2 - What Is Green Politics?

Summary

What is Green politics? Ecological thinking can be understood very narrowly, and quite broadly, even in its political manifestations. Like other political ideologies and perspectives, it has things to say across the whole gamut of issues facing society and though there are elements of feminism, pacifism and anarchism in Green political theory, it has its own identity and intellectual heritage and, I argue, a coherent set of critiques, visions and strategies for achieving them in global politics. Despite some of the core areas of consensus around which most Greens would converge, there is a wide spectrum of positions that sit under the broad umbrella of Green politics and many tensions and areas of disagreement amongst them. The term covers a spectrum of sometimes competing perspectives over values, politics and strategy. Here I provide a brief typology of different strands of Green political thinking.