Daoist political ecology as green party ideology: The case of the Swedish greens
Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
12-2022
Abstract
Green parties were once hailed as offering a “new politics” vis-à-vis the political establishment by proposing radical political, economic, and environmental reforms, but they have since transformed in many countries to become more moderate and pragmatic. While some doubt whether their ideology still contains any essential core, I contend that a unifying link can be found in the philosophy of the Daoist sage Laozi. I illustrate this by analyzing the party program of Miljöpartiet de Gröna (Sweden's Environmental Green Party), one of the world's most electorally successful green parties. As demonstrated here, this green party's current ideology strongly reflects key imperatives of Daoist political ecology revealing the philosophy's durability and attractiveness over time and its perceived relevance to pressing issues of sustainability and climate change.
Keywords
Daoism, green parties, ideology, political ecology, sustainability, Sweden
Discipline
Comparative Politics
Research Areas
Political Science; Sociology
Publication
Nature and Culture
Volume
17
Issue
3
First Page
288
Last Page
313
ISSN
1558-6073
Identifier
10.3167/nc.2022.170303
Publisher
Berghahn Journals
Citation
JOSHI, Devin K..(2022). Daoist political ecology as green party ideology: The case of the Swedish greens. Nature and Culture, 17(3), 288-313.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3695
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.3167/nc.2022.170303