Ecological metaphors of security: World politics in the biosphere

Alternatives

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 291-319

  Dalby, Simon ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0010623608     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437549802300302     Document Type: Article

References (127)

1. Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 205.
2. Michael Dillon Politics of Security: Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental Thought (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 19.
3. Vaclav Smil, Global Ecology: Environmental Change and Social Flexibility (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 214.
4. Ole Waever, "Figures of international thought: Introducing persons instead of paradigms," in Iver B. Newmann and Ole Waever, eds., The Future of International Relations: Masters in the Making? (London: Routledge, 1997).
5. Lewis and Wigen, Myth of Continents, p. ix.
6. R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
7. Among the key texts that articulate the themes from the late 1980s are Neville Brown, "Climate, Ecology and International Security," Survival 31, no. 6 (1989): pp. 519-532;
8. Jessica Tuchman Mathews, "Redefining Security," Foreign Affairs 68, no. 2 (1989): 162-177;
9. Norman Meyers, "Environment and Security," Foreign Policy 47 (1989): 23-41;
10. Patricia Mische, "Ecological Security and the Need to Reconceptualize Sovereignty" Alternatives 14, no.4 (1989): 389-427;
11. Michael Renner, National Security: The Economic and Environmental Dimensions (Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch paper 89, 1989).
12. The debates on these themes have continued apace since 1989; see for example D. Deudney "Environment and Security: Muddled Thinking," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47, no. 3 (1991):
13. P. H. Gleick, "Environment and Security: The Clear Connections," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47, no. 3 (1991):
14. L. Brock, "Security through Defending the Environment: An Illusion?" in E. Boulding, ed., New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Reexamined (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 79-102;
15. P. Mische, "Security through Defending the Environment: Citizens Say Yes," New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Reexamined ibid., pp. 103-119;
16. Jyrki Kakonen, ed., Green Security or Militarized Environment (Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth, 1994);
17. T. Homer-Dixon, "Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases," International Security 19, no. 1 (1994): pp. 5-40;
18. M. Levy, "Is the Environment a National Security Issue?" International Security 20, no. 2 (1995): pp. 35-62;
19. Eric K. Stern, "Bringing the Environment In: The Case for Comprehensive Security," Cooperation and Conflict 30, no. 3 (1995): pp. 211-237;
20. Monica Tennberg, "Risky Business: Defining the Concept of Environmental Security," Cooperation and Conflict 30, no. 3 (1995): pp. 239-258;
21. Karin Dokken and Nina Graeger, The Concept of Environmental Security - Political Slogan or Analytical Tool? (Oslo: PRIO, 1995);
22. Geoffrey D. Dabelko and David Dabelko, "Environmental Security: Issues of Conflict and Redefinitions," Environment and Security 1, no. 1 (1996): pp. 23-49;
23. Nina Graeger, "Environmental Security," Journal of Peace Research 33, no. 1 (1996): pp. 109-116;
24. Robyn Eckersley "Environmental Security Dilemmas," Environmental Politics 5, no. 1 (1996): pp. 140-146;
25. Nils Petter Gleditsch, ed., Conflict and the Environment (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1997);
26. Daniel Deudney and Richard Matthew, eds., Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in the New Environmental Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, forthcoming).
27. On containers, physics metaphors, and security, see Paul A. Chilton Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House (New York: Peter Lang, 1996);
28. More generally on security, see Simon Dalby, "Contesting an Essential Concept: Reading the Dilemmas in Contemporary Security Discourse," in Keith Krause and Michael Williams, eds., Critical Security Studies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; London: Pinter, 1997), pp. 3-31;
29. R. B. J. Walker, "The Subject of Security," Critical Security Studies ibid., pp. 61-81.
30. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992);
31. Ann Tickner, "Revisioning Security," in Ken Booth and Steve Smith, International Relations Theory Today (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995), pp. 175-197.
32. On the "broadening" of the security agenda, see D. B. Bobrow, "Complex Insecurity: Implications of a Sobering Metaphor," International Studies Quarterly 40 (1996): 435-450,
33. and B. Buzan, O. Waever, and J. deWilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
34. Eric Laferriere "Emancipating International Relations Theory: An Ecological Perspective" Millennium 25, no. 1 (1996): pp. 53-75.
35. Nor have these themes been followed up in the discussions of ecology and sovereignty; see Karen Litfin, "Sovereignty in World Ecopolitics" Mershon International Studies Review 41 (1997): pp. 167-204.
36. Work such as Hayward Alker and Peter Hass, "The Rise of Global Ecopolitics," in Nazli Choucri, ed., Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993)
37. and Julian Saurin, "Global Environmental Degradation, Modernity and Environmental Knowledge," in Caroline Thomas, ed., Rio: Unravelling the Consequences (Ilford: Frank Cass, 1994) suggests taking environment seriously to investigate international relations, but the theme has not been followed up in detail, especially in regard to security.
38. On critical geopolitics, see Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996)
39. and Simon Dalby, "Continent Adrift? Dissident Security Discourse and the Australian Geopolitical Imagination," Australian Journal of International Affairs 50, no. 2 (1996): pp. 59-75.
40. I have made a similar set of links in Simon Dalby, "Reading Rio, Writing the World: The New York Times and the 'Earth Summit'," Political Geography 15, nos. 6 and 7 (1996): pp. 593-614.
41. Jeremy Rifkin's popular Biosphere Politics (New York: Crown, 1991) discusses security in these terms,
42. and Neil Smith has developed a powerful neo-Marxist interpretation of this theme regarding the simultaneous production of space and of nature in his Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
43. For such a discussion of security see Richard James Blackburn, The Vampire of Reason (London: Verso, 1990).
44. Anna Bramwell, Ecology in the Twentieth Century: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
45. It seems more likely that the individuals in the picture are protobourgeois men in need of a social contract to protect their property from each other's claims. In general, see Michael C. Williams, "Hobbes and International Relations: A Reconsideration," International Organization 50, no. 2 (1996): pp. 213-236.
46. See for example Clarence Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967);
47. William Leiss, The Domination of Nature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974).
48. This is related at the largest scale to a specifically Eurocentric understanding of the world. See J. M. Blaut, The Colonizer's Model of the World (New York: Guilford, 1993);
49. Simon Dalby, "Geopolitics and Global Security: Culture, Identity and the 'Pogo Syndrome,'" in Gearóid Ó Tuathail and Simon Dalby, eds., Rethinking Geopolitics (London: Routledge, forthcoming, 1998).
50. H. Sprout and M. Sprout, The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs with Special Reference to International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965): p. 27.
51. See also F. Kratochwil, "Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality" World Politics 39, no. 1 (1986): pp. 27-52.
52. The Sprouts also pointedly note that when the term is used loosely as in such formulations as "the international system's 'environment,'" it offers more confusion than intelligibility: Sprout and Sprout, note 20, p. 39.
53. Clive Ponting's A Green History of the World (New York: St. Martin's, 1992) provides a comprehensive popular account of the historical destruction of the natural world as part of human "development."
54. Richard Howitt, John Connell, and Philip Hirsch, eds., Resources, Nations and Indigenous Peoples (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996).
55. Jennifer Turpin and Lois Ann Lorentzen, eds., The Gendered New World Order: Militarism, Development and the Environment (New York: Routledge, 1996).
56. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature (New York: Harper and Row, 1980);
57. Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge, 1993).
58. M. DeLanda, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (New York: Zone Books, 1991).
59. Arthur Westing, ed., "Armed Conflict and Environmental Security," Environment and Security 1, no. 2 (special ed.) (1997).
60. Joni Seager, Earth Follies: Coming to Feminist Terms with the Global Environmental Crisis (New York: Routledge, 1993).
61. The pertinent literature is huge, but for a nonmathematical overview, see Robert E. Ulanowicz, Ecology, The Ascendent Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
62. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (New York: Knopf, 1971).
63. See for instance T. Miller, Living in the Environment (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth 1990);
64. M. D. Morgan, J. M. Moran and J. H. Wiersma, Environmental Science (Dubuque, Ia.: Wm. C. Brown, 1993).
65. Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
66. G. A. DeLeo and S. Levin, "The multifaceted aspects of ecosystem integrity," Conservation Ecology (online) 1, no. 1 (1997): 3. URL: http:// www.consecol.org/voll/iss1/art3.
67. Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
68. Richard Falk, On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1995).
69. On human actions and climate fluctuations in geophysical context, see Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (New York: George Braziller, 1995).
70. James E. Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979);
71. James E. Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (New York: Norton, 1988).
72. As Lovelock's eloquent "daisyworld" computer simulations have demonstrated, this self-regulation can be easily demonstrated in mathematical models using simple feedback loops involving albedo diverse floral communities on the surface of a planet.
73. The most comprehensive overview remains B. L. Turner et al., The Earth as Transformed by Human Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
74. R. Goodland, H. Daly, and H. Serafy, Population, Technology, Lifestyle (Island Press: New York, 1992).
75. See Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy, eds., Institutions for Environmental Aid: Pitfalls and Promise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996).
76. R. F. Dasmann, "Towards a biosphere consciousness," in D. Worster, ed., The Ends of the Earth: Perspective on Modern Environmental History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 177-188.
77. Madhav Gadgil, "Prudence and profligacy: a human ecological perspective," in Timothy M. Swanson, ed., The Economics and Ecology of Biodiversity Decline: The Forces Driving Global Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
78. Madrav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India (London: Routledge, 1995).
79. M. Redclift, Wasted: Counting the Costs of Global Consumption (London: Earthscan 1996).
80. Gadgil, note 42, p. 107.
81. Jim MacNeill, Peter Winsemius, and Taizo Yakushiji, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
82. Simon Dalby, "Canadian National Security and Global Environmental Change," in Jim Hanson and Susan McNish, eds., Canadian Strategic Forecast 1997 - Canada and the World; Non-Traditional Security Threats (Toronto: Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies, 1997), pp. 19-40.
83. Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth (Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society, 1996).
84. Calculating food, fuel, and forest impacts, Wackernagel and Rees, conclude that the Netherlands has a footprint fifteen times the size of its territory. See Footprint, note 48, pp. 94-95.
85. See Warren Magnusson, "Social Movements and the Global City," Millennium 23, no. 3 (1994): 621-645,
86. reprinted as chapter 12 in Magnusson, The Search for Political Space (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
87. Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
88. Paul Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
89. L. Allison, "On Dirty Public Things," Political Geography Quarterly 5 (1986): 241-251.
90. Daniel Faber, Environment Under Fire: Imperialism and Ecological Crisis in Central America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993).
91. Andrew Szasz, Ecopopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement of Environmental Justice (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1994).
92. R. D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990).
93. B. R. Johnston, ed., Who Pays the Price? The Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis (Washington: Island Press, 1994).
94. Tom Athanasiou, Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor (Boston: Little Brown, 1996).
95. Marian Miller, The Third World in Global Environmental Politics (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995).
96. A. Sachs, Eco-Justice: Linking Human Rights and the Environment (Washington: Worldwatch paper 127, 1995).
97. R. D. Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy," Atlantic Monthly, 273, no. 2 (1994): 44-76;
98. for a critique of the geopolitical premises of this formulation, see S. Dalby, "The Environment as Geopolitical Threat: Reading Robert Kaplan's Coming Anarchy," Ecumene 3, no. 4 (1996): 472-496.
99. M. Connelly and P. Kennedy, 'Must it be the West against the Rest?" Atlantic Monthly 274, no. 6 (1994): pp. 61-83.
100. See also Paul Kennedy, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
101. The arguments are summarized in Krishna B. Ghimire, "Parks and People: Livelihood Issues in National Parks Management in Thailand and Madagascar," in Dharam Ghai, ed., Development and Environment: Sustaining People and Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 195-229.
102. See Jonathon S. Adams and Thomas O. McShane, The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation without Illusion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
103. A recent tragic case in point is in Burma. See Adrian Levy, Cathy Scott-Clark and David Harrison, "Save the rhino, but kill the people," Manchester Guardian Weekly, March 30, 1997, p. 5.
104. Bradley S. Klein, "Cultural links: An international political economy of golf course landscapes," in Randy Martin and Toby Miller, Competing Allegories: The Global and Local Cultures of Sport (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming).
105. Bruce Willems-Braun, "Buried epistemologies: The politics of nature in (post) colonial British Columbia," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87, no. 1 (1997): pp. 3-31.
106. See for example Julian Simon, ed., The State of Humanity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995);
107. Richard D. North, Life on a Modern Planet: A Manifesto for Progress (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).
108. P. McHaffie, "Decoding the Globe: Globalism, Advertising and Corporate Practice," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15, no. 1 (1997): pp. 73-86.
109. David Campbell, "Political prosaics, transversal politics, and the anarchical world," in Michael Shapiro and Hayward Alker, eds., Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1996).
110. Michael Shapiro, Violent Cartographies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
111. John Vidal, "A tribe's suicide pact," Manchester Guardian Weekly, October 12, 1997, pp. 8-9.
112. Mische, note 7.
113. Gearóid Ó Tuathail, "At the end of Geopolitics? Reflections on a Plural Problematic at the Century's End," Alternatives 22 (1997): 35-56;
114. Gearóid Ó Tuathail, "Postmodern Geopolitics? The Modern Geopolitical Imagination and Beyond," in Tuathail and Dalby, eds., note 19; John Agnew Geopolitics Re-Visioning World Politics (London: Routledge, forthcoming 1998).
115. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987);
116. See Thom Kuehls, Beyond Sovereign Territory: The Space of Ecopolitics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), chapter 2.
117. Michael Shapiro, "Moral Geographies and the Ethics of Post-Sovereignty," Public Culture 6 (1994): 479-502;
118. R. B. J. Walker, "Social Movements/World Politics," Millennium 23, no. 3 (1994): 669-700.
119. Fen Osler Hampson and Judith Reppy, eds., Earthly Goods: Environmental Change and Social Justice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
120. See Wolfgang Sachs, "One World," in Sachs, ed., The Development Dictionary (London: Zed, 1992);
121. and more generally, Wolfgang Sachs, ed., Global Ecology (London: Zed, 1993);
122. Andrew Ross, "Is Global Culture Warming Up?" Social Text 28 (1991): 3-30.
123. Peter Taylor, The Way the Modern World Works: World Hegemony to World Impasse (London: John Wiley, 1996), chapter 6. Falk, note 35;
124. Simon Dalby, "The Threat from the South: Geopolitics, Equity and Environmental Security" in Daniel Deudney and Richard Matthew, eds., Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in the New Environmental Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, forthcoming 1998).
125. Timothy Luke, Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy and Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997);
126. see also John S. Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
127. See Cara Stewart, "Old Wine in Recycled Bottles," paper for the annual meeting of the British International Studies Association, Leeds, UK December 1997.