Politics: Consolidating a Green Niche in the New Germany

Abstract

While 1979–83 was characterised by a process of conversion, 1983–89 clearly entails a diversification process, producing several ideological clusters which differed on prime political questions, such as the relationship to capitalism, the role of the party and the way to realise ecological change. Moreover, it seems as if each of these ideological currents developed its own ‘modular ideology’ — as in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, modular ideologies seeming to multiply and a plethora of these ideologies emerging from the analysis. Thus, while ecofundis perceive the array of new political issues as constituting Green ideology (for example, global ecological crisis; the Third World; hierarchical domination), the ecosocialists and ecoradicals see a host of movements as coalescing within the Greens (workers, women, ecological, anti-nuclear movements). Ecolibs think rather of diverse citizens’ initiatives and decentralised, local projects which compose the Green vision while the Realos conceive of disadvantaged groups and exploited subjects (minorities, foreign workers, women, nature) as Green consistencies.