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
'Environment' in Sociological Theory
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).
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