political mechanisms are to be preferred to centralized political ones.”^40
Thus, for over twenty years, green parties have staked out a position
as a new, more libertarian left, modifying the political landscape in
a number of Western countries. At the cutting edge of this trend, the
German greens have, for instance, defined themselves as part of a
global community that includes “groups for the protection of life,
nature and environment, citizens’ initiatives, the workers’ movement,
Christian initiatives, peace, human rights, women’s and Third World
movements.”^41
The historical convergence of the environmental movement and
the left should not obscure, of course, the ongoing tensions to which
these two social forces are subject. Trade unions, for instance, often
look upon the environmental cause with suspicion. Environmentalists
themselves do not constitute a monolithic group. There are, in fact,
“green conservatives,” whose beliefs are based on religious, economic,
or national security considerations.^42 Ultimately, however, the main
cleavage places environmentalists on the left and their opponents on
the right. Companies such as British Petroleum or General Electric
may have jumped on to the environmental bandwagon, but overall
business still tends to oppose environmental policies that threaten
to reduce profits.^43 And although a few prominent American neo-
conservatives have gone green and drive hybrid cars, “dominant
conservative views” remain “indifferent or skeptical – if not pole-
mically hostile – to environmental concerns.”^44
(^40) Robert E. Goodin,Green Political Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992,
p. 15; John Barry and Brian Doherty, “The Greens and Social Policy:
Movements, Politics and Practice?,”Social Policy and Administration, vol. 35,
41 no. 5, December 2001, 587–607, p. 587.
Die Gru ̈nen,Programme of the German Green Party, p. 6. Quoted in Douglas
Torgerson,The Promise of Green Politics: Environmentalism and the Public
42 Sphere, Durham, Duke University Press, 1999, p. 3.
Nadivah Greenberg, “Shop Right: American Conservatisms, Consumption, and
the Environment,”Global Environmental Politics, vol. 6, no. 2, May 2006,
43 85–111.
Pamela S. Chasek, David L. Downie, and Janet Welsh Brown,Global
Environmental Politics, fourth edition, Boulder, Westview, 2006, p. 86. See
also Paul G. Harris, “International Environmental Affairs and U.S. Foreign
Policy,” in Paul G.Harris (ed.),The Environment, International Relations,
and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2001,
p. 22.
(^44) Greenberg, “Shop Right,” p. 86.
The core currency of political exchange 211