This book examines the global regulation of biodiversity politics through the UN UNConvention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the WTO and other international treaties. Using historical-materialist state and regulation theory, it assesses how the discourse and politics of sustainable development have contributed to the internationalisation of the state.   The authors argue that sustainable development, far from being a fixed concept, is a conceptual terrain on which different and conflicting symbolisations of and solutions responses to of the ecological crisis struggle for hegemony. Furthermore, it shows that the international multilateral environmental organisations agreements are not at all a means to counteract neoliberal globalisation but, on the contrary, form an integral part of the ongoing transformation process. Focussing on the UN Convention on Biological DiversityCBD, the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the World Trade Organisation, this co-authored volume addresses the following issues:    state theory, regulation theory and International Political Economy   biodiversity protection and valorisation of genetic resources   access to genetic resources and sharing of benefits which arise out of its use   enforcement of intellectual property rights and their impact on biodiversity.   This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international politics, international political economy, environmental studies, development studies and political ecology.

Conflicts in Environmental Regulation and the Internationalisation of the State (RIPE Series in Global Political Economy)

Brand, Ulrich

Wissen, Markus

Hirsch, Joachim

Görg, Christoph

Reference

Routledge

The Limits to Capitalist Nature: Theorizing and Overcoming the Imperial Mode of Living (Transforming Capitalism)

The book provides for a historical-materialist understanding of the multiple crises of capitalism, focusing on the ecological crisis and its interaction with other crisis phenomena (financial crisis, crisis of democracy, economic crisis). Drawing on political ecology, Gramscian theory of hegemony, critical state theory and the regulation approach, it introduces the concept of an imperial mode of living in order to better understand the everyday practices and perceptions as well as the social relations of forces and institutional constellations that facilitate environmentally destructive patterns of production and consumption. Furthermore, it develops a historical-materialist critique of the green economy concept that has been propagated in recent years as a solution not only for the ecological but also for the economic crisis. Finally, the book proposes a democratisation of societal nature relations as a way out of the crisis that requires overcoming capitalist property relations and the exclusive forms of controlling nature guaranteed by them.

Business & Money

Economics

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.\nThe Limits to Capitalist Nature\nTheorizing and Overcoming the Imperial Mode of Living 
By Ulrich Brand, Markus Wissen Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.Copyright © 2018 Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen 
All rights reserved. 
ISBN: 978-1-78660-156-8\nContents 
Acknowledgements, ix, 
1 Theorizing the Imperial Mode of Living: An Introduction, 1, 
2 The Crisis of Global Environmental Politics and the Imperial Mode of Living, 9, 
3 Crisis and Continuity of Capitalist Societal Nature Relations, 23, 
4 Strategies of a Green Economy, Contours of a Green Capitalism, 39, 
5 The Valorization and Financialization of Nature as Crisis Strategy, 53, 
6 Socio-Ecological Transformation as the Horizon of a Practical Critique of the Imperial Mode of Living, 71, 
7 Towards the Democratization of Societal Nature Relations, 85, 
8 Overcoming the Imperial Mode of Living: Political and Strategic Implications, 97, 
Notes, 107, 
References, 113, 
Index, 137, 
About the Authors, 141,\nCHAPTER 1 
Theorizing the Imperial Mode of Living 
An Introduction\nIn recent years, progressive forces in many parts of the world have been confronted with a new opponent: authoritarian populism. The rise of Trump in the United States, the UK Independence Party in the United Kingdom, Front National in France and the AfD (Alternative for Germany), the fundamentalist backlash against the Arab Spring as well as the apparent end of the cycle of progressive governments in Latin America signal that it is not simply a neo liberal capitalism anymore that the left has to fight. Instead, an even more dangerous enemy has emerged out of a conservative-neo liberal bloc that for a long time dominated the political, social and economic development of countries in the global North, and that now, in a situation of still unresolved multiple crises (of the economy, state finance, political representation, social reproduction, environment, including climate change, energy, food), does not seem capable anymore to cope with the contradictions that it itself has intensified. 
The neo liberal business as usual, consisting in the subordination of ever more social spheres under the rule of the capitalist market and thereby worsening the living conditions of millions or even billions of people, is no longer considered as the normal way things have to go. We do not understand neo liberalism primarily as policy reforms (as the concept of the neo liberal Washington Consensus suggests; see Williamson 1990) but as profound societal transformation including the logics of power relations that are inscribed into relations of states, (world) markets and civil society, of class and gender structures, of subjectivities and societal nature relations. The neo liberal counter-revolution since the 1970s, for instance, was a shift not just in economic policies but also in societal class and power relations, of dominant logics (Harvey 2006; Plehwe, Walpen and Neunhoffer 2006; Springer, Birch and MacLeavy 2016). The 'post-democratic' domestication of social conflicts in many countries, through which neo liberalism managed to present itself as a quasi-natural order to which there is no alternative, does not seem to be viable anymore (Crouch 2004; Bluhdorn 2013a,b). Instead, it is politicized in a reactionary manner that makes things even worse, particularly for those without the 'right to have rights' (Hannah Arendt 1994: 296), that is, the majority of refugees who fled their home countries in search for a better life or even for the purpose of their mere survival. 
But what exactly is it that the authoritarian and neo liberal right has successfully addressed (Bruff 2016), where does it obtain its strength from and why has the left in many countries not been able to politicize the crisis since 2007/2008 in a progressive way? Responding to these questions is not only crucial in order to understand the fundamental transformations that the world is currently going through and

Our Unsustainable Life: Why We Can't Have Everything We Want With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the 19thCentury, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability. The Imperial Mode of Living implies that people's everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the Imperial Mode of Living implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalized through the mode of production and living.

The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism

Verso

Imperiale Lebensweise: Zur Ausbeutung von Mensch und Natur in Zeiten des globalen Kapitalismus

Oekom Verlag GmbH

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