Whose environment? The end of nature, climate change and the process of post-politicization

Abstract

The paper explores how the elevation of the environmental question, in particular the problem of climate change, to a global and consensually established public concern is both a marker of and constituent force in the production of de-politicization. The paper has four parts. First, I problematize the question of Nature and the environment. Second, the case of climate change policy is presented as cause célèbre of de-politicization. The third part relates this argument to the views of political theorists who argue that the political constitution of western democracies is increasingly marked by the consolidation of post-political and postdemocratic arrangements. Fourth, I discuss the climate change consensus in light of the postpolitical thesis. I conclude that the matter of the environment and climate change in particular, needs to be displaced onto the terrain of the properly political.