Green Political Economy and the Promise of the Social Economy

Abstract

Green political economy is a relatively new area of study, arising as it has over the last two decades in response to increasing levels of global and local environmental degradation, and other social and economic consequences of a ‘neoliberal’ economic agenda (both within the academy and politics and policy making). While much of green political economy thinking has beenfocused on developing critiques of this neoliberal agenda as an explicit ideological project (Barry, 1999a; Jacobs, 1999; Mulberg, 1992), usually as part of a broader ‘green political’ critique, this (necessary) critical focus has not been balanced by a positive and reconstructive programme. The aim of this chapter is primarily reconstructive, in that we concentrate on the positive and transformative potential of green political economy both in theory and in practice. The overarching objective of the chapter is to outline some of the key political, economic and normative features of green political economy, which makes this body of critical knowledge distinctive and politically radical in comparison to the orthodox economic models which currently dominate both the discipline of economics and economic policy making, including environmental policy making (Barry, 1999a).