NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY

BHOPAL

PROJECT WORK

POLITICAL SCIENCE - I

TOPIC – ENVIRONMENT AND POLITICS

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Dr. Raka Arya Divyanshu Baraiya

2019BALLB17

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Certificate

Introduction

Environmentalism

Ecologism

Dobson’s green theory

Environmental Non-Governmental Organisation

Environmental organisation citizenship

Conclusion

Bibliography

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I have given my full efforts to this project, however, it would not have been possible without
the continuous guidance of many individuals, especially my political science professor
Dr.Raka Arya. I am thankful to her to allow me to work on the project of my own choice.

I am also thankful to the National Law Institute University for providing us with such a state
of art library and computer lab which were of immense help during my entire project work.

Environment and ecology are the new concept incorporated with traditional political
thoughts to honor the non-human part of the world at large to make life, state, and the
economy more meaningful.

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project of Constitutional Law has been prepared and submitted by
Divyanshu Baraiya who is currently pursuing his BALLB(Hons.) at National law institute
university, Bhopal. It is also certified that this is to his original research work.

Date :7th March, 2020

Signature of the student: ......................................................

Signature of the Professor: ......................................................

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INTRODUCTION

“As the world is growing and developing the environmental issues are also coming forward.
We need to maintain a balance between utilising the resources and exhausting the resources
for our needs. A balance has to be there between the nature and the society; we need to draw
a line between our needs and luxury. This project deals with the political methods and
strategies and how we have developed and emerged in this field.”

Establishment of effective strategies to mediate the relationship between ‘human’ and

‘natural world’ represents one of the most daunting tasks in the contemporary quest for global
environmental sustainability.”As we enter the 21st century, global environmental problems,
including climate change, biodiversity loss, water quality and access problems, soil erosion
and others, call into question the fundamental viability how humans have organized the
relationship between the society and nature over the last two hundred years. Addressing the
change problems effectively will require a critical reassessment of current models of
development. It will also require new research approaches that address the complexity of
nature-society relations by combining the strength of natural and social sciences.”

It is in this context that traditional political theories are being challenged by ‘ecology’.”The
situation calls for an urgent encounter between ‘ecology’ on one hand and ‘empirical’ and
‘normative’ political theory on the other. Ecology requires that political theories be adapted
to take into account naturals limits and non-humans.”

Green politics (also known as eco-politics), the term indicates that the politics used to
preserve the green, the nature, the environment is called green politics.”It aims to achieve
ecologically sustainable society. It took some space and started getting recognised and
noticed during the 1970’s as there already had been the establishment of many green political
parties who had demonstrated their policies successfully. Due to their better plans and
policies for environment they had won the elections.”

In the 1970s there a Green political party ‘die Grünen  ‘, established to work on environment
mainly. “The political term ‘Green’ was used initially in relation to die Grünen (German for
"the Greens). The term "political ecology" is often used as academic term where it refers to
the study in which forms a relation between the ecological social sciences with political

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economy. It covers the topics as degradation, marginalisation, environmental conflict,
conservation of resources etc.”

“The ‘Green ideology’ is a political term for the parties that take initiative for the
environment and the social values of people thus it connects to eco-centric political
ideologies, including eco-socialism, eco anarchism and eco-feminism.”

As the left-wing Green (i.e. capital 'G') political philosophy developed,”there also came into
separate existence unrelated and polar opposite movements on the right that include
ecological components such as green conservatism and eco-capitalism.”

Environmentalism
It centralises at the movements and actions that are led by either the political parties or
political groups and associations to protect the environment from harmful activities.”The
main harm caused to the environment is by human activities itself, and they themselves
demand for a healthy and fir environment thus there are many parties that lead movements
and take actions against such activities which are brutally harmful for the environment. They
come up with different creative ideas that could protect the environment. They intend to
improve the relationship between use of resources by humans and the environmental
resources. The groups and parties may be political, social or economic organisation. This
whole scenario is termed ‘environmentalism’.”

Environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment
as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political,
economic, and social policies.

Environmental movement are classified into two intellectual camps:

1. Anthropocentric (human-centred) and
2. Bio - centric (life-centred).
This kind of division is also described and ‘Shallow vs. Deep ecology’ and as “techno-
centrism” versus “eco-centrism”.
Anthropocentric approaches towards the human and the impact of environmental degradation
on their health and lifestyle.”The scientific approaches can only tell what it is but the human
values sow what should be done. So this anthropocentric approach focuses on how and what
type of treatment should be given to the environment by the humans. Humans are said to be

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the species that have emotional sensitivity, so they can better understand how the
environment should be treated. The defining feature of anthropocentrism is that it considers
the moral obligations humans have to the environment to derive from obligations that humans
have to each other—and, less crucially, to future generations of humans—rather than from
any obligation to other living things or to the environment as a whole. Human obligations to
the environment are thus indirect.”
Critics of anthropocentrism have charged that it amounts to a variety of ‘human chauvinism’.
The anthropocentric approach claims that the human existence is the most important thing but
on the other hand the biocentrism views all the living and non-ling on par.”Thus by
comparing the conclusion of both the approaches we can further conclude that human is put
the liability and responsibility, morally and ethically, on his shoulders to protect the
environment.”
By the 1960s and 1970s the scientists became much advanced and their knowledge in the
environmental studies became vast and sophisticated.”They were able to grasp the causes and
consequences of the environmental degradation. Thus Appling their advanced knowledge
they made ‘environmental degradation issues’ to become a major concern. They were mainly
concerned on the capacity of the earth to take huge amount of harm caused by human
developmental activities. This concern contributed to the growth of grassroots environmental
activism in a number of countries, the establishment of new environmental nongovernmental
organizations, and the formation of environmental (“green”) political parties in a number of
Western democracies. As a result, many political agreements were signed regarding
environment protection”

Ecologism (Dobson)
Ecologism is green political theory; it is the most recent of schools of political thinking.
It focuses on issues related with the relationship between the human and non-human world,
the moral status of animals,”what is the ‘good life’, and the ethical and political regulation of
technological innovation. It also concerns about the contemporary issues such as economic
and political implications of changes in climate, overconsumption of resources, resource
competition and conflicts. This probably results into global and national inequalities.”
It is also an extremely broad school of political thought casing a wide variety of concerns
contains a number of distinct sub-schools of green thought.

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“Normative and empirical scientific elements are unexpectedly combined here which makes
it unique and distinctive from other political approaches.”
There are many green schools of thoughts that are different from each other but all of them
have the same objective that is to secure the green, to protect the environment by taking
certain reasonable measures.”There are a number of terms used to describe green political
theory ranging from ‘ecologism’, to ‘environmentalism’ or ecological political theory or
environmental political theory (Barry and Dobson, 2003).”
The theories focus on both the material/metabolic dimensions of human-nonhuman relations
as well as the ethical and political status of the nonhuman world – can propose a rather
narrow understanding of green politics.
The terms describing the green policies make people believe that it only concerns about the
nature and ecological developmental, but it is slightly different. It gives proper space to the
non-ecological and non-natural activities as well.
“The terms indicate that Ecologism and Environmentalism both are meant to magnify their
focus on nature only. But both share some difference regarding their area of coverage.
‘Ecologism’ is a far broader concept that environmentalism. ‘Environmentalism’ covers
about the nature and ecology aspects only but on the other hand ecology enlarges its hand and
cases non-environmental and non-resource concerns as well.”
“Ecologism conveys a definite and broad sense hence the philosophers use green political
theory as a more appropriate, which fully acknowledges the uniqueness of its focus on nature
while also stressing its radical approach to the organisation of human social, economic and
political relations, consistent, but not exclusively tied to or derived from its focus on the
metabolism between humans and nature.”

Early thoughts on Green Political Theory –

Some of the early thoughts in green theory can be identified and summarised as:

i) The people responded with ‘romantic’ and ‘negative’ reactions to the ‘Industrial
Revolution’. Whereas there was appositive reaction to the incompletion of French
(democratic) Revolution.
ii) People gave a negative reaction to ‘colonialism’ and ‘imperialism’ during 19 th and
20th century.

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 iii) There was an integration of science ethics and politics to resolve the socio-
ecological related issues.
iv) Issues such as overconsumption of the resource and pollution etc made people to
rethink over the concept of ‘good society’ and ‘good life’.
v) Public showed concern about ‘ecological crisis’ during the 1960s, ‘Limits to
Growth’ from the 1970s onwards, and ‘global environmental problems’ in the
1980s and also focused on global environmental issues.
vi) Growth in the politics of ‘industrialism’ (organized on a left-right continuum) by a
politics of ‘post-industrialism’ (beyond left and right);
vii) People tended to be more sensitive about their relation with the non-human world.
And got more aware about their human values.
viii) The social, political and economic policies got combined to aim at sustainable
development of the society and to promote human rights and socio-economic
equality universally.1 (Barry, 2007)

DOBSON’s GREEN POLITICAL THOUGHT

Andrew Dobson’s2 “Green Political Thought” (1995) and other writings on environmental
politics form today the staple of basic readings on the politics of the environment.

Dobson draws attention to the essential divide that separates political ecologists from
practical environmentalists.

“He strongly re-affirms the classic nature of ecological understanding which can neither be
subsumed by nor assimilated into current dominant political style. The issue is not one of
patching up industrial civilization. It calls for a complete revaluation of the priorities and
methods of technological civilization. Primary among these are the wanton squandering of
the earth’s resources and the deadly consequences of consumerist automatism.”

“In Dobson’s view, Environmentalism and Ecologism are so different so as to make their
confusion a serious intellectual mistake partly in the context of thinking about Ecologism as a
political ideology and partly in the context of an accurate representation of the radical green
challenge to the political, economic and social consensus that dominates contemporary life.

1
 Barry, J. (2007). Environment and Social Theory (2nd ed.)
2

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As far as the outcome is concerned, the following can be taken as a rough and ready
distinction between Environmentalism and Ecologism.”

“To explain, environmentalism argues for professional approach to environmental problem

secure in the belief that they can be solved without basic changes in present values or pattern
of production and consumption, and the concept of Ecologism holds that sustainable and
fulfilling existence presupposes major changes in our relationship with non-human natural
world, and in our mode of social and political life.”

“A belief in eco-centrism serves to distinguish Ecologism from other political ideologies, and
as environmentalism does not pledge to it either, it can only hybridize Ecologism at the cost
of radically altering it.”

“Dobson’s green theory3 centralises on Ecologism rather than on environmentalism. Because

he thinks that people take environmentalism as an approach to manage Ecologism. The
environmentalists make policies and strategies keeping the focus on the environmental
degradation they observe. They do not restrict or limit the growth but argue to hold the
intrinsic value of the human.”

Effect on State, Market & Economy

“Green political theory can be taken as a form of applied political theory, which shares
different ideologies to seek to make a difference and change the world or society according to
their particular political principles. The applied approach to political theory studies critically
some basic political or ethical principles such as democracy, justice, and citizenship. These
principles allow us to study the current scenario of the society in the sector that studies
environment and sustainable development.”

“The identification of these three institutions is important in that by employing them one can
get a good, if basic and rough, idea of different political ideologies as far as the relative
weight and role accorded to state, market and community in both the approaches to analyse
the current political situation and their suggestion for how it should be improved and what
their ideal society would look like. For example, most”

3
Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thought, Routledge, London, 1995

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“‘right-wing’ political ideologies, such as conservatism or liberalism, tend to favor the free
and self-regulating market i.e. capitalism, as the best institutional form for governing the
human economy. What this means is that they favor the free market for ordering and
governing the human metabolism with the non-human world, including resources, energy
sources, waste sinks. On the other hand, some ‘left-wing’ political ideologies, such as
Marxist forms of socialism, would tend to favor state-based forms of economic organization
and regulation. Here greens, in keeping with dominant strains of anarchism, differ in favoring
the community as a preferred locus of economic (and political) organization.”

“Green political theory favors, and prioritizes, the community and communal forms of
economic, cultural and political organization and regulation. This can be seen in the long-
standing green interest and support for initiatives based on the principle of ‘small is beautiful’
(Schumacher, 1973) where appropriate; ‘human scale’ technology and less centralised forms
of political democratic institutions (Sale, 1980); a suspicion of bureaucratised and
professionalised/elite modes of meeting human needs (Illich, 1971); more local, grassroots
forms of economic and political initiatives such as Transition Towns (Hopkins, 2008); and
support for more localised and cooperative forms of economic activity (Cato, 2008). Perhaps
the clearest instance of this privileging of the community is the strong preference for the
‘social economy’ over and above either market/private or state/public forms of economic life
and associated notions of the economy being embedded in, rather than completely divorced
from, human social life and social norms 4(Barry, 2012).”

Following the perspective of green political theory,”the state and market are therefore best
considered as instrumental as they support community-based forms of political and economic
organization and ways of life. Taking green political point of view, we should analyse the
details about the state and the market (and linked principles and ideas such as private
property, modes of economic organisation and the democratic regulation of the state and its
people) in relation to their contribution in assuring that political, economic and cultural life is
organised by and at the community level. Thus, while most greens (with the exception of eco-
anarchists) do not reject the state, and while they are profoundly suspicious of the
concentration and centralisation of power within and by the state, they do see a role for a
more democratised and decentralised state in regulating the market to prevent the latter from

4
Barry, J. (2012). Environment and Social Theory

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undermining key green values such as social harmony, high levels of lifestyle, human scale
integrity and the intrinsic values of work (and here greens do not conflate work with formally
paid employment). The most concerned area is that there is a responsibility for the state that it
has to regulate any market-based organisation of human economic relations to prevent the
emergence and maintenance of high levels of socio-economic inequality, since the latter is
not only corrosive of key green values - which are constitutive of community itself - but
which, as Wilkinson and Pickett demonstrate (2008), inequalities undermine key aspects of
the transition from un-sustainability.”

Western Approach
In Europe, many of the established political party originated from the social movements of
the nineteenth century such as Labour or Worker’s Movement, Farmer’s Movement and
etc.”With the institutionalization of these movements during the twentieth century, what
happened was that national level political parties have taken over many of their original
function.”

“From the 1960’s onwards many western countries experienced the emergence of the so-
called ‘new social movements’ such as Women Movement, Environmental Movement and
etc. the other important development in this context is the emergence of the new category of
actors called environmental NGO’s (ENGO’s). In global environmental politics, the ENGO’s
seem to figure more prominently than political parties.”

“From the late 1970’s onward, Green Parties were founded in most of the West European
countries. Some of them for instance, the British Ecology Party, had a radical, “deep
ecology” orientation and pleaded for de-industrialization, a “no-growth” or (even a negative
growth) and conserve rather a consumer society. Others, for instance, the German Green
Party were more pragmatic, although the conflict between the realists (realos) and
fundamentalists (fundis) dominated the scene for many years.”

From the second half of the 1980’s onwards it became more and more common to frame the
issues of environmental degradation as a global problem. “Our Common Future” the 1987
report of the Brundtland Commission, can be seen as a turning point, and a high point came
at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 in

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Rio De Janeiro. Both in the Brundtland report and Rio conference, global degradation was
defined as one of the unintended consequences of globalization.”

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ENVIRONMENTAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATION –
“An ENGO (Environmental Non-Governmental Organisation) is a non-governmental
organization in the field of environmentalism. A few of them includes WWF, Greenpeace,
Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and others. The goals of environmental
NGOs include but are not limited to creating relationships with the government and other
organizations, offering training and assistance in agricultural conservation to maximize the
use of local resources, establishing environmental solutions, and managing projects
implemented to address issues affecting a particular area. Environmental NGOs are
organizations that are not run by federal or state governments but rather have funds issued to
them by governments, private donors, corporations, and other institutions. In order to fully
understand the social, economic, and environmental effects an organization can have on a
region, it is important to note that the organization can act outside the formal processes that
state governments and other government institutions must comply with.”

The new transnational environmental organization belong to six major type as follows;

 Global Environmental Mass Organisation—

“This organizationis mass constituency based environmental groups with national
branches all over the world. The three most important are Greenpeace, WWF, and
Friends of Earth.”

 National Environmental Mass Organisation—

“Most of the organization under this category are US-based, mass membership
environmental organizations which have developed international programs, such as
Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, and others”

 Environmental Think Tank –

A characteristic example is the Ocean-Institute in Germany, the International Institute
For Environment and Development in Britain, World watch Institute in USA and
others.

 International Umbrella Organisation –

“The ENGO’s which falls under this head is the European Environmental Bureau and
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“ National Level NGO’s Coalition –

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 “These ENGO’s are most predominant in developing countries, such as The Brazilian
NGO Forum with over 1000 organization affiliated, the Indonesian Environmental
Forum (WALHI) which unites more than 450 ENGO’s country-wide and others.”

 Broad International Coalition –

This particular type of coalition ENGO’s works on specific environmental issues,
such as the Climate Action Network, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, the
Rainforest Action Network and others.

ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND CITIZENSHIP

“The concept of ‘Environmental Governance’ encompasses the relationship and interactions

among government and non-government structure, procedures and conventions. Under this
notion, power and responsibility are judiciously exercised in making an appropriate
community-friendly environmental decision. It deals with how the decisions are made, with
particular stress on the need for citizens, interest groups and communities generally to
participate and have their needs and demands fulfilled. Alongside governmental approach to
environmental problems, it is equally essential for the citizens to take their own
responsibilities and develop environmental initiatives.”

The other idea of ‘Environmental Citizenship’ which is a recent derivation includes a keen
sense of environmental responsibility implying improvement of democratic practices,
transparency and accountability of government institutions along with the civil society
participation in decision making.”This has a strongcorrelation with the protection of the
environment and the securing of social and economic justice. Good environmental
governance, in this context, is measured by the effectiveness of strategies and initiatives and
to achieve environmental goals.”

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is an idea that works for meeting human development goals and

meanwhile sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and
environmental services  on which the economic and societal development depends.”The
demanded result is a state of society where living conditions and resource use continue to
meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system.

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Sustainable development can be called as development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations.”

The other of-citied concept of ‘sustainable development’ the La Brundtland Report on ‘Our
Common Future’ has been the guiding objective of global and national policymakers. Two
basic principles guiding the work and vision of the commission are:-

a) Sustainable Development

b) Inter-disciplinary nature of world’s environmental and development problems and

their solutions.

CONCLUSION

The main issue in the encounter of ecology with the political theory is whether ecology
does undermine traditional political theories and constitutes a new theory itself.
Just as there are conservative, liberal and social;ist political theories and forums, so there are
a green political theory and green forms of social and political organization.”However,
ecology cannot provide a new paradigm through which a political theory can be constructed
on green grounds. Dealing with environmental issues involve, drawing old theoretical
perspectives such as conservatism, liberalism, socialism, and feminism.”

Also, there are non-environmental issues, not quite amenable to green criteria that have to be
answered by the old traditions.”Ecology to get meaningful has to combine with another
perspective to put together a theory politics on desirable regimes of the economic, social and
political organization.”

Ecologists do, bring new insights to political theory. “First, they show that there are natural
limits to social and political life. The later has to be evaluated in terms of natural limits and
not just only social desirability. Second, they argue that there is an intrinsic value in non-
humans that need to be accounted for in socially relevant moral evaluations.”

“These points require political theory to include factors and forces such as natural limits and
the value of non-humans. In many ways, these are revolutionary ideas for political theory in
the same way that the feminist insistence on including the ‘personal’ in political thinking has
been.”

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The second issue is the type of international diplomacy between and among the states
considering the Green Treaties signed.
“During the last two decades, the international community has called into being into being a
number of global environmental regimes, that is, a system of norms and rules that are
specified by a multilateral agreement among the relevant states to regulate national actions on
an environmental issue or a set of issues. Most regimes take the form of a convention (a
binding agreement or a legal contract) such as the conventions on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) and on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Porter and
Brown 1996:16)”

“Unfortunately, most international regimes have not been very effective in bringing
environmental degradation to a halt. Many of the most important decision is not being taken
up by states but results from technology and trade strategiesof a small number of powerful
transitional corporations. Secondly then in-capability of under-developed states to implement
the regime decision is very poor.”

The third issue in concern is the impact of ENGO’s

“The global ENGO’s are able to perform the functions which until recently heldby political
parties. With their development into a cartel, political parties have lost many of their original
functions. Besides, political parties are closely connected to individual nation-states, while
many environmental problems require transitional or global solution strategies.”

Global ENGO's now often performed at least four of the six original functions of the political
parties:

i) Articulation of interest and demand

ii) Socialization
iii) Mobilization of constituency
iv) Communication with constituency

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://www.academia.edu/172672/Environment_and_Social_Theory_2nd_edition
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism
 http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/ecologism
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy
 https://greenworld.org.uk/article/introduction-green-politics

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