Per Gahrton - Green Parties, Green Future: From Local Groups to the International Stage

Green Parties,
Green Future

From Local Groups to
the International Stage

Per Gahrton

Foreword by Caroline Lucas

First published 2015 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Per Gahrton 2015

The right of Per Gahrton to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 3345 8 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3339 7 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1508 4 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1510 7 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1509 1 EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from
fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and
manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental
standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Text design by Melanie Patrick
Simultaneously printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK
and Edwards Bros in the United States of America

LIST OF FIGURES

PREFACE

It has been a thrilling journey full of despair and hope for those of us who began in the early 1980s (some a decade earlier) to establish Green parties and construct an international Green network. I myself initiated the Swedish Green Party after having failed (despite a period as a Liberal MP) in greening the old Liberal Party. I was chosen as one of the first four co-secretaries of the European Greens in 1985. Since the beginning of the 1980s, I have visited Green parties in their home countries and at international Green congresses and gatherings all over the world. I met environmentalists in the crumbling Soviet Union around 19891990, visited Greens across the USA and Canada in 1990, reported in 1992 from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and visited branches of Partido Verde from Manaus to Porto Alegre, including Brasilia where I was received by the first MP of Partido Verde, Sidney de Miguel, in the Chamber of the Parliament. As a Green Member of the European Parliament 19952004 I was present at events relevant for Green policy, such as the WTO meetings in Seattle 1999 and Doha 2001, the Johannesburg Rio +10 in 2002 and the Mumbai World Social Forum in 2004. I have participated in innumerable Green national campaigns and demonstrations, from Seville to Tirana, Venice to Tbilisi, Cairo to Baku. During my period as the chair of the China Delegation of the European Parliament 19972002, I met with environmentalists throughout China, and in 2006 I visited Japanese Greens in Fukuoka, Kyoto and Tokyo. I have, once or several times, visited at least half of the Green parties presented in this first global overview of Global Green politics. Furthermore, I have been present at all the Global Greens congresses, Canberra 2001, So Paolo 2008 and Dakar 2012, and at most of the major meetings of the European Greens, up until the EGP Council in Istanbul in November 2014.

The aim of this book is to give an overview of the growing global Green political movement, its thinking, ideology, world view, basic values, organisational structure and political strength. I dont claim to have produced a scientific treatise. However, I have made use of my capacity as PhD of Sociology, standing somewhere in between the analytical positivism of Emile Durkheim and the interpretative anti-positivism of Max Weber and George Simmel, in the sense that I reject the notion of social research as a branch of classical physics or mathematics, but still believe that quantitative methods are needed in order to explain, together with qualitative methods in order to understand. From this perspective I have chosen two types of approach. One is that of reporting as a participant observer, using my extensive notes and diaries from more than four decades as a Green activist and politician. Another is that of drawing on my experience not only as a sociologist but also as a reporting journalist, trying to act as an external and critical observer, using documents from Green parties and organisations, media reports, election results, interviews with Green actors and politicians, as well as research reports, memoirs of Green politicians and other relevant literature.

I am biased in favour of the Green political movement and the need for Green politics, but I hope not to be uncritical and blind to weaknesses, flaws, mistakes and hazards.

This book is my own project and does not in any way represent any Green party or organisation. All opinions are mine and the responsibility for the correctness of the thousands of details is mine alone. Nevertheless, it would not have been possible to produce this book without the support of some 30 dedicated Greens, from the international secretaries of individual parties to responsible persons in international Green bodies, from individual Greens with special knowledge to present and former Green Members of Parliaments and Governments.

I especially want to thank Anna-Karin Andersson, International Secretary of the Swedish Greens, for having checked the entire manuscript and contributed hundreds of corrections as well as recommendations for killing darlings. I am also grateful to my wife, Drude Dahlerup, professor of political science at Stockholm University, who read parts of the manuscript from her professional point of view and made crucial recommendations. In addition warm thanks to the following Greens who have checked, corrected and commented on relevant sections: Rikiya Adachi (Japan), Liaquat Ali (Pakistan), Magda Alvoet, former minister (Belgium), Paolo Bergamaschi (Italy), Margret Blakers (Australia), Olzod Boum-Yalagch (Mongolia), Arnold Cassola, former secretary general of the European Greens (Malta), Jacqueline Cremers, former secretary general of the European Greens (Netherlands), Paty Doneau, coordinator of the Federation of American Greens (Mexico), Marina Dragomiretskaya (Bulgaria), Eva Gos, Green Forum (Sweden), Mayis Gulaliyev (Azerbaijan), Frank Habineza, president of the African Green Federation (Rwanda), Heidi Hautala, former minister (Finland), Jesus Hernandez Nicolou (Catalonia), Gerhard Jordan (Austria), Vronica Juzgado (executive secretary Global Greens), Ely Labro (Philippines), Benot Lechat (Belgium), Lena Lindstrm (Sweden), Ralph Mon, former secretary general of the European Greens (Sweden), Suresh Nautiyal (India), Laura Nordstrm (Finland), Sara Parkin, former co-secretary of the Coordination of European Greens (England), Alfonso Pecaro Scanio, former minister (Italy), Liljana Popovska (Macedonia), Margot Soria Saravia (Bolivia), Erzsebet Schmuck (Hungary), Ji Seon (Korea), Mohamed Tounkara (Guinea), Ann Verheyen, European Green Party (Belgium), Ludger Volmer (Germany), Claire Waghorn-Lees, secretary of the Asia-Pacific Greens (New Zealand), Keli Yen, Asia-Pacific Greens Coordinator (Taiwan).

Some of the details in the book (especially in the Appendix) may become obsolete overnight, thanks to a parliamentary election, the decisions of a party congress, or a governmental reshuffle. It is my hope that relevant parts of the book will in due time be available on the web and continuously updated. Readers are welcome to send comments and information directly to me, per..