From Local Concerns to Global Challenges: Continuity and Change in Sub-state “Green Nationalism”

Mark F Hau

doi:10.3389/fpos.2021.764939

Abstract

Issues related to anthropogenic climate change such as global warming, fossil fuel emissions, and renewable energy have emerged as some of the most important and pertinent political questions today. While the role of the state in the Anthropocene has been explored in academia, there is a severe dearth of research on the relationship between climate change and nationalism, especially at the sub-state level. This paper builds on the concept of “green nationalism” among sub-state nationalist parties in European minority nations. Using a multimodal analysis of selected European Free Alliance (EFA) campaign posters from the past 30 years, the article explores an extensive “frame bridging” where minority nationalist political actors actively seek to link environmental issues to autonomy. Although there is an apparent continuity in minority nationalist support for green policies, earlier initiatives focused on preservation of local territory while EFA parties today frame climate change as a global challenge that requires local solutions, which only they can provide. The frame bridging between territorial belonging and progressive politics has lead to the emergence of an environmentally focused, minority nationalist agenda that advocates for autonomy in order to enact more ambitious green policies, or “green nationalism”. This shows that nationalism in the right ideological environment can be a foundation for climate action, as minority nationalist actors base their environmentally focused agenda to address the global climate crisis precisely on their nationalist ideology.

Highlights

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most central issues in contemporary politics with ramifications at all levels of governance
While important work has begun on sub-state environmental policies (Galarraga et al, 2011; Bruyninckx et al, 2012; Brown 2017a; Halkos and Petrou 2018; López-Bao and Margalida 2018; Conversi and Ezeizabarrena 2019), From Local Concerns to Global Challenges there is an absence of work that deals directly with the nationalist aspect in minority nations or “ethnoregions”
Where earlier initiatives focused on preservation of local territory, European Free Alliance (EFA) parties outline climate change as a global challenge that requires local solutions, which they can only provide with increased autonomy

Summary

Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most central issues in contemporary politics with ramifications at all levels of governance. Few scholars within the field of nationalism studies have worked on climate change and related topics. This is puzzling, as nationalism has been outlined as a direct consequence of industrialization (Gellner 1983) and capitalist modernity (Greenfield 2001), making its role in the “Anthropocene” both central and understudied as the “principal operative ideology of modernity” (Malesě vić 2019:33). Since nationalism and the ideal of the nation-state influences all elements and levels of contemporary politics, it has profound effects on how communities deal with climate change. This article attempts to remedy this by building upon an earlier argument that a “green nationalism” has emerged in European minority nations (Conversi and Hau 2021)

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion