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Green States And Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway
Author(s): John Dryzek (Author)
- Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
- Publication Date: 10 April 2003
- Language: English
- Print length: 240 pages
- ISBN-10: 0199249032
- ISBN-13: 9780199249039
Book Description
Social movements take shape in relation to the kind of state they face, while over time states are transformed by the movements that they both incorporate and resist. Green States and Social Movements is a comparative study of the environmental movement’s successes and failures in four very different states: the U.S.A., U.K., Germany and Norway. The history covers the entire sweep of the modern environmental era that begins in 1970. The end in view is a green transformation of the state and society on a par with earlier transformations that gave us first the liberal capitalist state and then the welfare state. The authors explain why such a transformation is now most likely in Germany, and why it is least likely in the United States, which has lost the status of environmental pioneer that it gained in the early 1970s. Their comparative analysis also explains the role played by social movements in making modern societies more deeply democratic, and yields insights into the strategic choices of environmental movements as they decide on what terms to engage, enter or resist the state. Sometimes it makes sense for a movement to act conventionally, as a green party or set of interest groups. But sometimes inclusion can mean co-optation, in which case a movement can instead emphasize action in and through civil society.
Editorial Reviews
Review
… an excellent example of symbiosis between comparative institutional politics and political theory. s
… go a long way in addressing an important and but underresearched topic in comparative politics. s
