Viewpoints and Comments ‘Environment’ in Sociological Theory

Sociological Bulletin 

that since the most consequential ecological issues are global, forms of 

intervention would necessarily have a global basis (1990: 170). New 

forms of local, national and international democracy may emerge and 

form an essential component of any politics that seeks to transcend the 

risks and threats of modernity. Habermas, while recognising the 

limitations of modern state power, argues for the creation and defence of 

a public sphere in which a rational democratic discourse can occur. Beck 

argues for an ecological democracy as the central political response to 

the dangers of the risk society. Previously depoliticised areas of decision-

making that profoundly affect the environment must be made available 

for public scrutiny and debate. Research agendas, development plans and 

introduction of new technologies must be made open for discussion and 

at the same time legal and institutional controls on them must be made 

more effective. All the above cited scholars point to the limitations of the 

predominantly representative rather than participatory character of liberal 

democracy being an essential pre-condition for creating environmental 

sustainability.

 

Goldblatt suggests that degradation, perception and protest must be 

viewed in the context of new kinds of knowledge by  which the 

environmental problems are revealed and made available to the people. 

Lowe and Morrison highlight the role of mass media in spreading the 

new kinds of knowledge (1984)

2

. Thus, ideas of quality of life, body and 

health, aesthetic and even spiritual attitudes to nature have acquired a 

salience in environmental politics. The environmental problems, 

according to Goldblatt, have stretched the time horizon of the political 

discourse to include intergenerational justice and sustainability into the 

political moral vocabulary. Similarly, the environmental degradation and 

threats faced by the developing world have been traced to the economic 

and political activities of the west, stretching the geographical horizon of 

the contemporary concerns (1996:152).

 

In  this context, mention must be made of the large body of literature 

that has appeared on what has been called new social 

movements/politics, which include ecological movements and politics. 

The new paradigm, according to Claus Offe, can be understood as the 

'modern' critique of further modernisation in the advanced industrial 

societies of the west. This critique is based on major segments of the 

educated new middles class and carried out by unconventional, informal 

and class unspecific mode of action of this class (1985: 1986). All major 

concerns of the new socio-political movements converge on the idea that 

life itself (and good life as defined by modern values) is threatened by 

the blind dynamics of military, economic, technological and political 

rationalisation, and there are no sufficiently reliable barriers within the

 

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259 

dominant political and economic institutions to prevent them from 

becoming disasters. This explains the adoption and legitimation of 

unconventional modes of action  (Ibid: 853).

 

Most writers on the subject agree that the emergence of new social 

groups, new interests, and new values which cut across traditional class-

based alignments, pose a fundamental challenge to the existing political 

system. The new ecological movements question and challenge the 

central values and ideology of modern industrial society, much of the 

modern technology and the centralised industrial  (not just capitalist) 

mode of production and consumption resulting in high-growth, energy 

consuming and environmentally damaging way of life (Sarkar 1993:25; 

Cotgrove and Duff 1980:337-347). These movements (also called the 

extra-parliamentary movements) put forward the view that the economy 

should be based on parsimonious use of natural resources. They also 

have advanced new conceptions of development and progress. 

Development of the forces of production means for them development of 

soft and intermediate  technology; progress means for them primarily 

societal, spiritual and psychological progress (Sarkar op civ. 25).

 

Some authors point to the emergence of another form of politics, the 

world civic politics, practised by transnational environmental groups. 

These groups occupy arenas separate from the realm of government for 

organising and carrying out efforts for environmental protection. These 

arenas are found in the so-called global civil society, the level of 

associational life which exists above the individual and below the state, 

but also across national boundaries (Wapner 1996: 3-4).