10 - World Society to the Rescue?

Summary

In Chapter 10, I engage all three conceptual dimensions of world society as the basis for a closer examination of the role that non-state actors play in the greening of international society. In a first step, I discuss the normative aspirations of global environmentalism that animate non-state actors’ engagement with international diplomacy: how it relates to the Bull’s ‘great society of humankind’, the solidarist ideal of a world of individuals held together by common environmental values and identities; and whether the existence of multiple environmental values instead points to a more pluralist structure of environmental world society. In a second step, I review the role that non-state actors play in shaping the outcomes in interstate environmental politics, but I also consider the reverse perspective of how engagement with the world of diplomacy shapes global environmental activism. In the final part, I consider the question of an emerging integrated world society, which grows out of the ever-deeper involvement of states and non-state actors in the creation of global environmental governance.