Greening Citizenship ─ Sustainable Development, the State and Ideology

The greening of citizenship, the state and ideology creates both opportunities and bottlenecks for progressive political movements seeking justice in sustainable development. Normative theories overlook the partial assimilation of hitherto critical ideological values to the post-industrial eco-modernizing state. Achieving ideals such as dissolving the nature/culture dualism, unifying the private and public spheres, fostering non-contractualism, non-territorialism and ethico-moral awareness of finite ecospace has not necessarily fostered justice. Indeed, the state implements these ideals by supporting corporate, social and environmental responsibility, dismantling the welfare state, embracing market-globalization, green consumerism and 'livability'. Rather, as Scerri argues, the greening of citizenship evokes a new grammar of justice that centers on a 'test of wellness'.

Andy Scerri is Research Fellow at the Global Cities Research Institute and Lecturer in School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, both at RMIT University, Australia.