Political Philosophy in the Era of Climate Change: Between Eco-Cosmopolitanism and the Green State, by Johanna Oksala
Oksala argues that climate change is primarily a political problem, and that the resources of political philosophy are essential for both diagnostic and strategic responses to it. After critically assessing approaches that advocate an eco-cosmopolitanism and those that rely on “green” states, she charges that both fail to account for the systemic problems that underpin and perpetuate the phenomenon of climate change. While acknowledging that we can take certain lessons from these approaches, the complicity of global capitalism and the nation-state in environmental destruction calls for a different conceptual framework, if we are to effectively combat this problem.
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Johanna Oksala is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki, and currently a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research. Her most recent book is Feminist Experiences: Foucauldian and Phenomenological Investigations (Northwestern University Press, 2016), and she has published extensively on Foucault and political philosophy, including the monographs Political Philosophy: All That Matters (Hodder and Stoughton, 2013), Foucault, Politics, and Violence (Northwestern University Press, 2012), How to Read Foucault (Granta Books, 2007), and Foucault on Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Among her numerous articles are “In Defense of Experience,” Hypatia (2014), and “Foucault, Feminism, and Neoliberal Governmentality,” Foucault Studies (2013).
Johanna Oksala, “Political Philosophy in the Era of Climate Change: Between Eco-Cosmopolitanism and the Green State,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 37:1 (2016), pp. 51–70.