Which Nationalism for the Anthropocene? A Comparative Study of Exemplary Green Nation-States

Abstract

This article poses, and attempts to answer, two correlated questions: (1) Is nationalism, the dominant ideology in our world of nation-states, compatible with the struggle to halt or minimize climate change and related environmental catastrophes? and (2) Which form(s) of government, whether or not informed by nationalist ideology, could better address the most serious threat to human life that currently appears on the horizon? This article puts forward the claim that while the former question has only recently begun to be explored in a few essays and articles devoted to analyzing the linkages between nationalism and climate change, the latter remains unexplored. Attempting to fill this gap, we investigate case studies of exemplary nation-states that periodically scored the highest in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI): Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark), Switzerland, and Germany. Their cities received environmental awards (i.e., the European Green Capital Award) and registered the highest levels in terms of citizen satisfaction. The goal is to identify factors and (pre)conditions that make forms of “green nationalism” possible.

Reflexive Green Nationalism (RGN): A sociological antidote to the climate crisis?

“…ethno-nationalism, populist nationalism, economic nationalism, and most of them see the environment as something to exploit, a "resource, " allegedly for the good of the nation, although "only a tiny minority of the population actually benefits from their extraction and exploitation" (Conversi, 2020, p. 630). However, there are also more critical and greener forms of nationalism that drive a small number of nation-states, such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany, to protect their national environment and develop more sustainably (Conversi and Posocco, 2022).…”

“…This is where social science can help in understanding why some nationstates improve their management of the climate crisis while others do not. The analysis of the various forms of nationalism that drive nation-states helps us understand why some stick to Resource Nationalism (RN), an ideology at the core of which is the exploitation of the environment, while others develop more sustainable forms, such as Green Nationalism (GN) (Conversi, 2020;Conversi and Friis Hau, 2021;Conversi and Posocco, 2022;Posocco and Watson, 2022).…”

“…Before 2020, literature bridging nationalism studies and climate change was lacking, and there remains a dearth of such literature (Conversi and Posocco, 2022). This is surprising given that as early as 1986 Ulrich Beck pointed to the nation-state as one of the structural elements of modernity that contributed to giving birth to what he epitomized as "Risk Society" (Beck, 1986).…”

“…Further studies by Conversi and Posocco (2022) focused on nation-states that scored very high in the IPCC and CCPI rankings: Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark. They found that these countries share elements that made them more suitable than others to become greener.…”

“…The way the world is, or rather is not, dealing with climate change (but the same could be said about a number of other global risks, i.e., nuclear conflict, nuclear waste and loss of biological and cultural diversity) provides a host of evidence for this. Even those exemplary green nation-states (Conversi and Posocco, 2022) that historically are ranked very high in terms of climate-change performance have been warned, in the last CCPI report, that they too need to do more. The reason why some nation-states learned from their mistakes and attempted to re-modernize while others lagged (and still lag) behind depends mainly on the problems and obstacles of re-modernization.…”