Sean Hanley has a brief but interesting post up about the Green parties of Estonia and the Czech Republic (and elsewhere) and why the Western sociological frame of ‘post-materialism’ may be inaccurate for understanding the Green parties farther east. It may even be inaccurate, he hints, for understanding those of the west. Perhaps they are better understood as the coming together of “environmental and/or agrarian interest with the demand for ‘new politics’ of the centre.” He suggests that the brand has become a trusted one for these rather diverse groups choosing to ally under the ‘green’ label–”a kind of franchise taken up by a rather diverse group of political business partners. Not necessarily totally meaningless, but not really indicative of a close ‘party family’ relationship.”
I suspect Sean is very much on to something here.
He also notes some internal problems–predictably–caused by the Green’s coalition with the right in the Czech Republic.
In the case of the Czech Greens, the governmental staus might be an issue, making it rather difficult to remain exclusively within materialist/ postmaterialist cleavage for them. And its even more difficult now, when environmentalism and the market have not been neccessarily mutually exclusive terms any more with governments supporting green energy and green fuel industries…
Still, the most salient (and at the same time most divisive in the internal dimension) topic for the party could be somewhat related to the postmaterialism- it is the opposition of the substantial part of the party membership, elites and voters to the Czech participation in the US National Missile Defense program that is otherwise pushed forward by the Czech government and more or less accepted by the Green ministers in it.
Seed planted by Roman Chytilek — 20 June 2008 @ 18:18