Green movement and Green parties

DEFINITIONS: Movement seeking to influence society toward greater consciousness of environmental issues and the political parties established to bring about such change through existing democratic institutions

The Green movement seeks to change certain fundamental values in Western society, particularly those that appear to create threats to humanity and the larger nonhuman environment, such as unrestricted technological progress and economic development. Although varied in their origins and interests, Green parties work for political change aimed at achieving the ideals of the Green movement.

The Green movement in Western Europe and the United States has its roots in the protest movements of the 1960s. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring published in 1962, is credited as the first major work focused not only on the health hazards of industrial pollution, but also on the interdependency of humans and the . Another concern of the early Green movement during the Cold War was the potential for nuclear warfare conducted by world superpowers. These issues helped initiate the first peace demonstrations against nuclear weapons. The 1970s peace movement in Europe resulted in the first recognized Green parties. These were modeled on New Zealand’s New Values Party, launched in 1972, and Great Britain’s Ecology Party, which formed in 1973. Both organizations sought to formulate new electoral strategies with environmental issues.

The Greens first organized in the United States in 1984 as the Green Committees of Correspondence, which took the German Green Party as their model. These organizations consisted of state parties and individuals who were not members of other political parties. At the outset Green parties focused on local issues in their respective states, and were only loosely connected at the national level. The first Green candidate in the United States to appear on a ballot did so in 1986 but as a solo candidate and not part of a larger party ticket. In 1990 the Alaska Green Party was the first to appear on an election ballot, followed by its California counterpart in 1992. A coalition of Green parties fielded a presidential candidate for the first time in 1996 with Ralph Nader as its representative. Nader would later tally one percent of the vote and 14 percent in the 2000 presidential election. Despite internal disagreements over election strategy that emerged during the 1990s, in 1996 twenty-five state parties formed the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) in anticipation of national elections in 2000. In 2001, the ASGP was replaced by the Green Party of the United States (GPUS), a federation of forty-six state Green parties.

Some degree of international affiliation exists among national Green parties. The GPUS, for instance, is a member of the Federation of the Green Parties of the Americas, is based in Mexico City, and is associated with the European Federation of Green Parties.

Core Principles

A key tenet of Green parties in all countries is the belief that the world order must be reshaped toward local governance. At the same time, the transformation must include a shift from a desire for immediate gratification toward a longer-ranged perspective focused on sustainable production of required needs. The often-repeated slogan “Think globally, act locally” reflects the spirit of the movement. With this in mind, the European Green parties published four basic principles in the 1970s, and their counterparts in the United States added six more in the 1980s.

The “four pillars” of the early European Greens were ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence. “Ecology," or “ecological wisdom,” in the American usage, requires a change in mindset. People should consider themselves part of nature, not its owners, and thus live with it in harmony. From a practical standpoint, this entails employing technology to achieve objectives such as an energy-efficient economy and minimizing usage of nonrenewable resources. Social justice encompasses universal equal rights, dignity, and social responsibility based on the values of simplicity and moderation. Greens advocate community-controlled, free education and crime prevention programs over policing. They support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, universal health care, and abortion rights. Grassroots democracy, in the American interpretation, would distribute most state and federal power to local elected officials and mediating institutions, such as neighborhood organizations, church groups, voluntary associations, and ethnic clubs. Its objective is to restore civic vitality by involving as many people as possible in decision making and avoiding reliance on lawyers, legislators, and bureaucrats. The pillar of nonviolence involves not only seeking to end patterns of conflict in families and communities but also working to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The six key values added by American Green parties elaborate on issues contained in the four pillars. First, respect for diversity honors cultural, racial, sexual, and religious differences, while also emphasizing individual accountability. Second, gender equality should replace historical patterns of male dominance, and thus ensure equal treatment and participation of both men and women. Ethics would also be derived from cooperation and respect for all people. Community-based economics calls for employee ownership of businesses, workplace democracy, and equal distribution of wealth to ensure basic economic security for all. Similar to grassroots democracy, decentralization would give power to economically defined localities and ecologically defined regions. Decentralization would entail the redesign of institutions so that control over regulations and money is greatest at the level, rather than from a national hierarchy. Control over environmental policy should be greatest at the regional level. Personal and global accountability encourages wealthy communities to directly assist grassroots groups in developing countries rather than through government intermediaries. This would assist these groups with self-sufficiency. To fund such aid, Greens want to decrease the national defense budget, although not to the point of compromising American security. In terms of the future, sustainability, requires all economic, scientific, and cultural policies to be formulated with careful attention to their long-range effects, not just to their immediate benefits. For this reason, European and American Greens have denounced such scientific developments as and nuclear power.

European and American Green movement groups do differ in certain areas. For example, the European Greens call for internationalized security to prevent war. After a reform in the United Nations where each nation has equal voting power, European Greens groups propose authority for military action to reside in the United Nations. They also want to replace regional trade treaties, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with treaties negotiated and monitored by the United Nations. The American emphasis on decentralization in matters of trade does not align with the European vision of world order. Also unclear are how community-based economics would address the European goal of planet-wide economic solidarity.

Political Power

In the 1980s and 1990s, existing doctrinal divisions among Green groups resulted in contention and sometimes disaffection, especially in the European organizations. Divisions have tended to emerge among moderates, open to working with other political parties, and radicals who viewed compromise as unacceptable. The moderates, sometimes referred to as “light green,” tended to espouse an "anthropocentric" viewpoint that suggested Greens should help safeguard the human environment but not at the expense of other organisms. Light Greens sought the reform of existing social and economic institutions. Conversely, radicals, known as “dark green,” were "biocentric" in believing all creatures have equal natural rights to life and that humankind should not consider itself a favored species. Dark Greens worked towards changing their perceptions of a technological and expansionist orientation of society.

Green parties have achieved modest success, especially in Western Europe, in placing political candidates in office. Greens have constituted 10 percent of some parliaments and have entered into coalitions that have formed ruling governments. In nearly all countries, they have influenced environmental legislation. In the United States, by 1999 Green candidates had been elected to sixty-three local offices in fifteen states, mostly for such nonpartisan agencies as planning groups and school boards. Arcata in Northern California was the first municipality to have a Green majority on its city council. In 2008 a Green was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives (although he later changed party affiliation, becoming a Democrat). According to the Green Party of the United States, as of 2018, eighteen states have elected 147 Greens to public office. In the 2016 US presidential election, Green Party candidate Jill Stein ran on a Green New Deal platform to create millions of living wage jobs, halt arms sales overseas, and establish an agency for renewable energy. Although Stein only received about 1 percent of the popular vote, this number was sufficient to deny Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton victories in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. These electoral college votes would go to the Republican candidate Donald Trump, helping to secure his election to the presidency. In the 2020 United States elections, Green candidate Howie Hawkins garnered less than 0.5 percent of the national vote. Hawkings attributed the drop in numbers to a change in priorities for Green supporters. He commented that many progressives had cast their votes for Stein in 2016 as a form of protest. These same voters turned their motivations toward a defeat of Donald Trump in 2020 and again in 2024. Twelve Green Party candidates filed for the 2024 presidential election, including Stein.

The influcence of Green parties has been greatest in areas such as policy formulation and education. American critics accuse the Green movement of elitism, asserting that it is the project of well-educated, middle-class white people. The Green conception of an ideal society can leave little room for individualism, which also runs counter to mainstream American ideals. Its willingness to grant international organizations such as the United Nations control over sovereign issus such as security, is also prone to resistance. Perhaps the strongest point of contention among Western nations is the ideas of redistribution of wealth. These threaten the concept of free market economies. Nonetheless, the Green movement has succeeded with one of its primary goals. This is to change the unquestioned belief in technological and economic expansion, and to shift the burden of proof on its proponents to demonstrate that specific projects will not harm humanity or nature.

Some mainstream groups, such as the Democratic Party in the United States, complain that Green parties are spoilers that siphon off votes for liberal votes candidates. Political parties have thus adopted some of the Green environmental goals in their own platforms that have weakened the lure of Green party candidates.

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