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The paradox of Anthony Giddens1
Noel Castree, School of Environment and Development, Manchester University, M13
9PL [email protected]
The politics of climate change – his latest book – tells far us more about Anthony
Giddens that it does the topic described in its title. Having the capacity to
say something is not the same thing as having something worth saying. The
alarm bells sound as early as page two, where the ‘Giddens paradox’ is
defined: “It states that, since the dangers posed by global warming aren't
tangible, immediate or visible in the course of day-to-day life – however
awesome they may appear – many will sit on their hands and do nothing
concrete about them. Yet waiting until they become visible and acute before
being stirred to serious action will, by definition, be too late”. To coin a
neologism in one’s own name takes a lot of chutzpah at the best of times; to
do it when such a well-known and simple idea is being described indicates a
sheer lack of judgement. In this essay I want to suggest that The politics of
climate change bespeaks a man possessed of the desire and the means to make
his views known – yet whose arguments will, alas, have little impact on their
intended audience such is their inadequacy. Herein lies the paradox of my
title. As Anthony Giddens well knows, to be influential in the world of ideas
one’s views need to be credible, novel or timely (preferably all three).
However, as I will explain, he has used his considerable reputation as both a
scholar and public intellectual to voice arguments that lack credibility,
novelty or timeliness. In short, this is a book that either should not have
been written or which ought to have taken much longer to write (resulting,
one would hope, in a much better text).
Some background, before I seek to make good on these less than flattering
assertions. Anthony Giddens has enjoyed a glittering career – three careers,
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review of The politics of climate change by Anthony Giddens (2009) Cambridge: Polity Press.
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to be more precise. His long years spent as a professional sociologist, which
culminated with him being a professor at Cambridge University, were
extraordinarily productive. He authored several seminal works of social
theory (as well as student textbooks), and by the late 1980s was among the
world’s most famous and influential social scientists. Such was the impact of
his work that it was multiply translated and anthologised, and myriad books
and journal papers were devoted to appraising it. From 1997 Giddens began
a second career as a senior manager in higher education, leaving Cambridge
for Britain’s capital city. His directorship of the world-famous London
School of Economics (LSE) lasted six years and was, by all accounts,
successful. This overlapped with Giddens’ third career, which is now just
about his only occupation: that of a ‘public intellectual’. This familiar term
remains the subject of debate, and I don’t want to discuss all the niceties of
meaning here. Suffice to say that Giddens consciously sought to shape the
landscape of political ideas in Britain with his books Beyond Left and Right
(1994), The Third Way (1998), The Third Way and its Critics (2000), Where Now
for New Labour? (2002) and most recently Over to You, Mr Brown – How Labour
Can Win Again (2007). All were published by his ‘house press’ Polity.
In this endeavour there is a widespread perception that he’s been successful:
many people associate the ‘third way’ approach with the policy programmes
of the Blair governments (and even the Clinton regimes). As his LSE
webpage modestly declares, “Giddens’ impact upon politics has been
profound” (http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/stafflord giddens.htm). A
member of the social democratic Left, he has arguably done more than
anyone outside the world of professional politics to shape the New Labour
agenda. In fact, he is now a part of that world. Ennobled for life in 2004,
Giddens currently sits in Britain’s House of Lords when he’s not writing
books, or involving himself in the activities of the Policy Network (a
progressive London-based think-tank) or the LSE’s Centre for the Study of
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Global Governance (where he is a Professor Emeritus). For a boy born to
modest means on the eve of the second world war, he’s used his
considerable talents to great effect. Precious few of his academic peers
(think Habermas or Bourdieu, for instance) have been able to reach the
heights of academe and then go on to intervene in public life with
discernable effect.
This biographical context matters if we’re to make proper sense of The
politics of climate change. Giddens has a distinguished track record of
pronouncing on the ‘big issues’: he’s never lacked intellectual ambition. The
commonality between the otherwise different ideas contained in a book like
The Constitution of Society (1984) and the already mentioned Third Way is their
author’s trademark ability to both synthesise and transcend previous
perspectives. It’s therefore no surprise that Giddens has been drawn to the
subject of climate change: it is, the recent financial crisis excepted, perhaps
the defining problem of our time. The last three years have witnessed a
global sea-change in perceptions of climate change. The decade-long
drumbeat of concern sounded by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change has, belatedly, hit home. The new common-sense is that ‘global
warming’ and associated ‘environmental change’ are real and present
dangers – though the exact details remain beyond the ken of even the
smartest environmental scientists. Giddens accepts this common-sense.
Moreover, he rightly insists that climate change impinges on virtually all
aspects of public policy and everyday life; it is, without doubt, highly
promiscuous in its implications. His major questions about this “wicked
problem” (Rittel & Webber, 1984) are: ‘what is to be done?’ and ‘how
should the necessary measures be presented?’.
Books about climate change are now dime-a-dozen. So what, if anything, is
distinctive about The politics of climate change? First, it is focussed on the sorts
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of political ideas, measures and institutional actions required to avoid the
eventual tragedy implicit in the Giddens paradox. This hardly makes it
unique, but does distinguish it from the many books about the evidence for
climate change and its likely impacts. Second, it avoids the rhetorical
antinomies of the Cassandras and the Pollyannas. Giddens calls himself a
`realist': he believes that climate change presents us with opportunities not
only threats, but argues that mitigating the latter so as to maximise the
former will be no mean feat. Third, his book is addressed directly to
professional politicians, public administrators, policy wonks and anyone else
who inhabits the relatively exclusive world of climate change politics. When,
as early as page 12, Giddens says that “my advice to policy makers would be
as follows …” we are in no doubt: The politics of climate change was written to
anticipate the United Nations Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change
(three weeks away at the time of writing). In light of his previous success as
a partisan public intellectual, Giddens clearly believes that he’s someone that
policy makers – by which I mean both those who create policy and those
who, more generally, seek to shape the policy milieux (e.g. think-tanks) –
will listen to (especially in Britain). What’s more, though the book weighs in
at a chunky 251 pages, the prose is plain, the font large, the sections short
and bullet points are used throughout – all, presumably, concessions to the
perceived need of busy civil servants or harried politicians to digest
information quickly.
What is Giddens’ substantive argument? He opens with the “somewhat
startling assertion that, at present, we have no politics of climate change” (p. 4). By
this he means that we currently lack a “developed analysis of the political
innovations that have to be made if our aspirations to limit global warming
are to become real” (ibid.). This is a bold claim that is stated rather than
properly justified. Giddens focuses squarely on the national state as the key
institution for delivering climate change mitigation and adaptation measures:
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without it, his eponymous paradox cannot be resolved. What sort of state do
we need, and how should it progress the climate change agenda? The end of
chapter 3 provides the answer, and Giddens has the leading capitalist states
very much in mind. Among the ‘new concepts’ thrown at readers are the
following: the ensuring state (p. 69), which not only enables but tasks itself
with delivering specified outcomes; political convergence, which describes the
need to ensure synergies between mitigation and adaptation policies and
other areas of public policy; economic convergence, which is Giddens’ term for
‘ecological modernisation’ (a ‘win-win’ scenario where economic growth
delivers environmental gains); foregrounding, which describes the constant
need to make climate change a visible and integral part of all political
discussion; climate change positives, which describes a mentality which accents
the potential gains of tackling climate change rather than simply sacrifices to
be made; political transcendence, which is the idea that climate change is not a
left-right issue but must be accepted as a challenge for any incumbent party;
the percentage principle, which is a critique of the ‘precautionary principle’ and
advocates detailed risk planning in the search for opportunities attendant
upon climate change; the development imperative, which recognises the right of
(and need for) poor countries to enjoy significant economic growth, even if
it’s ecologically harmful in the short-term; over-development, which is Giddens’
term for the critique of ‘wealth’ (conventionally defined) of the sort enjoyed
by countries like the US and Britain; and proactive adaptation, which is the idea
that policy makers must focus as much on adaptation as on mitigation, and
should plan ahead as much as possible. These ten concepts are explored to
varying degrees throughout the subsequent six chapters.
Is anything new or arresting being said here? Not really. Giddens is mostly
relabelling familiar ideas in his own words, the Giddens paradox being the
most egregious example. Worse, his list of concepts amount to abstract
injunctions: little or no flesh is added to the semantic bones. This lends The
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politics of climate change a homiletic quality, with its author ‘dispensing’ general
advice to the political laity. Just as off-putting is a continuous stream of
banalities. Here’s two of many examples: “Taxation is one of the major
levers of state policy …” (p. 149) and “Free riding can arise in any area of
… life in which collective outcomes hinge on decisions taken by individual
actors” (p. 101). Rarely are trite statements like these developed into detailed
arguments. Instead, Giddens’ discussions of everything from risk assessment
to carbon markets to climate change geopolitics remain superficial. When he
does get somewhat specific it is typically where he offers fairly bland,
capsule summaries of existing factual knowledge. For instance, there are
breezy chapters about climate change science (including the sceptics’ views)
and about the environmental record of leading capitalist states (notably
Britain). Politicians and policy makers may value economy of expression
when digesting books and reports; but Giddens goes too far and ends-up
saying little that one can actually hold onto or concretise.
If The politics of climate change lacks originality, will its very general arguments
nonetheless prove to be influential? I very much doubt it. In part, this is a
question of credibility. Anthony Giddens is an enormously respected
commentator by virtue of his previous writings and achievements – but not
when it comes to the subject of climate change politics. Consider his initial
attempt to shape political debate over a decade ago. Commenting on The
Third Way, my colleague Mick Moran described it as “genuinely the work of
a public intellectual” because “it was truly based on a view of social life that
arose from original, scholarly work; it transformed that work into a language
accessible to the general reader and the practical policy-maker; and, partly
through the good fortune of ending-up at the LSE (1997-2003) at the very
moment of New Labour’s election to office, Giddens was actually able to
engage …” (2008: 300). The first of Moran’s trio is key here. Giddens can
still engage politicians and policy makers, and the language of The politics of
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climate change is certainly ‘accessible’ (to the point of being yawn-inducing, it
must be said). But his insights are entirely second-hand and derivative: they
do not arise out of original scholarly work or deep, sustained thinking.
Giddens is a late-comer as well as a new-comer to the subject of climate
change, and it shows. In this sense, he is no different to someone like Nigel
Lawson, the former Thatcherite Chancellor who recently authored An
Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (2008). Neither man
possesses the necessary professional background or expertise to pronounce
authoritatively on their chosen subjects. Yet both have used their
reputations – and in Giddens’ case his own publishing house (Polity) – to
broadcast their respective views about climate change. By exploring new
territory, Giddens risks diluting the intellectual capital he has steadily builtup in the interlinked worlds of Westminster, Whitehall and Fleet Street.
I earlier mentioned the Copenhagen meeting, which will be long concluded
by the time this essay is published. Turning to the third and final of the
evaluative criteria listed in my introduction, is The politics of climate change
timely? Again, I have to say no. When The Third Way and its successors were
published, Giddens had few direct competitors. In the mid-1990s, after the
Neil Kinnock and John Smith periods, there was a need to redefine
progressive politics in Britain: the eclipse of ‘old Labour’ values and policies
made this imperative. Giddens presented a comprehensive definition, and
possessed the academic credibility to be taken seriously. By contrast, The
politics of climate change has been published at a time when there are already
numerous players – if not necessarily public intellectuals, then certainly
policy intellectuals and policy entrepreneurs aplenty. Sir Nicholas Stern, also
at the LSE, is perhaps the most famous example in the British context. But
there’s also the Left-leaning duo Michael Jacobs and Jonathan Porritt, who
have served as relatively independent environmental policy advisors-cumagenda-setters for years. In short, Giddens is trying to enter a pretty
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crowded field with his latest book, making it that much harder for his ideas
to gain recognition or traction.
In sum, The politics of climate change is not a book to be reckoned with.
Others agree – though they don’t include Bill Clinton, Sir Martin Rees or
Ulrich Beck whose words of lavish praise adorn the book’s covers. Writing
in the journal International Affairs, the British climate scientist Mike Hulme
feels that it “lacks coherence and depth” (2009: 1067), while the American
academic Roger Pielke writes in Nature that it “resorts to wishy-washy
recommendations and generic exhortation” (2009: 85). Interestingly, these
views were presaged by similar reactions to Giddens’ previous book. Writing
about Over To You, Mr. Brown, one reviewer felt that it was “a rag-bag of
loosely linked points” (Jary, 2007: 826), while Moran judged it to possess
“little of the intellectual substance of The Third Way” (op. cit.). Having read
that book myself, I’m inclined to agree. Three years on, I’d go so far as to
say that Giddens’ latest tome is an own-goal: it diminishes, rather than
sustains or enhances, his high reputation. Not too long ago, the magazines
Prospect and Foreign Affairs together created a list of the top one hundred
intellectuals in the world. Anthony Giddens ranked 39th. More recently, the
Times Higher Education Supplement reported that Giddens is the most highly
cited Anglophone humanities scholar in the world (behind Foucault,
Bourdieu and Derrida) (Gill, 2009). Giddens’ intellectual legacy is secure, so
what explains him writing a book that is so clearly inferior to most of his
previous texts?
My own (admittedly speculative) answer is that The politics of climate change is a
product of his changed circumstances. He now finds himself in a situation
where he is unable to sustain his previous role as a voice of New Labour, so
he’s looking for other opportunities. Why so? The Brown government is in
disarray and will face certain defeat in the 2010 general election. The New
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Labour ‘project’ is over, and a new party leader and a new set of ideas are
required. Having been Blair and Brown’s intellectual heavyweight, Giddens’
earlier successes in this role cannot be repeated. At the same time, he is no
longer a full-time academic and chooses to spend more of his time in the
political arena as both a Lord and a member of the Policy Network. Yet he’s
not a professional politician; instead, he’s a writer and a thinker (and will
ever remain thus). He has a seemingly compulsive need to publish books,
evident throughout his long career. In light of all this, one can see that he’s
gradually become less a public intellectual and more of a policy intellectual –
even, perhaps, a policy entrepreneur – yet without the means to do the job
properly. To my mind, he has focussed on climate change because he’s
casting around for a new role and a new set of issues; but lacking real
expertise on the subject, and spending less time than heretofore in university
libraries, he lacks the knowledge to really set the agenda in the way he did
for New Labour 16 years so.
The politics of climate change is a book full of advice. So let me turn the tables
and end by offering the author some recommendations of my own. First,
Anthony Giddens should reverse his tracks and, if he’s to write another big
agenda book, do it as a public intellectual focussing on issues about which
he can plausibly claim to be an authority. This will mean rediscovering some
of the academic rigour and depth of his best works. The problem with him
seeking to become a policy intellectual or policy entrepreneur – so evident in
The politics of climate change – is that he ends-up bracketing all important
questions about values and ends in a concern to talk about means. This
makes him, in effect, a technocrat – which no doubt explains Pielke’s
observation that “Many of Giddens’ recommendations have a frustrating
impartiality about them …” (op. cit.). This is not, surely, how he wants to end
his distinguished intellectual career. Second, if he is to maintain a focus on
policy issues then he needs to do something that Will Hutton – author of
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the best-selling books The State We’re In (1996) and The World We’re In (2002)
– does very well: namely, make fairly detailed policy recommendations (not
generic ones) while situating them in a clear political philosophy (that
addresses the normative, ever-vexed question: ‘what sort of world should
policy measures engender?’). Third, Giddens needs to do something about
his style of communication. His prose has become intensely dull; it lacks
energy and it fails to inspire in the way that it ‘sells’ ideas. To personify: if he
were a political leader, Giddens circa 2009 sounds more John Kerry than
Barack Obama, more John Major than Tony Blair. Fourth, in future
Giddens should solicit the help of independent reviewers before he
publishes books. Such reviewers would keep him honest and enable him to
maintain standards. In the present case, they certainly wouldn’t have offered
the chummy endorsements provided by Clinton, Beck and Rees. Finally,
Giddens would do well not to coin neologisms in his own name: it opens
him up to ridicule.
I realise, of course, that Anthony Giddens is highly unlikely to know that
this review of his book exists – unless he’s assiduous about collecting his
notices. But if by chance this essay crosses his desk, and if his skin is thick
enough to make it through to the end, then I sincerely hope he acts on at
least some of the advice just offered. Despite my highly critical comments
about his latest book, I very much hope that The politics of climate change does
not bespeak a career on the wane.
References
Gill, J. (2009) ‘Giddens trumps Marx but French thinkers triumph’, THES
March 26th.
Hulme, M. (2009) Review of The politics of climate change, International Affairs
85, 5: 1066-67.
Hutton, W. (1996) The State We’re In (London: Vintage Books).
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Hutton, W. (2002) The World We’re In (London: Abacus Books),
Jary, D. (2007) Review of Over to you, Mr. Brown, The Sociological Review 55, 4:
825-7.
Lawson, N. (2008) An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (The
Overlook Press, New York).
Moran, M. (2008) Review of Over to you, Mr. Brown, Public Administration 86, 1:
300-01.
Pielke, R. (2009) ‘A third way’, Nature Reports volume 3, July: 85.
Rittel, H. and Webber, M. (1984) ‘Dilemmas in a general theory of
planning’, in N. Cross (ed.) Developments in Design Methodology (J. Wiley &
Sons: Chichester) pp. 135-144.
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