ABSTRACT

Having analysed the character of the political process and the nature of prevailing political regimes, it is now necessary to consider some examples of the way in which politics has been applied to the question of the environment. Depending on frameworks of understanding, different pictures or collections of ideas rise to the surface for analysis. Within this chapter we use three different axes which depict and, in turn, influence the manner in which the theoretical underpinnings of environmental politics are considered: (1) the scale of incorporation of environmental concerns from resistance to theories of reform and revolution; (2) the intersections between traditional political theories from both the right and the left, and their shaping of different notions of green economics; and, finally, the interplay between the cultural and philosophical dimensions of diverse religions and environmental theory and action.