The Political Ecology of the State: The Basis and the Evolution of Environmental Statehood

Abstract

The Political Ecology of State: The Basis and Evolution of Environmental Statehood Antonio Augusto Rossorro Ioris Routledge, London, UK and New York, NY, 2014 186 pp. $150.00 HardcoverReviewed by Joshua M. MulleniteIn The Political Ecology of State: The Basis and Evolution of Environmental Statehood, geographer Antonio loris seeks to reconcile state theory and ecological politics by examining how history and functioning of modern capitalist state affects decision making. He argues that political philosophies of Hobbes, Kant, and Hegel hold key to understanding what he calls environmental statehood, the combination of discursive, ideological, and material efforts by state to deal with socioecological problems (vii). To loris, represents a reactionary and inherently contradictory approach to co-management of environmental, political, and economic burdens. He argues that state plays a key role in production and negotiation of socioecological and socioeconomic disruptions through its historical and contemporary role as reproducer of a consumption-based capitalist economy. Drawing on work of Henri Lefebvre (2009), loris contends that state should be seen as complex structures and strategies that reflect balance of political power and growth of social antagonisms rather than as only a set of regulatory agencies (2). To support his claims, loris draws theoretically from (presumably political-economic, but ultimately unspecified) radical left-wing tradition (ix) and empirically from his own research and policy-making experience surrounding politics of water management, primarily in Brazil.Ioris begins by providing theoretical richness to his argument. The first two chapters of text are dedicated to outlining history and development of modern state. Here, Ioris provides an in-depth understanding of radical left-wing tradition he is using (which he later calls eco-Marxist) and how state can be understood from this position. While Ioris' approach is Marxist in nature, he also critiques much of existing work in what might be called Marxist or neo-Marxist political ecology. He argues that existing literature, which has theoretically rich critiques in a number of areas such as sustainable development, has not fully developed a critique of state's socioecological politics and how tries to control and regulate 'more-than-human' world (14). Instead, he argues for an eco-Marxist political ecology of state. Here states are viewed as operating through what he calls a state-fix that aims to respond to emerging situations that affect society and economy, but only within limits of hegemonic political and economic priorities that shape statehood (15).Ioris' state-fix can best be conceptualized through a trialectical relationship between nature, state, and society. That is, rests on a precarious balance between state upholding interests of groups in charge of it, apparent inclusion of interests of broader society state represents, and need to manage environment in a way that can appease both of these groups. The contradictions in each of these goals produce and are produced by unique socionatural situations stemming from statehood. The use of term has obvious similarities to Harvey's (2001) spatial where capitalism solves its own inner crises by expanding into and restructuring new geographies but where it is only able to do for a relatively short period of time before another fix is needed. The state-fix is a way for state-society-nature trialectic to solve its own crises through emergent and flexible forms of statehood. …