TY - JOUR

T1 - The Green Legacy of 1989

T2 - Revolutions, Environmentalism and the Global Age

AU - Corry, Olaf

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - In its immediate aftermath the Eastern European revolutions of 1989-91 were interpreted as a 'rectifying revolution': the experiment of 1917 had been cast off but the process bequeathed no new ideas. Subsequent debates linked 1989 to novel political methods and a re-launch of 'civil society' but failed to note the significance of dissident and protest movements which relied on environmentalist critiques of industrialism, materialism and top-down government. The article first points to three phases of debate about the legacy of 1989 noting the relative neglect of environmentalism in all of them. Second, it charts the centrality of environmentalist ideas to the early dissidents, the revolutionary movements that mobilised and to the global social movements that have emerged since 1989. The final section argues that this 'green 1989' has been neglected because it fits badly into modernist liberal and post-socialist interpretations of 1989. Instead, using the global age thesis, '1989' is reinterpreted as a staging post in the emergence of a politics based on the limits and risks of the modern project.

AB - In its immediate aftermath the Eastern European revolutions of 1989-91 were interpreted as a 'rectifying revolution': the experiment of 1917 had been cast off but the process bequeathed no new ideas. Subsequent debates linked 1989 to novel political methods and a re-launch of 'civil society' but failed to note the significance of dissident and protest movements which relied on environmentalist critiques of industrialism, materialism and top-down government. The article first points to three phases of debate about the legacy of 1989 noting the relative neglect of environmentalism in all of them. Second, it charts the centrality of environmentalist ideas to the early dissidents, the revolutionary movements that mobilised and to the global social movements that have emerged since 1989. The final section argues that this 'green 1989' has been neglected because it fits badly into modernist liberal and post-socialist interpretations of 1989. Instead, using the global age thesis, '1989' is reinterpreted as a staging post in the emergence of a politics based on the limits and risks of the modern project.

KW - 1989

KW - Civil society

KW - Environmentalism

KW - Globalisation

KW - Revolution

KW - Social movements

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84899650489&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1467-9248.12034

DO - 10.1111/1467-9248.12034

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84899650489

VL - 62

SP - 309

EP - 325

JO - Political Studies

JF - Political Studies

SN - 0032-3217

IS - 2

ER -