MSCP Scholar, Jose Puppim de Oliveira's new book, Green Growth: Ideology, Political Economy and the Alternatives has just been published by Zed Books in London. The book is based on a multidisciplinary project to critically analyze the concept of "green growth", initially proposed by S. Korea and disseminated worldwide as a development model, particularly in Asia. The discourse of “green growth” has recently gained ground in environmental governance deliberations and policy proposals. Green Growth: Ideology, Political Economy and the Alternatives presents as a fresh and innovative agenda centered on the deployment of engineering sophistication, managerial acumen, and market mechanisms to redress the environmental and social derelictions of the existing development model. But the green growth project is deeply inadequate, whether assessed against criteria of social justice or the achievement of sustainable economic life upon a materially finite planet. Green Growth outlines three main lines of critique. First, it traces the development of the green growth discourse qua ideology. It asks: what explains modern society’s investment in it, why has it emerged as a master concept in the contemporary conjuncture, and what social forces does it serve? Second, it unpicks and explains the contradictions within a series of prominent green growth projects. Finally, it weighs up the merits and demerits of alternative strategies and policies, asking the vital question: “If not green growth, then what?”
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