Green public spheres and the green governance state: the politics of emancipation and ecological conditionality

Abstract

A consistent thread weaves through all the articles in this edition. Each author, in some fashion, reflects upon the dual concepts of a 'global green public sphere' and the 'global governance state', as they intersect with the politics of environmentalism. Indeed, as is evidenced in the preceding pages, the politics of green concern transmute into a myriad of different collective forms. Despite this diversity of responses found within and between environmental groups, we conclude that most greens cross boundaries in a positive fashion. Through the construction of transnational networks of solidarity, movements become global entities, acting in concert to protect ecosystems and emancipate humans and non-humans from degradation and subjugation and expanding the public sphere of green debate transnationally. In certain instances, however, environmentalism is used as a tool for continued conquest and domination. These instances, although not generally reflective of green movements as a whole, are often writ large due to the relative power, in comparative terms, of the proponents. 'Environment', therefore, can be either a symbol for liberation or repression; emancipation or conditionality. It can be used to support democracy or, alternatively, to support authoritarianism; it can be used to attack neoliberalism and corporate-controlled globalisation, and it can be used to support it; it can be used to lionise concepts of 'the local', and it can be utilised to denigrate local systems of meaning in a neocolonial fashion.