ABSTRACT
Green parties contesting elections, rather than advocating non-violent insurrection, are a very recent phenomenon. The first candidate in Britain to stand on a clear Green platform of decentralization, environmental concern and opposition to economic growth, the Rev. John Papworth, did so in a parliamentary by-election as late as 1970 (Papworth 1971). A surge of environmental concern in the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with the publication of Limits to Growth and Blueprint for Survival, inspired the creation of ‘ecology’ parties in Britain, France, New Zealand and Australia (Kemp and Wall 1990). A fully fledged Green manifesto combining ecology with a full statement of social demands became widespread only in the early 1980s, inspired by the initial success of the German Greens.
