Green Party

The Green Party is a shorthand name for a group of political parties and political movements concerned with preservation of natural ecoregions, global climate, other aspects of natural environment (see environmentalism), via grassroots democracy, pacifism, and social justice causes especially those related to the plight of indigenous peoples, urban homeless, and others in genuine need. Around the world, there are political parties that share this same name and value system in dozens of countries. Some seek to cooperate in an alternate Ecoregional Democracy defying nation-states and their borders.

no monopoly on policy

In some countries, notably the U.S., there are multiple parties with differing platforms each of which claim to be "the Green Party". Many people also confuse Green Parties with Greenpeace, a global NGO prominent in the ecology movement and peace movement - with which there are very substantial policy and methodology differences. However, on core matters of biosafety, biosecurity and health security, the local Green Party and Greenpeace generally agree, and may take a common position.

Global Cooperation

There is no centralized international Green Party bureacracy although one has been proposed to contest global posts. There is both formal and informal interchange between the national and regional parties. There are federations of national green parties in Europe, and the Americas. In 2001, there was a worldwide conference of Greens in Australia, at which a charter was agreed to that stated "the values and principles that [attendees] hold in common as Green parties and political movements" global.greens.org.au. This charter has not been ratified by all parties globally, nor has the Australian conference been universally recognized by those with fundamental objections to any centralized control as per the Pillars. An alternative approach to enforcing rights and allocating duties is a Green Ethic -which delegates less discretion to the global or national centers and more to mediators at the ecoregional or local edges, as in indigenous peoples. It is unlikely that any top-down definition of Green Ethics or Values in any one language can actually be accepted by all Global Greens. Green Party non-violent bottom-up consensus process seems to be in direct opposition to any monopoly on the definition of values or principles. It seems that the Green political movement will continue to be characterized by diversity, in imitation of the natural world which provides its examples.

Ethics

Green Parties participate in the legal electoral process and seek to influence the definition and enforcement of law in each nation in which they are organized. Accordingly, Green Parties do not advocate an end to all law or all violent or potentially-violent enforcement of law, although they prefer peace, de-escalation, and harms reduction approaches to enforcement. They are also often confused with "left" political parties advocating central control of capital. However many Greens follow more geo-libertarian views which emphasize natural capitalism - and shifting taxes away from value created by labor or service and charging instead for the (inefficient) consumption of the wealth created by the natural world - which Greens consider universally to be the birthright of all living beings. That said, Greens may view the processes by which living beings compete for mates homes and food, ecology, and the cognitive and political sciences very differently. These differences tend to drive debate on ethics, formation of policy, and the public resolution of these differences in leadership races.

Platforms

Green party platforms draw elements from the science of ecology, Feminism, political liberalism (U.S. style), libertarian socialism and libertarian survivalists, indigenous peoples (or "First Nations"), and ethics of Gandhi and Spinoza, all unified by a common respect for the natural workings of ecology. These ideas have been summed in the Ten Key Values drafted by the U.S. Green Party including the Four Pillars that European greens use. Although Greens vary in their views of the priority to be assigned to these Values or Pillars in any given dispute resolution or policy debate, there is little dispute that all apply in some order to more or less any situation requiring public controls.

Alliances

Still, what defines a Green Party is respect for ecology and mimicry of its decentralized control (which operates by feedback not rules). Depending on local conditions or issues, alliances may vary drastically. Green Parties are often formed by a coalition of scientific ecologists, community environmentalists and local (or national) leftist groups. This is sometimes called a Red-Green Alliance - although as noted above some Greens find more effective alliances with spirit groups, or with more conservative groups Blue-Green Alliance or indigenous peoples who seek to prevent disruption of traditional ways of life or ecological balances they depend on. For example, Greens allied to oust the Centre-left ruling PRI party of Mexico, and Ralph Nader of the US Greens campaigned with Pat Buchanan (a very conservative Catholic also running for US President) on joint issues like farm policy and bans on corporate funding of election campaigns. Many also blame Nader's campaign for the election of US President G. W. Bush in 2000. As a matter of philosophy, Greens will in general accept short-term pain in return for long-term and strategic gains: despite the blame, the US Greens grew drastically in size throughout 2001. However, stable coalitions (such as that in Germany) tend to be formed between elections with 'the left' on social issues, and 'the grassroots right' on such issues as irresponsible corporate subsidies and public ethics.

As Green Parties generally grow from the bottom up, from neighborhood to municipal to eco/regional to national levels, and are ruled by consensus, strong local coalitions are always a pre-requisite to electoral breakthroughs.

History

The first Green Party in the form it's recognized today, was started in New Zealand in the early 1970s under the name the "Values Party". It produced an influential manifesto: "Beyond Tomorrow" in 1975, a year in which they received 5.3% of the national vote, but were unable to place any members in parliament.

This manifesto, along with the United States environmental movement, played a large role in influencing Petra Kelly, one of the leaders of the German Green Party, the first Green party to have real success at the electoral level. The German Greens were famous for their opposition to nuclear power, as an expression of anti-centralist and pacifist values traditional to greens. They were founded on January 13, 1980, and joined the federal parliament for the first time in 1983. They have worked in coalition with the German Social Democrats in what amounts to a centralized and/or compromised Red-Green Alliance.

Their success inspired the formation of Green Parties in countries around Europe and around the world. As of 2001, the Green Party was the junior partner in coalition governments in Germany, France, Belgium, and Finland. Other countries with moderately large Green Parties include the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Two provinces of Canada, BC and ON, have strong provincial Green Parties but (as in other countries following English style 'first past the post' electoral rules) face barriers to gaining federal or provincial/regional/state seats. Green parties are being organized in Yugoslavia - now "Serbia and Montenegro" and Afghanistan, and may arise in Brazil, Congo, Indonesia and Madagascar where primate extinction has become a major issue.

If Green ideas take root in nations literally destroyed by ethnic conflicts, it seems likely that Green parties globally would benefit from that success.

Trans-national Issues

A few issues affect most of the green parties around the world, and can often inhibit global cooperation. Some affect structure, and others affect policy:

Green Parties of the World

External links:

http://www.greens.org