Environmental Citizenship
Environmental or, more rarely, Ecological Citizenship (not in use in German, translated as environmental citizenship ) describes the idea of a new conception of the classic understanding of the citizen as a citizen on the basis of normative ideals towards the citizen as responsible for the preservation and protection of the environment . The term was coined in the 1980s in the course of the environmental movement that was establishing itself .
Environmental Citizenship extends the classic concept of citizenship to include responsibility for other creatures such as animals, for nature as the basis of life for all living beings, and finally it includes all other living people in a cosmopolitan way. It is not clear to what extent this understanding can be reconciled with classical liberalism , which is the basis for modern citizenship. According to Derek Bell's argument , a consistent political liberalism could at least understand citizens as “citizens of an environment” and thus make them compatible with the idea of environmental citizenship.
In addition to the importance of such a changed conception of citizenship for the individual, companies in particular are discussing the importance of environmental citizenship in the context of corporate social responsibility . According to a study from 2000, environmental citizenship means two things for companies: firstly, philanthropic , outward-looking activities and internal changes in corporate governance aimed at improving the local environment.
The concept was criticized, among others, by representatives of ecofeminism , who accuse the discussion about environmental citizenship of a similar gender ignorance as the conceptions of the classic male concept of citizen. The lack of discourse within green political theory about the exact nature of the coexistence of citizens, who are seen as central to well-being, is particularly criticized. This is precisely where there is still a division of labor that disadvantages women and thus primarily enables men to exercise civic activities.
literature
- Andrew Dobson and Derek Bell (Eds.): Environmental Citizenship , MIT Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0262025904
- Andrew Dobson: Citizenship and the Environment , Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-925844-4
- Journal Environments , Vol. 33 (3): Perspectives on Ecological Citizenship
- Patrick Hayden: Cosmopolitan Global Politics , especially Chapter 5: The Environment, Global Justice and World Environment Citizenship , pp. 121-152, Ashgate, 2005, ISBN 978-0754642763
- Mark J. Smith: Ecologism: Towards Ecological Citizenship . Open University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0816633012
Web links
- Environmental Citizenship - Research and Policy Network
- Alicia Barcena on unep.org: Global Environmental Citizenship
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Jürgen Mackert : Citizenship. An introduction , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006, ISBN 978-3531146263 , pp. 118-120.
- ↑ Derek Bell: Liberal Environmental Citizenship , in: Environmental Politics, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 179-194, doi : 10.1080 / 09644010500054863
- ↑ Dennis A. Rondinelli and Michael A. Berry: Environmental Citizenship in Multinational Corporations: Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development , in: European Management Journal, Volume 18, Issue 1, February 2000, pp. 70–84, doi : 10.1016 / S0263- 2373 (99) 00070-5
- ↑ Sherilyn McGregor: No Sustainability Without Justice: A Feminist Critique of Environmental Citizenship , revised article from Dobson and Bell 2005, PSA Conference, Bath, April 2007 (PDF; 255 kB) ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
