PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
protection of traditional lifestyles. Political participation is low; for most people it
extends no further than voting in national elections. Those citizens who are
more active generally join movements such as trade unions or political parties,
which pursue economic and political rights that will enhance the interests of
their class.
Since the late 1960s, many observers have detected fundamental changes in
the values and forms of political activity in industrialised nations. These
changes, it is claimed, are transforming the issues that dominate the political
New social movement:Aloose-knit
organisation that seeks to influence public
policy on an issue such as the environment,
nuclear energy or peace, and which may
use unconventional forms of political
participation, including direct action, to
achieve its aims.agenda and creating new political cleavages which
are contributing to a realignment of long-established
party systems – the new politics (Inglehart 1990;
Dalton 2006). There are three notable manifestations
of this new politics. First, the emergence ofnew
social movements(NSMs), such as the women’s,
peace, anti-nuclear and environmental movements,
which have been prepared to use unconventional forms of political participation,
including civil disobedience and direct action, to achieve their aims. Secondly,
the supporters of NSMs are drawn predominantly from what some theorists call
a‘new middle class’, of educated, professional service workers in industrialised
societies. Lastly, a growing minority of citizens holds a set of postmaterial
values emphasising equal rights, environmental quality and alternative lifestyles,
which challenge the old materialist concerns of economic and physical security.
If the new politics thesis is accurate, then it may help to explain contemporary
environmental politics: from this perspective, green parties and environmental
groups would be regarded as new social movements, most environmental
activists would be from this new middle class, and environmental problems
would be defined as postmaterial, quality-of-life issues. In short, a new politics
account would interpret environmentalism as one element of a wider structural
and cultural transformation of contemporary politics. One problem with such an
approach is that it tends to denude environmental politics of its distinctive
concern with ecological issues and dismisses the underlying ‘objective’ state of
the environment as almost incidental in explaining its emergence.
These ‘new politics’ explanations are examined in detail in Chapter to see
whether they can account for the rise of green parties; they also inform the
analysis of party politics and environmental groups in Chapters and. It is
argued that, whilst there is some mileage in the new politics thesis, it cannot
alone provide an adequate explanation of contemporary environmental politics.
Instead, Part adopts a broad comparative approach to party politics and
environmental groups, primarily in Europe and North America, with specific
case studies of Germany, Britain, France and the USA, to argue that a range of
institutional and political factors need to be included in any comprehensive
analysis of environmental politics.