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‘Environmentalism’, ‘New Politics’ and Industrialism: Some Theoretical Perspectives
Author(s) -
Andersen Jørgen Goul
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1990.tb00432.x
Subject(s) - politics , environmentalism , rationality , industrial revolution , industrial society , environmental ethics , neoliberalism (international relations) , democracy , political science , political economy , sociology , social science , law , philosophy , anthropology
Various conceptions of ‘Environmentalism’ and ‘New Politics’ are surveyed and their logical inconsistencies are identified. It is argued that only a conception of the crisis of industrial society, not the least evident in Eastern Europe, enables a consistent understanding of ‘new politics’. From this conception, stressing the limits of man's mastery over nature on the one hand and the limits of the expansion of formal rationality on the other, the ambivalences in ‘New Politics’ between ‘pre‐industrial’ and ‘post‐industrial’ solutions are identified. The article sketches how the ‘post‐industrial’ position can be developed. Neoliberalism and ‘green’ politics are identified not only as adversaries but rather as competing responses to the crisis of industrialism and the compatibility of ‘green’ and social democratic politics is analysed.