CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by CU Scholar Institutional Repository University of Colorado, Boulder CU Scholar Undergraduate Honors Theses Honors Program Spring 2016 Neoliberalism and the Environmental Movement: Contemporary Considerations for the Counter Hegemonic Struggle Austen K. Bernier University of Colorado, Boulder, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholar.colorado.edu/honr_theses Part of the Environmental Studies Commons, Political Economy Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons Recommended Citation Bernier, Austen K., "Neoliberalism and the Environmental Movement: Contemporary Considerations for the Counter Hegemonic Struggle" (2016). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1013. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Honors Program at CU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of CU Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Neoliberalism and the Environmental Movement: Contemporary Considerations for the Counter- Hegemonic Struggle By Austen K. Bernier University of Colorado at Boulder A Thesis Submitted to the University of Colorado at Boulder in partial fulfillment of the requirements to receive Honors designation in Environmental Studies May 2016 Thesis Advisors: Liam Downey, Department of Sociology, Committee Chair David Ciplet, Department of Environmental Studies Dale Miller, Department of Environmental Studies © 2016 by Austen Bernier All rights reserved ii Abstract This thesis proposes a conceptual framework for understanding how neoliberalism has decreased the ability of environmental movements to manifest changes in political economic structure or spur state action on environmental issues that might be antagonistic to the neoliberal order. Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi have developed reputable theories that describe social movements as exercising a degree of control over political economy. However, the problems with Marxist and Polanyian theory are twofold: first, they offer vague and homogenous descriptions of the social movements to which they refer. Second, a large shift in economic-political context towards neoliberalism since the 1970’s has drastically altered the political opportunity structure of social movements. In the modern day, many social movements have rallied around environmental issues in response to an impending environmental crisis. The antipathy of neoliberal hegemony towards environmental regulation has set it in opposition with environmental movements and as such many factions of the movement can be described as ‘counter hegemonic’. As neoliberalism constricts the political opportunity structure of these movements through domestic and international legislation and treaties, assimilation of loci of dissent into a neoliberal framework, and powerful financial coercion, limitations on environmental movement influence may yield dire consequences for the global environment. iii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ..................................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1 Methods .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Environmental Crisis and Environmental Movements .......................................................... 11 Neoliberalization and Political Opportunity ............................................................................. 24 “Legislation” .......................................................................................................................................... 31 Free Trade Agreements and the World Trade Organization.......................................................... 32 Domestic-Level Inhibitions on Democratic Intervention ................................................................ 43 Citizens United .............................................................................................................................................................. 44 Anti-Protest Laws ........................................................................................................................................................ 48 Assimilation .......................................................................................................................................... 53 Corporatization of NGOs .............................................................................................................................. 54 Assimilation of Government ...................................................................................................................... 59 World Bank Mechanisms of Neoliberal Assimilation ........................................................................ 66 Financial Coercion .............................................................................................................................. 73 IMF and World Bank Conditionality Agreements ............................................................................... 73 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 82 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 86 Suggestions for Further Research ................................................................................................. 90 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 93 iv Preface First and foremost I would like to thank my advisors Liam Downey, David Ciplet, and Dale Miller for their invaluable guidance, expertise, and support. This thesis never would have come to fruition without your help. Second I would like to thank my grandparents, parents, and siblings for the undying love and support that keeps me pushing forward and pulls me out of bed each day. Finally, I’d like to thank my friends at the Environmental Center for being more than just a place of work, but for being a family, a network, and a home away from home. The past four years would not have been the same without all the lovely people in UMC 355. To all of you, thank you. 1 Introduction The generations succeeding 1970 are the first to understand environmental issues as global and potentially catastrophic problems, as well as the first to see multilateral climate talks on the global environment, attempted international treaties on environmental issues, and comprehensive environmental regulation. They have also seen the continued rise in carbon emissions, the growth of large and devastating storms, rapid deforestation, problematic ocean acidification, rapid melting of arctic glaciers, increased incidence of drought and wildfire, and myriad other environmental plights. We are clearly toying with the Earth’s capability to endure our destructive behaviors. We are filling our carbon sinks (the atmosphere, the oceans) or else cutting them down (forests). We are overloading the planet’s capacity to filter pollution. We are exhausting its natural resources (water, lumber, mines). The consequences are already upon us, and the global populace is noticing (Leiserowitz, 2007.)1 The generations since 1970 are also the first to see widespread social movements focused on environmental issues surface around the world. NGO’s from Greenpeace to the Environmental Defense Fund to the World Wildlife Fund have taken on the cause of fighting environmental havoc. Activists all over the world call for bold action on climate change, with 350.org demanding that universities, churches, corporations and financial institutions currently profiting off of successful oil markets divest from fossil fuels, and activists gathering by the thousands to march in New York City or protest in Paris, demanding multilateral commitment to righting the 1 Leiserowitz is explicit that while familiarity with ‘climate change’ as a conceptual framework for understanding changes in our climate system is less pervasive in cultures of the developing world, this lack of familiarity did not mean that people were not aware of the changes in climatic systems. 2 myriad environmental imbalances in our world. This growing international fervor centered on environmental issues is due to an impending environmental crisis marked by the rapid exhaustion of natural resources, filling of sinks and degradation of qualitatively-measured notions of environmental health (air and water quality, for example.) A surge in international attention to environmental issues from civil society begs the question of why multilateral action on issues such as climate change has been so slow to occur. Multilateral climate agreements have been lax and unsuccessful (Dimitrov, 2010; Prins & Rayner, 2007), and annual climate conferences continually yield results that fail to meet expectations. Many of the impediments to the formation of strong multilateral climate agreements