POL 358 Week 3

1. POL 358Week 3 The Green Economy Challenges and Perspectives

2. Today’s lecture • Short review from last week- studying PP. • Particular issue- economic policy (interest rates, budgeting, taxation, role of government –privatization-, int’l trade policy) • Conceptualizing environment-economy links

3. Policy Evaluation • Criteria for evaluation and problem definition are very important. • Consistency is a real issue for effective policy- internal, vertical, horizontal. • Common tools of measurement • Quantitative (mostly)/Qualitative • GDP growth • Job creation/Employment figures • Good policy analysis is: • Self critical/aware of bias. • Systematic.

5. Economic Policy • Economic policy goals under liberal capitalism- • Economic growth (expansion of GDP via markets). • Full employment managing inflation. • ‘Development’ (Skills, technology, attracting finance). • Environmental policymaking is often separate from (institutionally and conceptually) economic. Primacy in to ‘the economy’ as a policy issue. • Canadian policies are rooted in ideational frameworks of technological optimism, political representative democracy and economic liberalism.

6. Tools of measurement • Indicators like GDP are used to measure ‘standard of living’ and health of the economy. Based on assumption that more wealth in country leads to better living for residents. • C=consumption, Inv= investment, G= government spending, and trade balance (exports-imports). • Critiques: • Ignores wealth concentration (GINI). • Ignores unpaid work (housework, volunteer work) and barter. • Ignores quality of environment or resource usage/person (ecological footprint) • Other indicators, GPI, HDI, GNH, Happy Planet Index (eco eff. of hap). • Each indicator gives a different picture of what is ‘good’ for an economy and relies on different values.

7. Green Economy Definition Q: What is an economy? Et: Household management. Oeconomia- gk. The system of production, distribution and consumption in a society. Conventionally made up of factors: land, labour and capital. Can be planned and public or unplanned and private (with variations in between-mixed). Q: What is green? 1. A lovely colour. 2. A descriptor (like ‘red’) to signify a particular political concern- in this case, the environment. There are many different competing conceptions of how environmental problems can best be addressed by social and economic systems. (For example, shades of green- astroturf and green wash to ‘deep green’). Therefore, the term ‘green economy’, at a very minimum, signifies an understanding that the environment and economy are significantly intertwined. With that comes policies and plans to ‘transition’ to more sustainable economic systems.

8. Green Economy Lens: Rationale • Market/social failures and problems (PE debate) w/incentives and externalities. Cost shifting . • Economic policymaking too narrow/important (inter-departmental collaboration needed) • Empirical problems -fisheries, climate change, deforestation, pollution, GMOs, etc.

9. The Embedded Economy

10. The State and the Economy • Many market fundamentalists advocate a minimalist or ‘night watchman’ state. Most who study the environment argue for an expanded role for the state to solve collective action problems associated with enviro. • Hardin’s (1968) ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is a typical justification given for state policy. • “freedom in the commons brings ruin to all” • Ostrom (1990s). Common Property Regimes= excludable and subtractable (alternative). • Limits to Growth (Bruntland report 1986). • Key issue in environment and development. • Has implications for economic/development/trade policy. • Vs Cornucopian

11. Environment and Development • Key issues are: distribution of costs and benefits and role of growth. North/South. • Bruntland Report (WCED 1987). Definition of sustainability: • “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

12. Political ideologies • Liberal-capitalist-representative vs ecologist-socialist-direct democracy. • Big debates on role of state, role of growth. • “governments should steer, not row”. • A new issue or a game-changer? • Anthropocentrism vs Ecocentrism. • Astroturf to deep green.

13. Scales of Green • Contrast Doyle and McEachern with Dauvergne and Clapp’s typologies: • Market liberals (growth, markets). • Institutionalists (rules, IOs). • Bioenvironmentalists (pop. and limits). • Social greens. • Differences in scale, whether politics or economics is the focus. • Differences in explanatory actor. Eg. Maniantes- individualization. Is the issue global capitalism or individual choice? • Dauvergne and Clapp are more PE, McKenzie is more political theory/philosophy. • D&C are also only looking at diversity within self identified greens.

14. Agents and Structures • A theory is: a set of statements or facts devised to explain a particular phenomena. • Different theories put weights on different actors. Individuals-vs-institutions-vs-’the system’; economic vs political; physical vs cultural/social. • Various theories of social change- individ. one is very Smithian/idealist. B/c of power and coordination problems (Haiti). • Maniates (social green) critiques IPAT for depoliticization. • IPAT: (enviro) impact= population x affluence x technology • IWAC: (enviro) impact= quality of work x meaningful consumption alternatives x political creativity. • Meadows (in Maniates) “IPAT is just what we would expect from physical scientists, said one of its critics. It counts what’s countable. It makes rational sense. But it ignores the manipulation, the oppression, the profits. It ignores a factor that [natural] scientists have a hard time quantifying and therefore don’t like to talk about: economic and political power. IPAT may be physically indisputable, but it is politically naïve.”

15. Discussion Questions • Do you think environmentalism is compatible with liberal democratic political traditions? • In what ways might the environment change how we understand politics and the appropriate role of government?