literatures in rather vague and apolitical ways. It is as if the key questions are simply
about whether to be ‘green’ or not, rather than about the radically different political
alternatives that make these claims. It is in this depoliticized atmosphere that it
becomes possible to pose the questions with which this chapter began – over the
relevance of democratic deliberation, contention and struggle.
This increasingly disempowering style of debate is reinforced by a growing
climate of ‘environmental authoritarianism’. Interventions by prominent global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) help set the mood – for instance, by loudly
asserting that there are ‘one hundred months to save the planet’ (Hulme, 2010).
If they are lucky, such polemics will be forgotten before they are refuted. However,
they are widely repeated. The result is to further polarize politics simply around
compliance or rejection of particular apocalyptic assertions. Little space is left for
more nuanced scepticism or challenge over all-important details. Crucially, this
negative emphasis on uncompromising technical fears suppresses roles for demo -
cratic struggle over contending positive hopes.
Growing authoritarianism is also evident in the ways that many influential
institutions in environmental governance are increasingly deprioritizing previously
hard-won duties to be transparent, responsive and accountable to citizens and
public interests, in favour of more covert strategies for the ‘nudging’ of ‘users’ and
‘consumers’. Public, private and civil society organizations alike seem ever more
preoccupied with controlling and explaining their prior established ends and
means, rather than listening or adapting to criticism. Risk is repeatedly interpreted
in terms of reputation. Trust is addressed overwhelmingly as an appropriate
response by the powerless in favour of the powerful, rather than the other way
around.
Behind this, the roots of environmental challenges are increasingly located in
the ‘behaviour’ of ordinary people, rather than in the powerful vested interests
that so actively constrain and condition associated growing individualism, con -
sumerism and materialism. The diagnosis increasingly moves away from explicitly
political struggle, towards more apparently technical and psychologistic ‘behaviour
management’. By emphasizing the centrality of supposedly undifferentiated hardwired ‘human nature’, appreciation is attenuated for critical argument and demo -
cratic struggle. Attention is drawn even further away from the potential for
pro gressive political action to challenge particular incumbent interests. In this
‘end of history’ illusion, the contrasting environmental and justice implications are
lost, even of relatively proximate ‘varieties of capitalism’. Conflated into seemingly
amorphous depoliticized inevitability, the prospect for more diverse, creative and
progressive forms of social transformation are rendered even less imaginable.
The implicit expectation seems to be that the powers doing all the nudging
and controlling will somehow be kept benign simply by the manifest gravity of
the professed rationales. The more assertive and apocalyptic the envisaged threat,
the more desperately necessary this expectation. Yet neither history nor current
affairs suggest any guarantee that such expectations will be delivered. Many historic
56 Andy Stirling
about whether to be ‘green’ or not, rather than about the radically different political
alternatives that make these claims. It is in this depoliticized atmosphere that it
becomes possible to pose the questions with which this chapter began – over the
relevance of democratic deliberation, contention and struggle.
This increasingly disempowering style of debate is reinforced by a growing
climate of ‘environmental authoritarianism’. Interventions by prominent global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) help set the mood – for instance, by loudly
asserting that there are ‘one hundred months to save the planet’ (Hulme, 2010).
If they are lucky, such polemics will be forgotten before they are refuted. However,
they are widely repeated. The result is to further polarize politics simply around
compliance or rejection of particular apocalyptic assertions. Little space is left for
more nuanced scepticism or challenge over all-important details. Crucially, this
negative emphasis on uncompromising technical fears suppresses roles for demo -
cratic struggle over contending positive hopes.
Growing authoritarianism is also evident in the ways that many influential
institutions in environmental governance are increasingly deprioritizing previously
hard-won duties to be transparent, responsive and accountable to citizens and
public interests, in favour of more covert strategies for the ‘nudging’ of ‘users’ and
‘consumers’. Public, private and civil society organizations alike seem ever more
preoccupied with controlling and explaining their prior established ends and
means, rather than listening or adapting to criticism. Risk is repeatedly interpreted
in terms of reputation. Trust is addressed overwhelmingly as an appropriate
response by the powerless in favour of the powerful, rather than the other way
around.
Behind this, the roots of environmental challenges are increasingly located in
the ‘behaviour’ of ordinary people, rather than in the powerful vested interests
that so actively constrain and condition associated growing individualism, con -
sumerism and materialism. The diagnosis increasingly moves away from explicitly
political struggle, towards more apparently technical and psychologistic ‘behaviour
management’. By emphasizing the centrality of supposedly undifferentiated hardwired ‘human nature’, appreciation is attenuated for critical argument and demo -
cratic struggle. Attention is drawn even further away from the potential for
pro gressive political action to challenge particular incumbent interests. In this
‘end of history’ illusion, the contrasting environmental and justice implications are
lost, even of relatively proximate ‘varieties of capitalism’. Conflated into seemingly
amorphous depoliticized inevitability, the prospect for more diverse, creative and
progressive forms of social transformation are rendered even less imaginable.
The implicit expectation seems to be that the powers doing all the nudging
and controlling will somehow be kept benign simply by the manifest gravity of
the professed rationales. The more assertive and apocalyptic the envisaged threat,
the more desperately necessary this expectation. Yet neither history nor current
affairs suggest any guarantee that such expectations will be delivered. Many historic
56 Andy Stirling