The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd Edition

PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS

Table 5.1 German political parties: estimated positions and

salience of environmental policy dimension

Position Salience

CDU 14.5 12.4

FDP 16.8 12.7

Greens 3.2 18.1

PDS 9.1 9.4

SPD 10.9 12.7

Notes:

Position:‘1’ represents ‘supports the environment, even at the cost of

economic growth’ and ‘20’ represents ‘supports economic growth, even

at the cost of damage to the environment’.

Salience:where ‘1’ represents ‘unimportant’ and ‘20’ represents ‘very

important’.

Source:Benoit and Laver ( 2006 ).

Subsequently, however, environmental issues were sidelined by the trouble-

some domestic economy and Schroder’s controversial Agenda 2010 reforms. ̈

An expert survey of German political scientists in 2002 (see Table5.1), not

surprisingly, shows that the environment is a very important issue for the

Greens, far more so than for the other major parties, which gave it roughly

equal emphasis, with the PDS trailing behind. Where the parties did differ

wasontheir policy positions, with the left-of-centre SPD and PDS looking

distinctly greener than the right-of-centre CDU and FDP. It is not yet clear

what impact the defeat of the red–green coalition in the 2005 federal elec-

tion will have on environmental politics. The Greens have the opportunity

to exploit any neglect of environmental and left-libertarian issues by the

CDU–SPD ‘grand coalition’ government, but the emergence of a new Left

Alliance encompassing the PDS and various disaffected former SPD mem-

bers, which did well in the 2005 election, represents real competition for

theGreens in the political space to the left of the SPD. Clearly, the party

politicisation of the environment in Germany remains fragile and heavily

dependent on wider political developments.

The analysis of party politicisation in Germany has focused on the impact

of the Greens on other parties, but as will be shown in the following sections

on Britain and the USA, green parties have had little influence in those

countries.

◗ Britain

The party politicisation of the environment in Britain has been slow, uneven

and incomplete. Until the mid-1980s, there was little interest in the environ-

ment. Subsequently, the issue gradually moved up the policy agenda, with