Exploring the ‘Green Scare’ as a Reflection of the Neoliberal Legislative Agenda

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Critical Criminology, Green Criminology, and the Law

Abstract

This presentation explores the ‘Green Scare’ through a critical lens. Potter (2008) defines it as the criminal labeling of environmental and animal rights activists to instill fear and chill dissent. He argues it operates through legal, legislative, and extra-legal (or scare-mongering) tactics. Examples of this phenomenon in federal and state policy include the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), which labels as terrorism a broad range of behaviors that interfere with animal enterprise, and ‘ag-gag’ laws, which criminalize documentation of agricultural facilities such as farms or slaughterhouses. This is consistent with Baradaran’s (2024) depiction of the neoliberal agenda. As demonstrated in 'The Quiet Coup', it has encompassed the specific, technical, and complex laws created in collaboration with industry to protect private interests, thus challenging the notion that neoliberalism “eviscerate[d] regulations.” I argue the legal products of the Green Scare exemplify her thesis. While neoliberalism decreased regulations for industry, laws like the AETA represent a form of regulatory control exerted via the state, to industry’s benefit. Created in conjunction with animal agriculture and industry, these laws function to protect corporate profits and may, as Baradaran argues of the effects of neoliberal ideology on democracy, reduce social trust (see Robbins et al., 2016).

Author

• Rachelle Wetsman, CUNY Graduate Center / John Jay College of Criminal Justice