Book Review: The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty

Updated: 11/18/08 - Robyn Eckersley's book, The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty, deserves attention for being the first comprehensive attempt by a political theorist, in tune with Green Party politics, to articulate a green version of the state as an actor dealing constructively with both domestic and international political issues.

Green Party political activity in western states has experienced significant, but limited political electoral success, with the German Green Party - Social Democratic Party coalition (1998-2005) serving as an example.

Theoretical support for Green Party political activity also has been limited. As Eckersley rightly points out, green thinking about the state and international politics has been critical or antistatist in nature, providing Greens in power with less than adequate philosophical grounds for decision making.

In addressing these issues, Eckersley proposes a theoretical foundation for a Green State rather than providing a "how to" chronicle for Green Party activists looking to improve their party's electoral standing. Defending the need for a green state rests partially on the assumption of the liberal state's inability to effectively address global environmental problems.

The assumption is based on a limited critical analysis of international relations theory. Eckersley's analysis tends to over emphasize the contrast between conflict and cooperation embedded in the dominant international relations policy paradigms, realism and liberalism. Maybe the over emphasis results from Eckerdsly's reliance on Waltz's systems approach to Realism (Theory of International Politics) the Neoliberal Institutionalist agenda started by Keohane and Nye (Power and Interdependence) as the key examples of international relations theory.

Starting from this view point, Eckersley characterizes Realists as pessimistic and the Neoliberal Institutionalists as narrow problem solvers, "like realists, they take the state system and state interests and identities, as unproblematic background immutables." (p. 30).

At times, reading Waltz leads to the opinion that he is a bit of a gloomy Gus. Given the subject matter, and the timeframe in which the book was written, the mood is understandable.

Rereading Waltz, however, reveals his concern with both practical and theoretical questions of interstate conflict. He basically argues that understanding interstate conflict requires a change of thinking from the traditional individual level of analysis to a systems level analysis. A systems theory of conflict assumes that theories relying solely on state behavior (assuming states as individual unitary actors), are necessary, but not sufficient theories for understanding the causes of war.

While there may be some merit to the traditional individual level of analysis, Waltz argues (p.61) that, "Just as peacemakers may fail to make peace, so troublemakers may fail to make trouble." Something systemic serves as a causal mechanism for war and peace.

Because Waltz's subject matter is war, he is often cited as a conflict theorist. While his subject matter overwhelmingly deals with war, Waltz's systems theory also, at least tangentially, deals with peaceful structural transformation. Waltz devotes only a few sentences to the topic. For example, he says (p.70) "A structural change is a revolution, whether or not violently produced, and it is so because it gives rise to new expectations about the outcomes that will be produced by the acts and interactions of units whose placement in the system varies with changes in structures."

Given the fact that soon after Waltz's book was published the world witnessed an historic peaceful structural transition from a Cold War to post Cold War era, perhaps his theory would have been better served had he included more thought on peaceful structural transformation.

Criticisms of neoliberal institutionalism as narrow problems solving also deserves consideration. Time and circumstances tend to make it difficult to untangle neoliberal institutional theory from its practical problem solving element.

Neoliberal Institutionalists generally point to legal agreements as the end result of their thinking about cooperation and conflict. Collective action, primarily in the form of UN resolutions, for example, grounds a large element of their conflict resolution theory.

Building on the theoretical and practical work of the post WWII predecessors, early regime theorists conceptualized regimes as mechanisms for reducing uncertainty among state actors. The cost and benefits associated with regime building and maintenance, they hypothesized, would serve as factors affecting a state's calculus on the costs and benefits associated with either continuing or decoupling from any specific regime.

The post-WWII international trade regime for example, emerged from the security and economic interests of the day. Proponents of a multilateral trading system hoped to not only spur economic growth and development, but also to create a structural arrangement that gave states a reason to pause and consider the economic consequences associated with starting a war. At the time, they recognized that the previous trade system, characterized by a series of discreet regional trading blocs (developed in conjunction with colonialism), provided no such pausing mechanism.

The increase in the number and scope of inter-state institutions evidenced in the post-WWII era can rightfully be attributed to state and non-state actors' needs to coordinate their activities on the many issues, including trade, that define life in a complex world.

Notwithstanding the hard lessons learned by their predecessors in the immediate post-WWII era, it might be fair to suggest that, at least from a practical point of view, the transition from the Cold War to the post Cold War era, with its emphasis on economic over security matters, created an environment whereby neoliberal institutionalists continued their work reflecting an attitude that considered "the state system and state interests and identities, as unproblematic background immutables".

Considering also the implementation and enforcement problems associated with regimes, including those dealing with issues of war and peace, may lead to the perception that regime building, as we know it today, does little more than benefit members and supporters of the neo-liberal institutionalist construction company. That perception, justified or not, can be a source of conflict not easily resolved in a formal-legal world that lacks adequate enforcement capabilities.

Paradigmatic strengths and weaknesses aside, at issue is Eckersley's adoption of the competing paradigms as the starting point for a critical reflection on international relations theory. By doing so, she misses many points made by the rational international relations theorists such as Stein (Why Nations Cooperate, 1990 Cornell University Press), who see a world characterized by both conflict and cooperation. These theorists can be either liberal Realists that provide a more optimistic view of states in anarchy, or realistic Liberal Institutionalists who takes seriously the problems of states in anarchy.

As one of many tools in the international relations theory toolbox, rationality offers international relations theorists a means for integrating the Realist's conflict and the Neoliberal Institutionalist's cooperation paradigms.

Green theorists such as Eckersly deserve credit for promoting theories of the good state. From a domestic politics point of view, such theories of the state are capable of standing on their own considerable merit. In a world characterized by states in anarchy, their theories still need to address the security concerns of Realists, Neoliberal Institutionalists, Neocons, Liberals, liberal Realists, realistic Liberals and many other mainstream theorists equally concerned with issues of peace and sustainable development.

Fortunately, the task may not be overly onerous. Eckersley's philosophical approach to problem solving, self-identified as an ecocentric approach (Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach) builds on the principle of the ontological priority of events over actors.

Despite its limited examination of peaceful structural transitions, Waltz's Theory of International Politics, at the very least, succeeded in convincing one or two generations of international relations theorists of the importance of giving ontological priority to the system over either the state (as actor) or the structure of any historical international political construct, as the analytical starting point for understanding questions of war, peace and sustainable development.

Given the fact that the International Relations academic world tends to shoehorn theories into conflict and cooperation paradigms, not to mention the fact that Departments of Peace spring up leading to the erroneous assumption that the discipline of International Relations deals exclusively with war issues, how can International Relations theory advance?

All things being equal, it might be fair to say that with a tinge of rationality, and recognition that the gloomy side of life tends to visit everyone, both Eckersley and Waltz's theoretical perspectives compliment eachother.

Both perspectives seem to allow for a wide range of thinking about peaceful sustainable development in terms of individuals and states, purposively acting in the context of a system with a particular structual arrangement. Alder's 1992 work, The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control (International Organization 46(1)), for example, reminds us that it was the activities of both Realists and Liberals on both sides of the Cold War who deserve credit for peacefully resolving the conflict.

In other words, while there might not be universal solution for peace, there are more than a handful of examples of peace emerging at specific points of history because of the purposive actions of individuals.