The Anthropocene Debate and Political Science

Thomas Hickmann, Lena Partzsch, Philipp Pattberg, Sabine Weiland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351174107
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Anthropocene has become an environmental buzzword. It denotes a new geological epoch that is human?dominated. As mounting scientific evidence reveals, humankind has fundamentally altered atmospheric, geological, hydrological, biospheric, and other Earth system processes to an extent that the risk of an irreversible system change emerges. Human societies must therefore change direction and navigate away from critical tipping points in the various ecosystems of our planet. This hypothesis has kicked off a debate not only on the geoscientific definition of the Anthropocene era, but increasingly also in the social sciences. However, the specific contribution of the social sciences disciplines and in particular that of political science still needs to be fully established.

This edited volume analyzes, from a political science perspective, the wider social dynamics underlying the ecological and geological changes, as well as their implications for governance and politics in the Anthropocene. The focus is on two questions: (1) What is the contribution of political science to the Anthropocene debate, e.g. in terms of identified problems, answers, and solutions? (2) What are the conceptual and practical implications of the Anthropocene debate for the discipline of political science?

Overall, this book contributes to the Anthropocene debate by providing novel theoretical and conceptual accounts of the Anthropocene, engaging with contemporary politics and policy-making in the Anthropocene, and offering a critical reflection on the Anthropocene debate as such. The volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, global environmental politics and governance, and sustainable development.

1
Introduction

A political science perspective on the Anthropocene

Thomas Hickmann, Lena Partzsch, Philipp Pattberg and Sabine Weiland

Overview

Over the past decades, it has become more and more obvious that ongoing globalisation processes have substantial impacts on the natural environment. Studies reveal that intensified global economic relations have caused or accelerated dramatic changes in the Earth system, defined as the sum of our planet’s interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes (Schellnhuber et al. 2004). Climate change, biodiversity loss, disrupted biogeochemical cycles, and land degradation are often cited as emblematic problems of global environmental change (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015). In this context, the term Anthropocene has lately received widespread attention and gained some prominence in the academic literature.

Although still controversial among different scholar groups, the term Anthropocene denotes a new geological epoch in the Earth’s history in which humans have become the main drivers of change (Crutzen 2002). Human-induced climate change, species extinction, ocean acidification, plastic seas, desertification, overexploitation of natural resources, and other problems prompted by economic globalisation restrain and endanger the habitability of the planet. Governments at all levels and other political actors are now at a critical juncture to set sustainable development paths for the 21st century and beyond (Biermann et al. 2012). The key challenge is to alter the way we work, trade and do business on a global scale in order to reconcile our economies and ways of living with the natural basis of life on Earth. Thus, human societies must change direction and navigate away from critical tipping points in the Earth system.

The new geological epoch of the Anthropocene would follow the epoch of the Holocene after only ten thousand years. Several studies underscore that humans are driving or dramatically accelerating global environmental change which, in turn, is linked to the danger of an irreversible system transformation (Lewis and Maslin 2015). This hypothesis has kicked off a debate not only on the geoscientific definition of the Anthropocene era, but increasingly also in the social sciences. However, the specific contribution of the social sciences disciplines and in particular that of political science still needs to be fully established. Against this backdrop, we address two fundamental questions in this edited volume:

• What is the contribution of political science to the Anthropocene debate, e.g., in terms of identified problems, answers and solutions?
• What are the conceptual and practical implications of the Anthropocene debate for the discipline of political science?

This introduction proceeds as follows: Next, we briefly refer to the origins and background of the Anthropocene concept and explain why it is a research object of political science. After that, we review the evolving political science literature on the Anthropocene and state what we think could be the key contribution of our discipline to the current debate on the human age. Then, inversely, we highlight the implications of the Anthropocene debate for political science. As such, the Anthropocene can be a linchpin in the debate that offers far-reaching opportunities to reflect upon the political and social dimensions of global environmental change. Finally, we outline the general structure of the edited volume and summarise the main arguments put forward by the authors of the individual chapters of this volume.

The Anthropocene as a research object of political science

The central idea of the Anthropocene is that humans are a new and influential natural force in the Earth system and hence became a ‘geological factor’. This is considered a unique event in planetary history: “For the first time a single species dominates the entire surface, sits at the top of all terrestrial and oceanic food chains, and has taken much of the biosphere for its own purposes” (Langmuir and Broecker 2012, 597). At the same time, this characterises a fundamental change in the human-environment-relation, which now centres on human dominance over biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth. Paul Crutzen and Christian Schwägerl describe this relation as follows: “It’s no longer us against ‘Nature’. It’s we who decide what nature is and what it will be” (Crutzen and Schwägerl 2011).

The hypothesis of the ‘production’ of nature draws attention to the political and social implications of the Anthropocene concept. The concept underlines the urgency to act in order to fight climate change, species extinction and other global problems. On the one hand, as impressively demonstrated in climate politics, political actors have struggled to agree on measures against anthropogenic climate change. Despite some progress in addressing the problem of climate change in the past few years, it is still very unclear whether global warming can be limited to 2° Celsius or even below compared to pre-industrial levels (Rockström et al. 2016). Indeed, the Paris Agreement stands for a far-reaching intergovernmental agreement, in which almost all countries on Earth committed themselves to individual steps to reduce or limit their national greenhouse gas emissions (Keohane and Oppenheimer 2016; Peters et al. 2017). However, the United States lately announced their withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and, in other countries, the required ambition levels as well as concrete implementation programmes are lacking. In this context, we have to understand the Anthropocene as a threatening scenario and as a call for action.

On the other hand, the Anthropocene concept also changes the perspective regarding the ‘controllability’ of global environmental change. In this context, several authors highlight human stewardship to preserve the natural resources of Earth (Steffen et al. 2011). It is thus up to us how we design this human-dominated epoch and whether it will end in a catastrophe, or not. We can observe tendencies to simply accept conditions and causes of the Anthropocene as given, followed by suggestions how to deal with them. A further line of discussion deals with the options to transfer threatening systemic change into a stage of ‘good Anthropocene’. Central to this perception is the idea that there already exist approaches how to positively influence the Anthropocene (Bennett et al. 2016). Others, by contrast, have criticised the Anthropocene outlook that humanity stands out from or above other species, and hence feeds further transformation of the Earth by humans (Manemann 2014). In both cases, the amenability of natural cycles by humans is taken as an opportunity or a justification to selectively interfere with ecological processes, with the claim to repair them (Vaughan and Lenton 2011). Visions of ‘geo-engineering’ and models of a planetary management of the Earth system, often based on hierarchical and authoritative visions of steering, have been put forward (Eckersley 2015). They are rooted in a firm belief in technological progress and the desirability of dominating nature – topics that have long been identified by political science scholarship.

Phantasies of dominating global environmental change stand in clear contrast to key findings of the Earth System Governance Project (e.g., Biermann 2014a). This line of research emphasises the complex and inherently political dimension of governance at all levels of the system and is hence opposed to simplified ideas of management and control. Central to this research are also local and transnational actors, such as various social movements on degrowth and alternative ways of living (for example, food sharing, car sharing, and other forms of a shared economy). The idea of controlling and managing global environmental change, quite the reverse, is top-down and primarily based on technocratic and expertocratic solutions. As a result, while the debate on the Anthropocene addresses questions that are inherently political, it apparently tends to depoliticise these societal aspects. From our perspective, the tension between politics and non-or post-politics characterises the new quality of the Anthropocene debate within the political science and more general within the social sciences.

The contribution of political science to the Anthropocene debate

According to some critical thinkers, we live in a ‘post-political’ age (Žižek 2004). From this perspective, the Anthropocene is not a neutral term describing an epochal transformation, as the natural sciences suggest, but the manifestation of an epoch in which political debates are replaced by economic management and expert views. The debate on the Anthropocene gets firmly ‘a-political’ if Earth politics merely becomes a consensual question of ‘good governance’ instead of something for which it is worth arguing (Swyngedouw 2013, 2014). Bülent Diken and Carsten Laustsen contend that, under post-political conditions, “everything is politicized, can be discussed, but only in a non-committal way and as a non-conflict. Absolute and irreversible choices are kept away; politics becomes something one can do without making decisions that divide and separate” (Diken and Laustsen 2004, 15). While focusing on consensus, post-politics neglects differences among ideas and ideologies. It reduces the political terrain to a purely technical and administrative management of global climate and environmental problems. Critical voices hence see the Anthropocene as a justification of a new global technocracy, in which post-politics replaces conflictual disputes (Stirling 2014).

Moreover, universalism is a main characteristic to the debate. The concept of the Anthropocene refers to the whole of humanity. It is humanity that causes global environmental change, and thus should collectively carry the respective burdens. This perception neglects the fact that only a small percentage of humanity is responsible for the various ongoing adverse global environmental changes (Luke 2015). Human impact on the environment has always been unequal and variable over the course of time. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin elaborate different options in their discussion on the Anthropocene (Lewis and Maslin 2015). The so-called ‘Orbis hypothesis’ denotes the beginning to the clash of the Anthropocene, colonialism and mercantilism. In contrast, the ‘Great Acceleration’ hypothesis depicts the beginning to the clash between the Anthropocene, post-war capitalism and the geopolitics of the Cold War. Others suggest the term Capitalocene (Bonneuil 2015; Moore 2016) to highlight the causal role of capitalism for irreversible environmental impacts and the emergence of the new epoch.

No matter which hypothesis one follows, it is crucial for the Anthropocene debate to reflect the societal circumstances and their meaning for the course of history. It is imperative to study the relations between the Anthropocene and capitalism, their parallels and common problems. The Anthropocene appears as a grand narrative of global systemic development, even though postcolonial and postfeminist approaches, for example, demonstrate such a claim to be untenable (Gibson-Graham 1996; Chakrabarty 2015; Caputi 2016; Grusin 2017). Despite differences in detail, all of these approaches emphasise the plurality of humanity, which clusters into classes, genders and generations. The definition and history of the Anthropocene would look different – representatives of these theories argue – if not only considered from a Eurocentric or techno-masculine perspective, on which the dominant narrative of the Anthropocene is based.

While humanity is not equally responsible for the causes, humanity does also not suffer equally from the consequences of environmental change. Global environmental changes affect in particular poor and marginalised people that are highly vulnerable and generally less resilient to rising sea levels, floods and draughts, crop losses, ongoing land degradation, and other adverse effects of ongoing global environmental change, especially in the so-called Global South (Malm and Hornborg 2014). The idea of a general history of the Anthropocene stands on shaky ground, and it should be replaced by a plurality of – partial – narratives. This plurality would inevitably bring the political dimension back into the analysis and underline the great repertoire and enormous potential of a more pronounced political science perspective on the current Anthropocene debate.

The implications of the Anthropocene debate for political science

We do not understand the Anthropocene as a one-way street through which natural scientists diffuse their perception of the world in order to establish them in society, as it has sometimes been the case so far (for a critical note on this, see Castree et al. 2014; Lövbrand et al. 2015). The participation and the commitment of diverse disciplines are necessary for an informed discussion. From our perspective, simplified assumptions of Earth system management need to be replaced by more profound studies of governance and politics (including power-, interest- and knowledge-based approaches) in the Anthropocene (Biermann 2014b). Perceived as a political concept, the Anthropocene can be a linchpin that offers far-reaching opportunities to reflect upon the efficacy and the creative power of humanity. Despite an evolving political science literature, representatives of this discipline have only recently begun to attract wider attention in the Anthropocene debate (e.g., Hamilton et al. 2015; Lövbrand et al. 2015; Pattberg and Zelli 2016).

The core of the debate on the Anthropocene – we argue – is not about the new geological epoch, but rather about the political and social dimensions of global environmental change. We can approach these dimensions through using theories and concepts. In this regard, our understanding of human-nature relations is central. It is imperative to the Anthropocene debate to reconsider and redefine this relation, without falling back into old patterns of nature domination. Anthropogenic, hence not naturally given changes are not without alternatives; they are the consequence of political action. At the same time, humanity is a central part of the history of nature. In this vein, the Anthropocene points out the inescapability of politics. This inescapability includes the urgency which the ‘non-political politics’ (Swyngedouw 2013) of the Anthropocene concept discloses. In other words, the current debate is very much focused on the question of how humanity can adapt to the various environmental changes, whereas the actual political and societal causes of the changes are largely neglected.

Political scientists should more actively follow-up on this reflection and respective studies than they have done so far. It is not enough to only superficially point to the relevance of the discipline of political science, while the debate continues to be based on perceptions of the relation between technology or humans and nature back from the 1970s or earlier. Eva Lövbrand et al. come to a similar conclusion: “We believe that a deeper involvement of critical social science in global environmental change research represents an important step out of this post-political situation” (Lövbrand et al. 2015, 214). The repoliticisation of the Anthropocene gives us the opportunity to discuss governance and practices from new ontological angles, and this discussion should fundamentally go beyond the pragmatic defence of the status quo (keyword: post-politics).

The main objective of political science research should be to identify a diversity of understandings, problem descriptions and future ideas about the design of environmental and sustainability politics in the Anthropocene. Thereby, spaces for critical perspectives and implications can be created. Such spaces would allow the Anthropocene to be not the ‘end of politics’ but the contrary: An epoch in which humans become genuinely environmentally aware and actively engage with the Earth system and the ecosystems they live in. These three areas of political science scholarship, (i) theories and concepts, (ii) governance and practices, and (iii) critical perspectives and implications, constitute the broad sections of this edited volume. In each of these parts, the authors seek to clarify the genuine contribution of political science to the Anthropocene debate as well as the implications of Anthropocene thinking for political science as a discipline and intellectual endeavour.

The implications of human-induced global system changes for political science research are di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: a political science perspective on the Anthropocene
• PART I Theories and concepts
• PART II Governance and practices
• PART III Critical perspectives and implications
• Index