What Kind of a Great Transformation? The Imperial Mode of Living as a Major Obstacle to Sustainability Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 2018
The debate over a great transformation has contributed to emphasize the depth of the social-ecological crisis and the urgency of effecting far-reaching societal change. However, it fails to provide a critical analysis of the social causes of the crisis or to properly identify the unsustainable nature of current trends. Here the concept of the imperial mode of living steps in. It sheds light on the mechanisms through which unsustainable social relations are both reproduced and obscured. It outlines the contradictions from which, once politicized, a fundamental social-ecological transformation may emerge.
Introduction Despite increasing geopolitical and geo-economic rivalry, a strong global compromise seems to exist which, on the one hand, nurtures those rivalries and deepens the ecological crisis and, on the other, constitutes a stabilising moment in the crisis of capitalism. We refer to a broad consensus in political and (social) scientific debates. The further exploitation of natural resources and the use of global sinks are considered as the basis of global capitalist development and the overcoming of its various crises. Behind this stands a global consensus about the attractiveness of modern capitalist everyday practices what we call the " imperial mode of living " (hereafter IML).
The Global Political Economy of the imperial mode of living
Global Political Economy
Despite the high politicisation of the ecological crisis, political strategies to deal with it fail to tackle the root cause of the crisis but intend to ecologically modernise capitalism. This is an entry point for critical (Global) Political Economy. First, to understand the hegemonic character of ecologically destructive social relations, GPE should focus not only on political and economic structures, but also on their anchoring in people’s everyday lives. Second, critical scholarship should examine the global political economy of social-ecological transformations in capitalist centres which go hand in hand with a deepening of neo-colonial resource extractivism in countries of the global South, even in its ‘green’ version. The concept of an imperial mode of living aims to make sense of the hegemonic character of unsustainability rooted in everyday practices. Moreover, it connects the everyday life of people in the global North to overarching social and international structures and...
The concept of transformation has become a buzzword within the last few years. This has to do, first, with the ever broader recognition of the profound character of the environmental crisis, secondly, with increasingly obvious limits to existing forms of (global) environmental governance, thirdly, with the emergence of other dimensions of the crisis since 2008 and, fourthly, with intensified debates about required profound social change, especially of societal nature relations. However, the term transformation itself is contested. It largely depends on theoretical assumptions as well as the plausibility and applicability of the arguments which are made. In this paper, a historical-materialist approach to social-ecological transformation is outlined by referring to a theoretically sophisticated understanding of 'subject(s)' of transformation as well as the 'object(s)' of what is to be transformed. Theoretical concepts like the capitalist mode of production, regulation and hegemony, a critical understanding of the state and governance as well as the term societal nature relations are key. Such a perspective contributes to a more sophisticated understanding of the obstacles and requirements of real-world transformation. Finally, the argument has implications for visions and strategies, i.e., an emancipatory and democratic shaping of social relations and societal nature relations.
The concept of transformation has become a buzzword within the last few years. This has to do, first, with the ever broader recognition of the profound character of the environmental crisis, secondly, with increasingly obvious limits to existing forms of (global) environmental governance, thirdly, with the emergence of other dimensions of the crisis since 2008 and, fourthly, with intensified debates about required profound social change, especially of societal nature relations. However, the term transformation itself is contested. It largely depends on theoretical assumptions as well as the plausibility and applicability of the arguments which are made. In this paper, a historical-materialist approach to social-ecological transformation is outlined by referring to a theoretically sophisticated understanding of " subject(s) " of transformation as well as the " object(s) " of what is to be transformed. Theoretical concepts like the capitalist mode of production, regulation and hegemony, a critical understanding of the state and governance as well as the term societal nature relations are key. Such a perspective contributes to a more sophisticated understanding of the obstacles and requirements of real-world transformation. Finally, the argument has implications for visions and strategies, i.e. an emancipatory and democratic shaping of social relations and societal nature relations.
Narrow pasts and futures: how frames of sustainability transformation limit societal change
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2020
Two frames dominate present-day interpretations of sustainability and approaches to sustainability transformation in national and global policy arenas. One frame relates to transformation in global environmental governance that promotes goal-oriented agendas. The other frame relates to earth system sciences where sustainability transformation means breaking the devastating trends of the Anthropocene. In this paper, we examine the historical and cultural underpinnings of these two frames, each invoking particular relations and approaches to sustainability transformation. Our contribution is to discuss the role of the past in these frames and to illuminate how current outlooks toward the future still rely on principles that emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe and thus hinder alternative approaches to transformation in the present.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2021
A decade ago, the German Advisory Council to the Federal Government on Global Environmental Change (Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung für Globale Umweltveränderungen-WBGU) published its main report. This attempt to take stock in 2011 made an impact and provided orientation on both a national and international scale. The WBGU report did not hold back: It aimed to show the urgent need for change in terms of sustainable development through the interplay of politics, economy, society and nature. The central message was: We need a "social contract for a Great Transformation", and it must be implemented by 2021. How is the report to be assessed today? We will summarise the positions of the WGBU report, cite its merits, and comment on them critically and constructively. Our approach examines the five main themes of the report: the global social contract; global governance using the example of the Paris Climate Agreement; acceptance by those involved and affected; the urgency of economic, political and social action; and the concept of the Great Transformation. In our critique, we suggest ways to constructively elaborate on the ideas laid out in the WBGU report, ideas that were not thought through to the end. Our focus lies particularly on how to deal with time and the concept of the Great Transformation. In doing so, we will also address the significance of technical advances, innovation and our own ignorance. The title of the report uses the term "Great Transformation" which acts as a leitmotif throughout. Put forth by Karl Polanyi (1941/44), this term, as used in the WBGU's parlance, is intended to address the far-reaching changes that a regulatory state would have to undertake, along with the participation of the global citizenry, in order to overcome the ecological crisis of the coming decades. In our conclusion, we argue that the idea of a uniformly planned and comprehensively attainable transformation of the current situation is inadequate. Instead, we have observed that different actors in different places have worked at different speeds not on a Great Transformation but on a multitude of social-ecological transformation processes. The effectiveness of such movements-which often emerge spontaneously-has grown to the present day. This gives us hope.
Review of International Political Economy, 2013
ABSTRACT This article aims to better understand the discrepancy between a relatively high level of awareness of the ecological crisis on the one hand, and insufficient political and social change on the other. This discrepancy causes a crisis of what we call the ‘Rio model of politics’. We approach the problem from the perspective of the concept of ‘society-nature relationships’ (gesellschaftliche naturverhältnisse), which can be situated in the framework of political ecology and, in this article, is combined with insights from regulation theory and critical state theory. The empirical analysis identifies fossilist patterns of production and consumption as the heart of the problem. These patterns are deeply rooted in everyday and institutional practices as well as societal orientations in the global North and imply a disproportionate claim on global resources, sinks and labour power. They thus form the basis of what we call the ‘imperial mode of living’ of the global North. With the rapid industrialisation of countries such as India and China, fossilist patterns of production and consumption are generalised. As a consequence, the ability of developed capitalism to fix its environmental contradictions through the externalisation of its socio-ecological costs is put into question. Geopolitical and economic tensions increase and result in a crisis of international environmental governance. Strategies like ‘green economy’ have to be understood as attempts to make the ecological contradictions of capitalism processable once again.