Green Party

Emerging from the influential peace, anti-nuclear, and ecologist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Green Parties formed throughout Western Europe, and in Australia and New Zealand, during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The new parties issued a stern critique of mainstream politics and the established political parties, charging that modern capitalism was environmentally and socially unsustainable and that elites on both sides of the political spectrum were complicit in its perpetuation. Greens also called for a new politics emphasizing political participation, conservation, and local democracy. Despite their radical rhetoric, Green Parties were surprisingly successful; indeed, by the mid-1990s, Greens had entered into governments in several nations. The challenge of participating in government coalitions has forced Green Parties to moderate their rhetoric and professionalize their party organizations, changes that led many Green Parties to suffer a decline in support in the late 1990s to early 2000s. However, the Green phenomenon is not, as many suspected, a passing fad—Green Parties are now a durable element in many Western European party systems. In contrast, the Green Party has had a minimal impact in American politics, although some claimed that Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign under the Green banner, which won him about 5% of the presidential vote, cost Democrat Al Gore the election and led to the election of Republican George W. Bush.

To fully appreciate the Green phenomenon, it is critical to understand the Green philosophy, which begins with a critique of industrial capitalism. For Greens, the environmental degradation, pollution, and heavy consumption associated with modern capitalism threaten human existence and the survival of life on earth. Greens sought an alternative organization of production, and consumption in particular, that emphasized sustainability, low environmental impact, and conservation of natural resources, as well as one that raised the values of cooperation, community, and consideration above those of market competition. Their critique of capitalism and development of an alternative economic philosophy were joined to a broader criticism of contemporary Western European politics and society. Rejecting political professionalism, bureaucracy, and technocratic management, Greens have stressed a politics based on political participation, local control, grassroots mobilization, and collective decision making. Not coincidentally, in Finland and Germany, Greens ran local candidates for years before organizing a durable, national party apparatus, and Greens across Western Europe have long been torn over the question whether elected Green parliamentarians may serve simultaneously in cabinet positions. Turning away from the conflicts over redistribution and the welfare state that typified postwar Western European politics, Greens have also placed great emphasis on “postmaterialist” issues such as free speech and expression, aesthetics, “belonging,” and the quality of life. Greens' opponents on the political right, citing the novelty and radicalism of some of their demands, often charged in the early years of Green electoral competition that their philosophy threatened both capitalism and democracy.

While one might reasonably assume that there might be a close relationship between the level of environmental consciousness within a polity as measured in national surveys and the strength of its Green Party, in fact this is not the case. Indeed, some nations with relatively high levels of environmental concern, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, have relatively weak Green Parties, while others with measurably lower levels of environmental consciousness have more successful Greens. Moreover, the age of the party is not [Page 647]strongly related to its electoral competitiveness: Some of the oldest Green Parties, such as those of New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have also been among the least successful. However, Green Party emergence and strength are associated with certain structural conditions. For example, Greens tend to have the most robust performance in nations with higher percapita income, suggesting that Green Parties excel in polities where economic security is such that public attention can be diverted to other issues. Second, Green Parties tend to be strong in nations with expansive national bureaucracies, which may alienate citizens and increase their support for political projects stressing decentralization and government responsiveness to local concerns. There is also a relationship between the responsiveness of the party system to Green concerns and the strength of Green Parties: Where entrenched parties (particularly the social democratic parties) have been unresponsive to Green issues, Green Parties have been more likely to emerge and prosper. Social democratic unresponsiveness to these concerns has been most likely in nations in which the party has entered into extended compromises with the bourgeoisie parties over the management of industrial capitalism (in particular, nations with advanced corporatist arrangements, such as France and Germany).

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