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Don’t Call it Climate Populism: On Greta Thunberg’s Technocratic Ecocentrism
Author(s) -
Zulianello Mattia,
Ceccobelli Diego
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/1467-923x.12858
Subject(s) - technocracy , populism , elitism , key (lock) , status quo , pluralism (philosophy) , political science , sociology , political economy , environmental ethics , epistemology , philosophy , law , politics , biology , ecology
The growing popularity of Greta Thunberg has led an increasing number of pundits and scholars to consider her message to be an instance of ‘climate’ or ‘environmental’ populism. Following a qualitative content analysis of key speeches by the young activist, this paper challenges this view, and argues that her message is far from being a case of populism. On the contrary, it abides by a substantially different set of ideas that can be defined as technocratic ecocentrism. In particular, it is argued that rather than people‐centrism, anti‐elitism and vox populi , Greta Thunberg’s message is grounded on three different core ideas: ecocentrism, technocracy, and on the exaltation of the vox scientifica . However, whereas Thunberg’s technocratic ecocentrism is at odds with the foundations of the populist set of ideas, it shares a similar emphasis on monism, moralisation, a Manichean vision of the world, a critique of key features of the metapolitical status quo, and a tendency to personalisation.