Review article
POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND GREEN POLITICS
Branka Galić
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb
Abstract
After nature had become a “political question” in the 1960's, as conventional political institutions have not too much understanding for environmental problems, the environmental movements put on the public agenda the issue of life as such, and not only of the human life. Promoting the hightening of the level of the ecological consciousness in public, these movements made an impact also on promoting this consciousness within the framework of various scientific disciplines. The consequence of the interdisciplinary approach was putting together of various environmental questions by social scientists on the relationships within the human society in the bio–cultural–political complex. Together with this phenomenon emerged also a new discipline called political ecology, which actually represents the interdisciplinary development of common fundaments of disciplines such as culture, politics, economy, ecology and biology. Believing in transcending of separated dimensions of multiple structures of life such as ecology and politics, the political ecology attempts at revitalizing the holistic approach of thought and action thus promoting a new ecological political culture based on the discoveries of physical sciences of the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, it insists on interconnections within the organizational complexity of cosmos so that nothing can be conceived without interrelations with its environment. This concept of environmentalism implies the introduction of completely new dimensions into the political culture to which the society will be obliged to respond by a different structure of political and social power and influence.
Keywords
environmentalism; environment; political ecology; nature; green politics
Hrčak ID:
139456
URI
Publication date:
15.1.2002.
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