Introduction
Current notions of fairness and justice in resource politics are mainly influ-enced by liberal political philosophy. Such ideas adopt a Rawlsian under-standing of distributive justice so as to develop a liberal cosmopolitan framework (Wapner, 1997; Beitz, 1999; Pogge, 2001, 2008; Held, 2002;
Hayward, 2006; Nili, in this volume). This liberal approach conceptualizes resource production, distribution, and consumption as a global challenge and calls for the redistribution of natural resources based on an abstract moral justice ‘compass’ (Nili, in this volume). While such a framework supports the redistribution of natural resources from a global egalitarian perspective, it lacks an adequate conceptualization of the specific political- economic and socio- cultural relations that characterize the current patterns of access, control, and distribution of natural resources. In other words, a liberal framework fails to link global justice principles with power rela-tions, inequalities, and concrete socio- ecological conflicts.
Based on a political ecology perspective, this chapter develops a multi-dimensional conception of resource justice – that is, socio- ecological justice – that explicitly incorporates power relations and inequalities in the access to and distribution of nature and natural resources on different scales.
Accordingly, such a conception explicitly stresses political dimensions of socio- ecological justice and links them to claims for a democratization of societal nature relations (gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse). In doing so, the chapter reverses the line of argument from abstract moral justice prin-ciples to socio- ecological conflicts as a starting point for resource justice.
As a heterogeneous and interdisciplinary research field, political ecology analyses the appropriation and control of natural resources (e.g. land, water) and links them to social configurations and power relations. Socio- ecological conflicts, then, evolve from unequal power relations and injus-tices that constitute the access to and control over resources (Bryant and Bailey, 1997: 38–39). So far, political ecology has rather implicitly than explicitly referred to principles and dimensions of justice and democracy (Bryant and Jarosz, 2004; for activist debates on environmental justice, see
Schlosberg, 2004). I argue that a conceptualization of socio- ecological justice benefits from a link to democracy theories that – like political ecology research – emanate from conflict and contestation, therefore expli-citly highlighting political dimensions of socio- ecological justice that exceed mere distributional aspects. In line with radical democracy theories (e.g. Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière), I understand democracy not necessarily as a form of government with a specific set of criteria and indic-ators (e.g. elections, rule of law, and division of powers) but as an eman-cipatory process that builds on the historical genesis of social struggles.
With regard to the control of natural resources, socio- ecological conflicts emphasize the challenge of existing societal nature relations based on enclosure, valorization, and a shrinking of the public sphere. Emanating from such a conflict- oriented, yet limited, perspective with regard to the specific qualitative relation between justice and democracy, I further elabo-rate on political dimensions for rearranging societal nature relations. These dimensions evolve both from social movements and activism as well as political theory.
The chapter proceeds as follows: The next section critically examines the assumptions of liberal global justice, and is followed by a section intro-ducing political ecology. The understanding gained from these discussions helps to develop an understanding of socio- ecological conflicts that serves as a point of reference for the subsequent elaboration in the third section on democratizing societal nature relations. The fourth section, then, links socio- ecological conflicts to a conflictual understanding of democracy, which paves the way for an elaboration on some explicit political dimen-sions of socio- ecological justice in the final section.
Challenging moral assumptions of liberal global justice
The cosmopolitan liberal framework to global justice emanates from a Rawlsian theory of justice (Nili, in this volume). From a moral contractar-ian perspective, Rawls’ theory is based on two principles. The equal rights principle demands “equal basic liberties” for all citizens (Rawls, [1971]
2003: 53) and the difference principle postulates that “social and economic equalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged” (Rawls, [1971] 2003: 266). Based on these basic and abstract principles, a number of liberal philosophers have applied this moral theory of justice to both the global sphere and the distribution of natural resources and environmental risks.
Charles Beitz ([1979] 1999) points to the uneven and morally arbitrary distribution of natural resources over the earth’s surface that resembles a natural resource lottery. Accordingly, he calls for the global redistribution of these resources “that would give each society a fair chance to develop just political institutions and an economy capable of satisfying its members basic needs” (141). Based on these moral concerns for justice, the approach
argues for an increase in foreign aid as a means for redistributive justice (Beitz, [1979] 1999: 172).
Emanating from similar assumptions, Thomas Pogge (2001, 2008) con-demns affluent countries as mainly responsible for world poverty and the unequal distribution of natural resources. International organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF ), or the G7 reproduce the unequal distribution of natural resources and impose inequality on less- affluent countries (Pogge, 2001: 61). Accord-ingly, global institutional reform based on moral grounds is seen as a pressing means for global justice. As minor changes in the structure of the world order with modest economic losses for wealthier countries would already have substantial effects on poverty reduction and global justice, Pogge suggests a Global Resource Dividend (GRD), so that “those who make more extensive use of our planet’s resources should compensate those who, involuntarily, use very little” (Pogge, 2001: 66).
Drawing on ecological economics, Tim Hayward (2006) uses the concept of ecological space to account not only for the unequal distribu-tion of natural resources but for “all human interacdistribu-tions with the natural world – our use of resources and our environmental impacts” (359). Fol-lowing global footprint calculations, he demands “globally equal per capita right to ecological space” (Hayward, 2006: 368) to be recognized, and calls – similarly to Pogge – for a global fund to redistribute the eco-nomic benefits derived from excessive natural resource use.
These conceptions of global justice share the following assumptions:
First, a liberal global justice perspective suggests an ahistorical and uni-versal ‘compass’ for global justice without addressing the genesis of resource injustices. Such injustices are linked to geopolitical constellations, colonial legacies, and globally uneven capitalist expansion, all of which call for a historicized perspective on justice principles. Second, liberal global justice focuses mainly on abstract distributional aspects of justice at the expense of other, more political dimensions. Accordingly, the concrete conflicts and struggles, power asymmetries and relations of inequality as well as the competing notions of justice disappear from the research scope.
Third, cosmopolitan liberalism traces the reason for an unequal and unjust distribution of nature and natural resources back to unfair institutions, and lacks a more complex understanding of the socio- economic and polit-ical relations that constitute unequal resource appropriation and control.
Furthermore, it does not provide a social scientific conceptualization of the role of (state) institutions for the control of natural resources. Fourth, the proposals for institutional reform and political strategy prioritize global, cosmopolitan institutions at the expense of more local or regional ones. At the same time, they neglect the interplay of different scales that may be explanatory for the obstacles and blockades of global institutional reform.
Fifth, liberal global justice principles are based on individuals rather than on states, communities, or social groups. Accordingly, these analyses and
suggestions disregard collective and therefore more political justice claims (e.g. of indigenous peoples, affected communities, workers, peasants) that exceed individual entitlements.
To summarize, cosmopolitan liberalism fails to relate global justice to unequal power relations and the political- economic patterns of current resource politics. In other words, while “theories of distributive justice offer models and procedures by which distribution may be improved, none of them thoroughly examine the social, cultural, symbolic, and institu-tional conditions underlying poor distributions in the first place” (Schlos-berg, 2004: 518). Taking these conditions into account, I propose a conceptual understanding of justice that, instead of emanating from abstract and universal philosophical principles of justice, is founded upon concrete socio- ecological conflicts. A political ecology approach such as this highlights the political rather than the moral dimension of current socio- ecological conflicts and traces it to patterns of access to and control over nature and natural resources.
The following section briefly introduces the research field of political ecology and develops an understanding of socio- ecological conflicts that serves as a point of reference for the subsequent discussion on political and democratic dimensions of socio- ecological justice.
Political ecology, power relations, and socio- ecological conflicts
The basic tenets of political ecology highlight the socio- economic and political reasons for unequal resource distribution and the ecological crisis, and link them to unequal power relations that foster socio- ecological con-flicts. Rather than focusing solely on apolitical and moral assumptions to lead (global) natural resource distribution, the heterogeneous research per-spective shares an understanding of a reciprocal relationship between society and nature that “encompasses the shifting dialectic between society and land- based resources, and also within classes and groups within society itself ” (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987: 17). Political ecology analyses the appropriation of nature and natural resources as an explicitly political process that is linked to social relations of ownership and control (Neumann, 2005: 6). In capitalist societal nature relations, the accumula-tion of capital is a major driver of this appropriaaccumula-tion process. In this context, the valorization of nature conceptualizes the complex process of enclosure that incorporates commonly held natural resources into the capi-talist mode of production, and subsequently enables the accumulation of capital (Görg, 2004; Pichler, 2015: 511). This process of “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey, 2005) draws boundaries around nature and territ-ories, assigns ownership rights, defines the utilization of natural resources, and excludes actors with competing claims from these territories (Altvater, 1993; Vandergeest and Peluso, 1995; Brad et al., 2015: 101). The starting
point for political ecology research, then, is “the appropriation of nature that is necessarily historical [. . .] and social (the appropriation of Nature is determined by social relations, particularly relations of ownership and control)” (Peluso and Watts, 2001: 27).
The complex process of resource appropriation and valorization is linked to power relations associated with the distribution of nature and natural resources. Based on Bryant and Bailey (1997), I conceptualize power as the
“ability of an actor to control” (39) the access to nature and natural resources as well as the access of other actors to these resources. Power is, then, the control that one person, social group, or state has over the access to nature and natural resources of another person, social group, or state – both in material (e.g. control of access to land, natural resources, and environmental risks) and symbolic terms (e.g. control of access to knowledge systems, and environmental discourses) (Bryant and Bailey, 1997: 39–42).
Power asymmetries associated with the appropriation of nature and natural resources foster socio- ecological conflicts to reclaim access and control over these resources (Hall et al., 2011: 170–171).2 According to Matthew Turner (2004), publicly expressed – compared to latent – socio- ecological conflicts serve “as important moments when underlying struc-tures of power and real interests are most revealed” (864). The focus on conflicts, then, offers a conceptual starting point to elaborate on an under-standing of justice that encompasses real world resource politics and the power relations associated with these politics.
From these basic assumptions, political ecology researchers have developed complementary conceptions of socio- ecological conflicts. In general terms, Turner (2004) associates “resource- related conflict [. . .] with both struggles to gain access to natural resources and struggles resulting from the use of natural resources” (864). Joan Martínez-Alier (2002: 70) describes the very field of political ecology as the study of ecological distri-bution conflicts: that is, conflicts over the distridistri-bution of environmental resources and/or services. From a postcolonial political ecology perspective, Arturo Escobar (2006) draws on this definition and highlights the eco-nomic, ecological, and cultural dimension of such distribution conflicts, incorporating not only economic distribution but also the neglect of ecolo-gical processes outside monetary terms and cultural domination. Together, these approaches show that socio- ecological conflicts combine both material (e.g. struggles over the redistribution of land) and symbolic dimensions (e.g. struggles over the cultural meaning of land) of resource appropriation and are mainly concerned with the unjust distribution of ecological benefits and risks. Injustice, from this perspective, however, does not refer to a universal understanding of justice. Rather, different notions of justice often compete with each other in concrete socio- ecological con-flicts: that is, the very definition of justice is at stake.
These conceptions mostly refer to power relations and different dimen-sions of socio- ecological conflicts but neglect the institutional dimension
of resource appropriation and control. In recent years, critical scholars, mainly in the context of the German- language debate on ‘societal nature relations’ (gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse), have combined political ecology with critical reflections on the role of the state in the appropria-tion and control of nature and natural resources (Brand et al., 2010;
Brand and Wissen, 2012; Pichler, 2015). This research has shown that processes of valorization and accumulation depend on the materialization of (state) institutions and authorities. According to critical state theory and hegemony theory, (state) institutions are social relations that ‘con-dense’ power relations and conflicts regarding the appropriation, distribu-tion, and control of land and natural resources in state structures and processes, that is, in laws, regulations, administrative procedures, or everyday practices. Conflicting interests materialize in (state) institutions through state strategies that are bundled in hegemonic projects (Gramsci, 1971; Poulantzas, [1978] 2000; Jessop, 1990: 268). In hegemonic pro-jects, particular groups of actors are able to generalize their particular interests (e.g. exclusive use of natural resources through ownership rights) and embed them in institutional structures and processes. This generaliza-tion of interests is not necessarily enacted through coercion but through consensus, which means that the particular interests of a dominant group are accepted by the majority of other social groups (Gramsci, 1971: 161, see also Schmitt, in this volume). Hegemonic projects therefore require alliances between dominant groups (e.g. extractive industries) and sub-altern groups (e.g. local communities, miners, plantation workers, indi-genous peoples) as well as (material) concessions to (partially) meet the interests of the latter. These (material) concessions evolve from justice claims in the course of specific socio- ecological conflicts and may include, for example, the increase of wages, compensation for environmental harm, or the provision of social infrastructure such as housing, health care, and education.
Socio- ecological conflicts allow for the challenge and transformation of hegemonic relations and the rupture of institutions. However, the argu-ments illustrated above show that conflicts take place in or are structured through given constellations of power that are reflected through (state) institutions and practices, and that pre- structure the possibilities and con-ditions for justice claims in socio- ecological conflicts. Accordingly, Brand (2010) distinguishes conflicts within a hegemonic constellation and con-flicts over a hegemonic project. Based on this distinction, many current socio- ecological conflicts evolve around material concessions within a given hegemonic constellation (e.g. compensation for past environmental and social harm, increase in wages, see Coni- Zimmer et al., in this volume) but do not tackle the very basis of unequal appropriation, distribution, and control of natural resources (see Schmitt, in this volume).
In sum, “Political ecology provides tools for thinking about the conflicts and struggles engendered by the forms of access to and control over
resources” (Peluso and Watts, 2001: 24–25). (State) institutions support these unequal social relations but also provide a terrain to fight for altern-ative societal nature relations. Based on these political ecology assump-tions, I start to converge from a moral universal (global) justice framework to more political dimensions of socio- ecological justice in linking conflict-ing societal nature relations to democratization processes.
Socio- ecological conflicts and democratization
Democracy is a contested term. Commonly accepted (static) perspectives conceptualize democracy as a form of government comprising, among other things, regular elections, division of powers, and the rule of law.
More process- oriented models of democracy, in turn, emphasize the process of decision making and focus on the role of democratic institutions and the emergence of a public sphere. Deliberative democracy, for example, highlights discussion and dialogue as the foundational principles that lead to reasonable consensus and agreed- upon policies (Young, 2000:
21–25; Eckersley, 2004: 115–119). Whereas the consensual idea of delib-erative democracy reveals important dimensions of justice (e.g. inclusion, political equality, and social learning), the above elaborated reflections on the contested access to and control over natural resources and the associ-ated socio- ecological conflicts imply an equally conflict- oriented starting point for the conception of democracy:
In a society where there are social group differences and significant injustice, democratic politics ought to be a process of struggle. [. . .]
Because disadvantaged and excluded sectors cannot wait for the process to become fair, because there are often so many contending interests and issues, oppressed and disadvantaged groups have no alternative but to struggle for greater justice under conditions of inequality.
(Young, 2000: 50) A number of political theorists (e.g. Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe) have elaborated on such a conflict- oriented and radical understanding of democracy. In the following, I refer to these theories and link them to the appropriation of nature and the analysis of socio- ecological conflicts.3 Against defining democracy as a form of society or government, Jacques Rancière (1999, 2009) conceptualizes democracy as a process of contesta-tion through distinguishing between the police and politics. Police encom-pass the existing order of things, that is, “the organization of powers, the distribution of places and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distri-bution” (Rancière, 1999: 28). Politics, in contrast, is associated with the disruption of this existing order and the struggle of those people and places that claim a share in the order of things:
As soon as governments are obliged to represent themselves as instances of the common of the community, separated from the sole logic of relations of authority immanent to the reproduction of the social body, there is a public sphere, which is a sphere of encounters and conflicts between two opposed logics of police and politics. [. . .]
The spontaneous practices of any government tend to shrink this public sphere, making it into its own private affair and, in so doing, relegating the interventions and sites of intervention of non- State actors to the private domain. Democracy, then, far from being the form of life of individuals dedicated to their private pleasure, is a process of struggle against this privatization, the process of enlarging this sphere.
(Rancière, 2009: 55) Democracy (a term which Rancière mostly uses synonymously with pol-itics) describes the enlargement of the public sphere and includes both the
“recognition, as equals and as political subjects” of those that have had no part, and “the recognition of the public character of types of spaces and relations that were left to the discretion of the power of wealth” (Rancière, 2009: 55).
Applied to societal nature relations in general and natural resource pol-itics more specifically, such a conceptualization of democracy refers to both the recognition of marginalized people and those outside the public sphere of conflict (e.g. indigenous people, peasants, landless, urban poor, and workers) as well as to the reopening of places (e.g. territories and natural resources subject to enclosure, valorization, and accumulation pro-cesses) for public contestation and democratic negotiation.
In a similar tradition, feminist scholar Val Plumwood (1995: 155–156) links the process of shrinking the public sphere and the failure to equally address issues of natural resources and the environment to a dualism of both public/private and nature/reason in liberal democracies. These
In a similar tradition, feminist scholar Val Plumwood (1995: 155–156) links the process of shrinking the public sphere and the failure to equally address issues of natural resources and the environment to a dualism of both public/private and nature/reason in liberal democracies. These