Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment

A study in global sociology which argues that environmental activism has taken on a hybrid, transnational character in reaction to the retreat of the state and the political activism of transnational migrant communities. The argument is illustrated with case studies of contemporary environmental social movements in Turkey and Lithuania.

Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment attempts to transcend current social science paradigms for interpreting the relations between globalization and environmental activism, and to develop an alternative perspective that recognizes the effects of economic globalization, accelerating migration, and the retreat of the state on environmental social movements and politics. The book is a study in global sociology, and makes use of both quantitative analysis and qualitative case studies. By addressing cutting-edge theories of globalization from several disciplines, using multiple methods and multiple sources of data, and illustrating its major arguments with case studies of Turkey and Lithuania, Transnational Identity Politics and the Environment represents a theoretically daring and empirically compelling approach to environmental politics. Specifically, the book argues that trends in the direction of economic liberalization, media globalization, migration, and supranational political organization have weakened environmental movements and coalitions that relied on the nation-state and "big science." While such groups have lost popularity and influence, since the 1980s, newer groups linking environmental issues with ethnic and religious activism have flourished. An analyses of global data on the establishment of nonprofit environmental organizations, and case studies of hybrid, transnational ethnic/environmental and religious/environmental groups in Turkey and Lithuania, support the books main arguments on globalization, the state, and contemporary environmental activism.