Identity politics and climate activism in young democracies

• In Event: Climate Activism and Socio-political Challenges in Democracies

Abstract

The paper interrogates the relationship between democratic institutions and environmental sustainability in the context of climate governance. The empirical focus of the project is on hybrid and emerging democratic countries in Southeast Asia, where democratic consolidation processes are yet completed. Many of such democracies have deep-seated colonial and/or authoritarian legacies (e.g., the Philippines), recent histories of civil conflict (e.g., Cambodia), or turbulent processes of regime transition (e.g., Indonesia). As a result, they are hybrid regimes where democratic culture, institutions, and norms are not consolidated yet mixed with nondemocratic features, for example, lack of judicial independence and infringed freedom of speech and association. Hybrid democracies face a daunting “environmental dilemma” more than consolidated democracies (e.g., Norway) – not only the democratic transition will cause and even accelerate ecological degradation in the short run such as the drastic loss of tropical forests in Indonesia and Malaysia in recent decades, but also there will be devastating impacts on democratic institutions if such degradation were poorly managed such as the distorted general election campaigns in the aftermath of Duterte administration’s mishandling of several natural and extreme weather disasters. In the last decade, especially after the Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted in 2015, the vicious cycle of deteriorating democratic governance and environmental unsustainability in many developing countries has worsened. The governments of these countries often find themselves struggling to keep up the economic momentum, regulate carbon emissions, and maintain democracy all at the same time.
The project will apply comparative political analysis to examine climate activism in Cambodia and Indonesia, focusing on how activists frame the narrative against coal/hydro power plants. In addition to global climate change and green energy transition narratives, local anti-coal power plant and/or hydropower project movements often have framed the issue in connection with limiting the influence of certain ethnic groups and defending national interests against foreign investments (mostly from P. R. China). As a result of democratization, local identities (e.g., ethnicity) become the primary driver of political mobilization and participation in policymaking, particularly in remote and rural areas of multi-ethic countries such as Indonesia. Such identity politics and social tension have become exacerbated by significantly increased influence and investment by foreign governments (or rather a particular government, i.e., P. R. China). The rise of identity politics, attached to localities and transnational business linkages, can engender new barriers to environmental governance, democratic institutions, and green energy transition initiated by the central government in focused case countries and beyond. The geopolitical focus of the paper is Southeast Asia, though similar patterns are expected to be found in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
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Author

• Fengshi Wu, University of New South Wales