Environmentalism and Global International Society

Explains how environmentalism became a fundamental norm in international relations and explores the impact of the greening of international society.

Robert Falkner (Author)

9781108964012, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2022

374 pages, 1 table
22.7 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.556 kg

'… one of Falkner's contributions is not only to have provided the first book-length [English School] account of Global Environmental Politics, but to have provided a really good introduction to how the ES theoretical and methodological approach works.' Matt Paterson, Perspectives of Politics

Environmentalism and Global International Society reveals how environmental values and ideas have transformed the normative structure of international relations. Falkner argues that environmental stewardship has become a universally accepted fundamental norm, or primary institution, of global international society. He traces the history of environmentalism's rise from a loose set of ideas originating in the nineteenth century to a globally applicable norm in the twentieth century, which has come to redefine international legitimacy and states' global responsibilities. He shows how this deep norm change came about as a result of the interplay between non-state and state actors, and how the new environmental norm has interacted with the existing primary institutions of global international society, most notably sovereignty and territoriality, diplomacy, international law, and the market. This book shifts the attention from the presentist focus in the study of global environmental politics to the longue durée of global norm change in the greening of international relations.

1. Introduction: The Greening of Global International Society
Part I. Theory: 2. English School Theory and Global Environmental Politics
3. The Idea of Environmentalism
Part II. History: 4. The Origins of Global Environmentalism
5. The Emergence of Environmental Stewardship as a Primary Institution
6. The Globalisation of Environmental Stewardship
7. Environmental Stewardship between Consolidation and Contestation
Part III. Analytical Perspectives: 8. Solidarist Ambition
9. Pluralist Constraints
10. World Society to the Rescue?
Part IV. Conclusions: 11. Conclusions: International Relations in the Anthropocene.

Subject Areas: International institutions [JPSN], International relations [JPS], Globalization [JFFS]