The Green State--Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (review)

The Green State is a rich, bold and captivating work. Through an approach she calls "critical political ecology," Eckersley skillfully brings together contemporary arguments from a range of literatures—green political theory, democratic theory, international relations, and globalization studies—to make a complex case for the state as a primary site of environmental democracy and justice in the 21st century.

That the state matters to the environment, for good or ill, appears axio-matic. Yet Eckersley's pro-statist argument that is neither neo-realist nor neoliberal might also seem anachronistic. Indeed, current academic trends are pre-occupied with exploring "governance without government," reflecting the putative erosion of the sovereign nation-state. Furthermore, many radical environmentalists—eco-Marxists, eco-feminists, and eco-Anarchists—harbor a deep suspicion that the state is unable to change its hue, colored as it is by collusion with capitalism, the misogynistic domination of nature, and authoritarianism. Thus, Eckersley's daunting challenge is to show how the state can be both ecologically and politically legitimate in a time when environmental problems span the boundaries of species, generations, and political geography.

For Eckersley, a state is legitimate when it defends environmental values on par with security and economic development; it is illegitimate when it does not. In her view, three core challenges stand in the way: the "anarchy" of the international state system, global capitalism, and the "limits" of the liberal democratic state. In detailed counterpoint to neo-realist and neo-liberal institutional paradigms, she promotes a critical constructivist and juridicially multilateralist model of the state. In her view, the green state would be "transnational," "postcapitalist," and "postliberal," supporting an "ecological democracy" constituted by a robust "green public sphere" marked by moral concern for future generations and non-human biotic communities. It will be capitalist in the sense that government monies will be dependent on taxed private wealth; however, economic decisions involving development, investment, production, and consumption—areas typically considered "private" in liberal democratic theory—would be "steered" by ecological and social norms enforced by the state. Moreover, though she claims that the green state is "post" not "anti" liberal in that it retains the essential constitutional architecture of the liberal democratic state, liberalism would be planted in more deliberative democratic soil. Her argument takes special aim at liberalism's muscular self-interested individualism, its "negative" conception of liberty, the reliance on instrumental and strategic reason, and the subordination of public to private goods. "Reclaiming the state" for environmental purposes, then, ultimately amounts to a revaluation of the purpose of the state. The state would function to defend environmentalism using the language of public morality and with the democratic legitimacy that comes from increased citizen participation, undistorted communication, inclusiveness, social learning, and political representation capable of admitting thenormative claims of future generations and the non-human world. For Eckersley, the success of a green state depends on more politics, not less, as a green state would politicize private goods and re-politicize public goods.

The strongest aspects of Eckersley's argument—discussion of the green public sphere, the political representation of environmental goods, and the different ways in which positive and negative conceptions of sovereignty can be greened—represent significant contributions to contemporary debate. A vibrant "green public sphere" is critical to the viability and legitimacy of a green state. Drawing in particular on Habermas's early work on the public sphere and his mature philosophy of discourse ethics and communicative democracy, a green public sphere aims at resuscitating civic republican ideals of constitutive freedom and a general will, without falling victim to nationalism, authoritarianism, or mistrust of juridical approaches to law (especially in the international arena). Like Habermas, Eckersley wishes to steer a path between liberalism and republicanism, drawing from the best of both theories. Such a strategy won't please dyed-in-the-wool liberals or civic republicans, but her creative utilization of these established political theories from a green perspective is remarkably well conceived.

Eckersley's argument concerning the political representation of future generations and the...