The Green Party, in its current form, has taken all of nine years to gain its first representation in parliament, with Caroline Lucas being elected in Brighton Pavillion in May 2010. At the heart of the party's ideology is environmentalism, and the belief that climate change will destroy life as we know it, if left unchallenged.
A rather excellent read can be found amoungst the works of one Anthony Downs. Downs developed a theory, relating directly to environmentalism, on how issues within the public attention span go through 'cycles' of apparentness and importance. The original works are here, and explain themselves much better than my summary ever could:
The crux of his logic is that while the media and politicians are all ablaze with an issue, so the public remains interested in it, but as the attention from the media and politicians on the issue begins to drop off (often in favour of a new issue, or upon the solution of the issue), so does the public's concern with said issue. However, he also interestingly asserts that there are certain issues that simply do not go away. Instead they stay at the top of the 'cycle' (the peak of concern and apparentness) until a solution is found. These, what some may call, 'Super Issues' are rare, but not uncommon. Downs argues that environmentalism as a whole appears to be one of these Super Issues.
So, a Super Issue environmentalism may be, but why should this mean that a party respresenting the apparent solutions to the environmental problem gets into power? Well, it wouldn't be the first time a political party managed to ascend to government with a Super Issue at the heart of its ideology.
Around 150 years ago, an issue arose from the aftermath of the industrial revolution, that had been seemingly put to rest by Disraeli and his 'One Nation Conservatism'; the poor were getting poorer, and working conditions worsening and worsening. This Super Issue was not addressed propperly by nor Whigs or Tory party, so a new party was born in 1900 to represent those affected by this issue, and have it pushed into government agenda. The name of that party? The British Labour Party. In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald became the first ever Labour Party Prime Minister, and the party went on to govern on and off for the remainder of the century. Admittedly, since then the party went on to evolve into an ideologically based party once working condition improvements and significant steps to take working class living conditions out of poverty, were achieved. But intially it was the drive to resolve those issues that resulted in them taking power in 1924 and the first half of the 20th Century.
Parralells can be drawn between the conditions surrounding the rise of the Labour Party can be drawn with those surrounding the current circumstance of the environmental problem and the Green Party; for one thing, there is a party to represent the issue, for another, the issue is a Super Issue, for another, the issue has not been fully taken up by any other mainstream party, and finally, the Super Issue just appears to be getting worse and worse:
SOURCE: Eye-opener on Global Warming
If the Labour Party managed to gain power by representing a group of people concerned by a Super Issue, then why can't the Green Party? If three conditions are filled, then their representation in government becomes a high possibility. Firstly, in ten or so years time, evironmentalism must still be a Super Issue worldwide. Secondly, the British Green Party must model itself around their German counterparts and abandon their more abstract politices and write a much more encompassing manifesto that will compete with the other parties at election time.
However, there is a hindering thorn-in-the-side in the circumstance of the Green Party. They, unlike the Labour Party in the early 20th Century, have an underlying problem when trying to engage voters in resolving their Super Issue; they are struggling, like scientiest worldwide, to convince us that global warming needs addressing right here, right now, at the highest level possible. This so because we are not being directly affected by it yet here in the UK, nor in the northern hemisphere at large.
We hear constant reports of floods in the sub-continent, ice-caps melting in the arctic, and species dying out in the rainforests. But the fact of the matter is that the British voter is actually a highly selfish person when it comes to polling day. Often they consider just personal principals, or contemplate which party offers the greatest personal benefits to them when chosing who to ballot for. It is not often you will find a voter who can say "I voted for Party A because of their foreign policy" for example. Thus, thirdly, global warming must start directly effecting us here in the UK and thus move to the peak of the majority's 'list of concerns' at election time.
Still, if the science is correct and things will get worse and more apparent here in the northern hemisphere, and if more radical and abstract policies are dropped, then in the coming years it is highly plausable that the Green Party will enter the mainstream of British Politics, just as their German cousins have done, and eventually earn governmental representation.
*Note: Upon further consideration, another factor undoubtably contributed to the rise of the Labour Party in the early 20th century; the enfranchisement of the working class males. However, a form of realisation of just how serious global warming is upon the electorate, could be likened to this enfranchisement, as it similarly would give a sudden change in the situation of the electorate at large.
No comments:
Post a Comment