Creating Sovereign People’s Authorities (SPAs) would constitute a first step in transforming states and societies to make them more sustainable and desirable in the eyes of their citizens. Having supreme power, SPAs would be able to make further changes to the political-institutional framework of the state. Currently, these frameworks serve the interests of the most powerful groups, classes, and/or elites of societies and the prevailing (predominantly capitalist) economic systems. The interwovenness of political and economic systems (forming political-economic systems) makes it very difficult if not impossible for advocates of public and general interests (including environmental protection) to alter the prevailing interpretations of the main (core) functions of the state and to bring about political-institutional changes (of rules and organisations) that serve public rather than private interests. Once SPAs have been established, they have the power to break down these obstacles and to fundamentally transform state institutions to make them more responsive to the views and priorities of the people as defined by SPAs.
States remain the most important political institutions through which societies can make collective decisions. Notwithstanding globalisation, states fulfil a range of core functions (security, economic, conflict management, social integration) that are still crucially important for meeting the needs of a country’s citizens. However, to ensure that these functions are interpreted and defined with public rather than primarily private interests in mind, the state institutions (including the public service) will need to be democratised to enable representative groups of citizens to partake in the policy formation process. Moreover, environmental protection must be added to the core functions of the state. Yet, it has been given less weight than the four traditional functions, with the result that the latter often prevail at the expense of the former. This will involve, among other things, the creation of much more powerful environmental state institutions.
Greening states
The need or imperative for states to assign a higher, arguably the highest, priority to environmental protection can be referred to as the challenge of greening states. This greening of states (also referred to as the creation of ecostates) has received considerable attention in the literature.[1] However, many of the ideas on this front assume that this greening process is incremental and occurs within the (mainly capitalist) political-economic order. Also, it has been argued that this process takes a long time and is neither linear nor irreversible. Conceived as such, the process of greening states appears to align with real-world developments. Even after fifty years of ecostate building, there is little evidence that the capacity of states to deal effectively with the environmental challenge has increased significantly; if anything, from the 1980s, with the onset of the neoliberal era, it has declined. If, as is sometimes argued, there are parallels between the development of the welfare state and the ecostate, and if it took fifty to eighty years for welfare states to arrive at their present mode, then this confirms that there is little merit in waiting for another thirty years before ecostates reach a point at which they are as (in-) effective as they are today![2] Therefore, much deeper and more fundamental political-institutional change will be required if meaningful progress towards sustainability is to be achieved.
Greening states involves much more than simply adding an environmental function to the state’s existing functions. While creating (new) institutions (rules and organisations) for tackling environmental issues and the development of (comprehensive) environmental policy (green planning) are essential, greening the state also implies that the other (non-environmental) functions of the state are brought into line with environmental imperatives. This applies to all four functions: security, economic, conflict management, and social integration. The state’s institutions and policies that are responsible for these functions need to integrate these environmental imperatives so that these areas are no longer sources of new environmental pressures and problems but, instead, fulfil their functions in ways that are at least compatible or complementary, but preferably supportive of, environmental goals. Therefore, all the state’s institutions, especially those that have (potentially) significant environmental impacts, must be greened so that they help to protect the environment.
Environmental integration requires taking a coordinated approach. It is crucial to assign responsibility for overall environmental integration within the state to a core government agency that sits at or near the apex of the political hierarchy. Such an agency would be responsible for implementing the overarching policy framework adopted by SPAs to ensure that all other government departments and agencies adhere to environmental imperatives and goals. This agency, which could be named a Ministry for Sustainability, would need to be assigned the power and resources to ensure that environmental integration and protection are pursued in a comprehensive and coordinated way, and that non-environmental institutions, in particular those that harbour or support the primary sources or causes of environmental pressure, are brought into line with such an approach. Thus, this core/apex agency would be the motor driving the greening of the economic system and processes, as well as the government institutions and systems that steer policies and developments in the energy, agriculture, industry, transport, urban development, health, education, science and technology, defence, and other areas.
This process of greening the state goes beyond what has been referred to as transition management (TM). TM, which arose in the Netherlands as part of the country’s green planning efforts, is based on the recognition that more than policy adjustments are required to achieve long-term environmental goals (such as further significant reductions in polluting emissions).[3] Furthermore, it was acknowledged that systemic and structural changes are required. This applies, in particular, to the systems of highly environmentally relevant sectors, such as energy, transport, and agriculture. However, as it is (not yet) known what systems can or should replace the existing systems (transition to what?), most TM advocates deem that an evolutionary approach is required and desirable. This approach involves the active involvement of all major stakeholders (including existing industries) to determine the options and possible scenarios, and which ones appear most feasible and economic. Conceived in this way, TM is a technocratic and reformist approach to greening, focused foremost on technological change that is seen as achievable and advantageous to the vested interests in the sectors involved, without considering broader political, social, and ethical aspects.[4]
Democratising states
This points to the need to democratise the state’s institutions. Rather than leave the transformation of states and societies to experts, this process should be guided by the collective citizens of a country. While experts play an essential role, decisions about the kind of changes deemed necessary always involve making value-based judgments. Technology, including managerial “techniques” and policy tools aimed at driving social and economic change, is never neutral in allocating and distributing costs and benefits and the ultimate goals that such changes are meant to serve. While an SPA would have the responsibility and power to define the latter, such an agency cannot or should not get bogged down in deliberations about policy details. However, to prevent an SPA’s policy goals from being undermined or sabotaged in the policy implementation process by state officials and/or lobbying efforts of powerful economic and “private” interests, citizens must be actively involved in that process. While some ideas on how bureaucracies should and can be democratised can be found in the literature (including from advocates of deliberative democracy), there is still much work to be done on that front. Of particular importance in that context is to ensure that those citizens who participate in such processes are not just self-selected or “hand-picked” groups that are far from representative of a country’s population as a whole.
Although much remains to be done to figure out how states can be democratised and greened, I will briefly touch upon one area in which change is both of great strategic importance, environmentally essential, and highly desirable: local government.
Democratising and strengthening local government
In many countries, local government is the poor cousin of the system of government. While national-level governments, federal governments, and the states or provinces in countries like the United States, Australia, and Canada hold significant political power, local (and small regional) governments are often saddled with responsibilities rather than with substantial power and resources. Yet, local governments are of great importance for advancing sustainability and protecting or creating biophysical environments that meet the needs of, and are considered desirable by, local citizens. In the first instance, local governments have an essential role to play in putting the brakes on unsustainable development in areas like spatial and urban planning, roading and public transport, pollution and waste management, and the management (or exploitation) of natural resources, including water, energy, productive land, and natural areas. They also play or should play crucial roles in the provision of social and public health services (including social housing) and of collective goods (including parks and recreational facilities, libraries, and cultural centres), all of which make a big difference to the quality of life enjoyed (nor not) by the people living within their boundaries. In many respects, local government is more directly relevant to human well-being and environmental quality than national-level government.
Yet, the importance of local government is often highly underestimated. Frequently denigrated as agencies responsible mainly for the three Rs (roads, rubbish, and rates), local councils are commonly the target of much political dissatisfaction and frustration, complaints about high rates (local taxes), and accusations of wastefulness. Scepticism about the importance of local government is commonly reflected in lower electoral participation rates compared to national elections. It must be acknowledged that, at times, weak public esteem for local politics and politicians is not helped by displays of incompetence, political infighting, and the absence of inspiring, visionary, and charismatic leaders. At the same time, local electoral systems encourage political candidates to take an apolitical stance (in terms of party politics) and advocate for the entire community, but without a clear programme shared by a group or party. Additionally, many local politicians have a personal stake in development and growth, which are often portrayed as priorities for the community, but this can lead to increased environmental degradation. Such systems make local governments virtually unaccountable, as voters do not know what to expect when electing councillors. All councillors can blame each other for not achieving anything. At the same time, state or national governments have no difficulty riding roughshod over local democracy when deemed necessary or desirable. While this sketch of local government may present a highly generalised and distorted picture that does not apply to particular countries and/or local polities, I hold it up here, even if it is a caricature, as something that does not look much, if at all, like the local government system that is needed to advance sustainable and desirable societies.[5]
Again, the key to systemic change lies in tilting the power imbalance towards the people the system is meant to serve. Rather than being represented by highly unrepresentative individuals, membership of local government councils could be determined by sortition to create more representative bodies. There is no reason why local citizens’ councils constituted on this basis would be less able or capable of dealing with local government issues than existing councils. Rather, they would include a broader range of capabilities than is often found among present council members. However, given the likelihood that short-term and day-to-day issues will dominate the agenda of such councils, it would be necessary for local councils to be fitted into a nested system of local and regional government in which citizens’ agencies representing larger geographical areas, also constituted by sortition, would carry responsibility for the development and adoption of regional long-term sustainability plans that provide a binding policy framework for local councils. Such regional entities (Regional Citizens’ Authorities?)[6] obviously will need to be equipped with the scientific and administrative support capacity to be able to build a good picture of the environmental capacity of a region, to set strict boundaries, limits, and rules within which all economic and other activity needs to operate, and to work hard at the ecological restoration and strengthening the environmental resilience of the region.
In combination, such a system of genuinely representative nested political institutions at the local, regional, and national levels would significantly shift the power imbalance inherent to existing state institutions towards agencies that embody a much broader range of values, interests, and ideologies. Nonetheless, as noted above, this rebalancing of political-institutional power does not imply that the enormous inequality in economic power within societies disappears. As long as this inequality exists, it will continue to threaten (more) egalitarian and democratic political institutions. Therefore, economic transformation is also a high-priority and imperative endeavour.
References
[1] For some of the contributions on this front, see Eckersley, Robyn (2004), The Green State. Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Cambridge, Mass.The MIT Press; Meadowcroft, James (2005), “From Welfare State to Ecostate”, in J. Barry and R. Eckersley (eds.), The State and the Global Ecological Crisis. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 3-23; Meadowcroft, James, “Greening the State?”, in Steinberg, P. F. and S. D. VanDeveer (eds.), Comparative Environmental Politics. Theory, Practice and Prospects. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, pp.63-86; Mol, Arthur P. J. (2016), “The Environmental Nation State in Decline”, Environmental Politics, Vol.25, No.1, 48-68; Duit, Andreas, et al. (2016), “Greening Leviathan: The Rise of the Environmental State?”, in Steinberg, P. F. and S. D. VanDeveer (eds.), Comparative Environmental Politics. Theory, Practice and Prospects. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, pp.63-86; Sommerer, Thomas and Sijeong Lim (2016), “The Environmental State as a Model for the World? An Analysis of Policy Repertoires in 37 Countries”, Environmental Politics, Vol . 25, No.1, pp.92-115.
[2] For a comparison between social welfare states and ecostates, see Meadowcroft, James, “From Welfare State to Ecostate”, 16.
[3] Kemp, René, et al. (2007), “Assessing the Dutch Energy Transition Policy: How Does It Deal with Dilemmas of Managing Transitions?”, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, Vol.9, No.3-4, 315-331; Kern, F. and M. Howlett (2009), “Implementing Transition Management as Policy Reforms: A Case Study of the Dutch Energy Sector”, Policy Sciences, Vol.42, No.4, 391-408; Kemp, René and Jan Rotmans (2009), “Transitioning Policy: Co-Production of a New Strategic Framework for Energy Innovation Policy in the Netherlands”, Policy Sciences, Vol.42, No.4, 303-322; Ministerie voor Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening and Milieu (VROM), Een Wereld En Een Wil. Nationaal Milieubeleidsplan 4. The Hague: VROM, 64-68.
[4] See Meadowcroft, James (2009), “What About the Politics? Sustainable Development, Transition Management, and Long Term Energy Transitions”, Policy Sciences, Vol.42, No.4, 323-340; Hendriks, Carolyn (2009), “Policy Design without Democracy? Making Democratic Sense of Transition Management”, Policy Sciences, Vol.42, No.4, 341-368; Smith, Adrian and Florian Kern (2009), “The Transitions Storyline in Dutch Environmental Policy”, Environmental Politics, Vol.18, No.1, 78-98.
[5] It is appropriate here to acknowledge that this picture of local government is heavily influenced by what I have seen and experienced in my home country, New Zealand (specifically, in Auckland, the Canterbury Region, and Tauranga).
[6] Depending on the geographical setting and the extent to which an area has been urbanised, such Regional Citizens’ Authorities could represent a conglomeration of the built-up regions (a metropolis). However, given the far broader (national and even international) environmental impacts and ecological footprint of such conglomerations, it would make sense to assign the responsibility for long-term sustainability planning for such areas to a (national level) Sovereign People’s Authority. An SPA may deem it necessary to halt urban sprawl, de-urbanise metropolitan conglomerations, and promote a population distribution based on regional environmental capacities.