About this course
Across Europe and the US, climate change and its geopolitical implications – scarcity, inequality, mass migration – are disrupting faith in conventional representative democracy and giving rise to a broad range of anti-establishment political and ecological movements. From leftist civic protest movements like Extinction Rebellion or the Yellow Vests, to more conservative, traditionalist, ethno-regional or right out ‘eco-fascist’ communities, this course enables you to map and understand the new ‘eco-populism’.
We combine background readings, guest lectures and hands-on field trips, to identify key thinkers, groups and activists. And we unpack and compare the highly diverse ways, in which Left and Right voices approach the realities and anxieties of climate change: from ecology, sustainability and biodiversity, to territory, race and culture – and from hope to hate, resistance to collapse or right out apocalypse. Finally, we discuss what the explosion of eco-populism and its ideals of grass-roots self-governance means for conventional democracy, the nation-state, and world order.
