to press its case and to marginalise its opponents. In pursuing its rights to business as usual in Wisconsin, as any company operating anywhere in the world would, Kennecott has used its power to mobilise investment (loans and shares), workers, technology, and political access and the ability to influence popular and elite opinion to protect its corporate goals. To succeed, the Chippewa and their environmental supporters have to find sufficient power resources to deploy to deny Kennecott Copper its normal expectations to mine and to profit from its mining. The proposal to mine is as much based on power as are the efforts of those who oppose mining and seek to have a project stopped or regulated. When knowledge about the causes and consequences of ozone depletion reached a certain stage, it was possible for the United Nations Environment Programme and environmental activists to place concern for the consequences of the increased uses of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) on the political agenda. Once again, a whole array of economic, social and political forces sought resources to be used as power as the conflict over regulating the relevant industries intensified. The chemical companies concerned, in alliance with governments, clashed with rival companies and countries over whether an international protocol was needed to 32 Environment and Politics regulate the production and use of ozone-depleting substances (Benedict 1991). After much struggle and the invention of a plausible, commercially profitable substitute, the USA took the lead in pressing for international regulation, which, after complex negotiations and a number of summits, came into effect. Here can be seen companies making strategic calculations about the benefits that could be derived from continuing or ceasing the production of CFCs and government officials finding strategies to make more or less international agreements. And the whole process turned around power and the effective deployment of arguments and resources that could be made to produce the consequences being sought. Now, these three examples do not exhaust all the kinds of resources that are invoked and deployed to produce power-like effects and outcomes. These are only illustrations to show that situations of environmental conflict and policy making all contain elements of power. What happens in any given environmental conflict is the result of the creation and the successful deployment of forms of power. Environmental regulation, environmental neglect, business as usual, politics as usual; all these involve the deployment and playing out of power. What needs to be considered now is how best to understand the patterns of power involved in these routine, repeated forms of environmental conflict and policy making. The analysis of power and models of the policy pr ocess There are a large number of different kinds of account of the character, distribution and effects of power in politics. The points of cleavage in these debates are not agreed but there is a broad division between accounts that treat power as a quantity or resource to be deployed and those that do not. Most of the literature uses the quantity/resource assumption and is treated first, but it should be kept in mind that there is a broad alternative that deals with the same matters but in quite a different analytical framework. An initial, most useful, account of the different approaches in the dominant tradition has been given by Steven Lukes (1974) in a relatively old, very brief, accessible and influential volume, Power: A Radical View. In this book, Lukes argues that there are three broad ways in which power is analysed and each of these is based on finding new ‘faces’ of power, successively adding these to form a complete account of the character and consequences of power.  Politics and environmental studies 41 Some key study ter ms Environmental justice Environmental justice has arguably always been the dominant concern of those in majority world countries, where many citizens’ livelihoods depend upon their immediate natural surroundings, and who often suffer at the hands of wealthy national elites and wealthy foreign companies. Calls for environmental justice include: equity in the distribution of environmental goods, ills and risks; recognition of the diversity of the participants and experiences in affected communities; the protection of community capabilities and functioning; and participation in the political processes which create and manage environmental policy (Schlosberg 2004: 517–540). But at an even more basic level, the concept of justice in the context of the South can be understood as ensuring that basic needs for survival are satisfied. The needs that all people have access, for example, to shelter, clean water, food, are, in fact universal human rights, reflected in the International Human Rights Covenants (Barnett 2001). The concept of environmental justice, or the uniting of both environmental and social justice concerns, has also become increasingly prominent in minority world countries, especially the US, since the late 1980s. In the US, the movement emerged in the wake of the civil rights movement with the recognition that race was a crucial factor in determining the quality of one’s environment. In Dumping in Dixie, the ground-breaking work of Robert Bullard, it was argued that black Americans were more likely to live on or alongside toxic waste sites (1990: 32–7). It is now frequently found that low-income, majority world communities (despite living within minority world affluent countries) continue to bear greater health and environmental burdens, while the wealthier, white members of the population receive the bulk of the benefits (Sandweiss, 1998: 35). This situation is also sometimes called environmental injustice and environmental racism. Environmental justice activists in the US have focused on changing distributional inequity ranging from grassroots community empowerment to federal level changes. Even today some of the most prominent environmental justice campaigns in minority world countries like the US and Australia, surround the locations of commercial hazardous waste facilities. This currently 42 Environment and Politics includes the search for high- and low-level radioactive waste depository locations in the US and Australia respectively, both targeted for traditional indigenous lands. The proposed Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, US, has been hotly contested by the Western Shoshone nation, while Australia’s federal government is deciding on which of three locations near Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to impose a national radioactive waste dump. This follows a successful campaign by the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta (senior Aboriginal women of Kupa Piti) of South Australia in rejecting a waste dump on their sacred lands. The indigenous peoples of both Nevada and South Australia have already experienced the legacy of nuclear testing on their traditional lands. See Box 1.5 for the principles adopted by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991, which have served as a defining document for the grassroots movement for environmental justice. Box 1.5 Principles of envir onmental justice Adopted at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991, Washington, DC. Preamble We, the people of color, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to insure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice: 1 Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.  Politics and environmental studies 43 2 Environmental justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias. 3 Environmental justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things. 4 Environmental justice calls for universal protection from industrial by- products and the extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food. 5 Environmental justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples. 6 Environmental justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production. 7 Environmental justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation. 8 Environmental justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment, without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards. 9 Environmental justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care. 10 Environmental justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide. 11 Environmental justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the US government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self- determination. 12 Environmental justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of resources. 13 Environmental justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color. 44 Environment and Politics 14 Environmental justice opposes the destructive operations of multi- national corporations. 15 Environmental justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms. 16 Environmental justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives. 17 Environmental justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth’s resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to insure the health of the natural world for present and future generations. Environmental security The environment has often been used as a tool of war, from the salting of Carthage to the Russians’ scorched earth retreats before the armies of Napolean and Hitler. Plato, mocking the notion of a republic of leisure, argued that such a regime would soon resort to a war to satisfy its taste for more space and natural resources. But sustained thinking about the environment–conflict connection is a product only of the last few decades. While clashes over non-renewable resources such as oil or gold are as familiar as the Persian Gulf war, the question now is about the role of renewable resources such as water, fish, forests, and arable land. (Dabelko 1999: 14) Definitions of environmental security are as numerous as definitions of what constitutes the ‘environment’ itself, and the issues involved are as diverse as biological and ecological security; the greening of military operations; climate change; desertification; biodiversity; human population and migration; fisheries; forests; energy; water; nutrition; shelter; and poverty. The interest in environmental security emerged forcefully in the Brundtland Report in 1987, and increased at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The nexus between environment, development, and security was never stronger than at the ‘Earth Summit Plus Ten’ in Johannesburg in 2002. However, the notion of environmental security is strongly contested between those who cast the definition around the security of the nation-state, and those who use a more inclusive definition