Whose environment?: the end of nature, climate change and the process of post-politicization

• Autor(a) principal: Swyngedouw,Erik
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Ambiente & Sociedade (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414-753X2011000200006
• topic: climate change policy

The paper explores how the elevation of the environmental question, in particular the problem of climate change, to a global and consensually established public concern is both a marker of and constituent force in the production of de-politicization. The paper has four parts. First, I problematize the question of Nature and the environment. Second, the case of climate change policy is presented as cause célèbre of de-politicization. The third part relates this argument to the views of political theorists who argue that the political constitution of western democracies is increasingly marked by the consolidation of post-political and post-democratic arrangements. Fourth, I discuss the climate change consensus in light of the post-political thesis. I conclude that the matter of the environment and climate change in particular, needs to be displaced onto the terrain of the properly political.