From companionship with nature to green growth : competing conceptualisations of well-being and the environment in Finnish and German green parties, 1980-2002

Abstract
This dissertation engages in studying the development of environmental ideas using Finnish and German Green Parties as case studies. These parties were established as representatives of the 1970s radical environmental movements and their ideals. Their political thinking was marked by the intention to question the basic presuppositions of Western thought, including materialism, anthropocentrism and hierarchic domination of nature. Subordinating nature to the needs of economic growth and competitiveness was perceived as a continuation of these basic presuppositions, leading not only to environmental degradation but also to various social problems. The Greens questioned the practices and institutions drawn from these presuppositions, including the attainment of economic growth as the basis of politics. During the 1990s, the parties changed their ideological direction. No longer drawing ideas from the tradition of radical eco-philosophy, the Greens relied now on the moderate tradition of (and political concepts provided by) environmental economics. This turn, causing the disappearance of the earlier critique of basic Western presuppositions, was conducted by employing such moderate environmental concepts as sustainable development and ecological modernisation to political use. Earlier growth criticism, which had injured the green parties’ ability to function effectively in party politics, disappeared. My study demonstrates that this turn was caused by the collision of radical environmental thought stemming from grassroots movements and the political and economic realities of the established power structures. Although it was initially caused by the internal strives and conflicts within the studied green parties, the turn also represents a larger change in environmental thinking. The moderate turn popularised the ideal of ’green consumption’, which, however, turns out to be only one of many different forms of environmentalism, all of which have varying political and often even economic interests underlying them. Meanwhile, mapping different environmental concepts helps better understand the public environmental discussions today.
Main Author
Format
Theses Doctoral thesis
Published
2023
Series
ISBN
978-951-39-9786-1
Publisher
Jyväskylän yliopisto
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-9786-1Käytä tätä linkitykseen.
ISSN
2489-9003
Language
English
Published in
JYU Dissertations
License
In CopyrightOpen Access
Copyright© The Author & University of Jyväskylä

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