A World Alive: Green Politics in Europe and Beyond

This edition maps the different worlds of green politics today, exploring the movements and ideas driving its development. Zooming out, the edition asks what wider changes in politics and society mean for political ecology as it faces interlocking environmental and social crises in the 21st century.

As much as a way of understanding the world as a movement to change it, political ecology is on the rise. A reckoning with our society’s position in a wider ecological system is taking place. Faced with irrevocable damage that makes life everywhere more insecure, from Italy to Finland, people are organising for a change of course at the ballot box and through insurgent street protests. From concepts such as ecofeminism and the Green New Deal to questions of narrative and institutional change, this edition maps the forces, strategies, and ideas that will power political ecology, across Europe as around the world. The 2020s can be a decade of change for the better, or the worse. Every political force will have something to say on what were once green issues. A diverse movement with a unique approach to society and politics, as this edition shows, Greens will be central to the fight for a sustainable and just future.

The digital version of this edition is also available in Macedonian.

Articles in this edition

11.03.2020
Facing Our Future

Time is running out, but political ecology has the answers. A different world, a good life for all.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Three Tribes of Political Ecology

A call for the convergence of struggles between green socialism, the radical critics of modernity, and elite technocracy.

Read more
11.03.2020
Quality of Life Before Sustainability: Questioning Contemporary Green Discourse

A Green New Deal is good, but an ecofeminist one is even better.

Read more
11.03.2020
Hooked on Growth: Rewiring Institutions for Wellbeing

A new policy paradigm needs to emerge that is capable of thinking broadly and ecologically about wellbeing, sustainability, and justice.

Read more
11.03.2020
A Green Deal for a Geopolitical Age

The European Green Deal is being pursued as an economic matter. In a geopolitical world, it needs to be geopoliticised.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Return of the Green New Deal: Ecosocialism in the USA

In the USA, the inequality and climate crises are increasingly seen as one and the same and the Left has seized on the Green New Deal as the answer.

Read more
11.03.2020
Another State Is Possible: Greening the Levers of Power

Modern states were not built to protect the environment but today are essential institutions for building a sustainable future.

Read more
11.03.2020
Notes from a New Europe

What if the Green Wave of 2019 kept on going? What if the Greens become a major player in political majorities?

Read more
11.03.2020
All Ground Is Fertile Ground: Attitudes to Ecology across Europe

Selected infographics offer a data-driven snapshot of ecological perceptions and realities and across Europe.

Read more
11.03.2020
From the Street Up: Founding a New Politics in Spain

Is political ecology able to push for real transformation and to offer a convincing narrative that transcends class lines?

Read more
11.03.2020
Breaking Hard Earth: A Social History of Green Politics in Poland

Green politics has long been part of Polish politics and, despite its ups and downs, it certainly has a future.

Read more
11.03.2020
A Step Up for the German Greens

How the Greens managed to become a key player in German politics. Part of our four-part "Green Wave" series.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Wild World of Belgian Politics

Understanding where Belgium's two Green parties, Groen and Ecolo, sit in a divided political landscape. Part of our four-part "Green Wave" series.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Greens in a New Ireland

With government negotiations still up in the air, we hear how the Irish Greens bounced back in 2019 and 2020. Part of our four-part "Green Wave" series.

Read more
11.03.2020
A Polarised Finland

Where do the Finnish Greens stand after entering a progressive coalition government in 2019? Part of our four-part "Green Wave" series.

Read more
11.03.2020
Building Blocs in Northern Europe: The Greens in Government

In political systems based on cooperation, determining who to ally with and when always raises critical questions of identity, tactics, and strategy.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Carbon Divide: The Material Basis of Polarisation

Far-right populism and green politics are now rivals in opposite corners of a polarised political ring.

Read more
11.03.2020
Resettling Villages, Unsettling Lives

Villagers have mobilised to fight both for their homes and for more ambition in German energy policy.

Read more
11.03.2020
United We Stand: The Green Industrial Revolution in Italy

Unions and new ecological movements need a frank exchange to find elements of synergy and mutual growth.

Read more
11.03.2020
United We Stand: Labour Environmentalism and the Climate Movement

Looking at the climate crisis in class terms means reframing class conflict in terms of capital versus life.

Read more
11.03.2020
After Industrialism: Reviving Nature in the 21st Century

Ecological thinking situates the human in the modern world far more accurately than old industrialism ever did.

Read more
11.03.2020
A Legal Revolution for the Rights of Nature

A legal system that prioritises the conservation of the living world over private property would be a powerful tool for ecological transition.

Read more
11.03.2020
The Melodrama of Climate Change Denial

Melodrama is the genre of choice of the far right, through which it pays special attention to fights with environmentalists, feminists, and minorities.

Read more
11.03.2020
Threads of Political Ecology: A Review

A selection mapping some of the major currents that have shaped political ecology in recent years and which continue to do so.

Read more
11.03.2020
Emancipation in the Neoliberal Era: Rethinking Transition with Karl Polanyi

After 40 years of neoliberalism tearing at the social fabric, what form will the 21st-century counter-movement take?

Read more