Green party

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While the generic term "green party" can be used by anyone, there are a number of loosely-affiliated but nonetheless formally organized political parties and political movements based on the Four Pillars of the Green Party to which the term is especially applicable. The Greens view grassroots democracy, pacifism, and social justice causes - especially those related to the plight of indigenous peoples - as inherently related to ecology and human bodily health.

Thriving of natural ecoregions, preventing global climate change, and preserving other aspects of the natural environment (see environmentalism) are viewed as necessary to maintenance of human life, and perhaps more importantly, as a neutral focus for people to find ways to agree even with deadly enemies. To Greens, peace follows ecology.

In March 1972 the world's very first Green party the United Tasmania Group was formed at a public meeting in Hobart; in May 1972 a meeting at Victoria University, Wellington, launched the Values Party, the world's first national Green party. The term 'Green' was first coined by the German Greens when they contested their first national level election in 1980.

Global reach

Around the world, there are political parties that share similar names and roughly this value system in dozens of countries. One Green Party in the world is organized along bioregional lines, The Green Party of Alaska. Green Parties seek to win elections, and so organize themselves by the presented electoral districts.

Green Parties are part of, but do not exclusively represent, a larger political movement to reform human governance to better fit the constraints of the biosphere - usually called the Green Movement to contrast it from the electoral participation of the legally-registered Parties.

No monopoly on policy

A (small-g) green party is not necessarily committed to the entire program of the Green Parties as such. What follows describes only the widely-known parties that include peace movement and social justice ideals:

In some countries, notably the U.S., there are or have been multiple parties with differing platforms naming themselves Green. 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.

On matters of ecology, extinction, biosafety, biosecurity, safe trade and health security, "Greens" generally agree or at least have some agreement to agree, typically based on scientific consensus and peer review. The confusion seems to arise from the similar positions taken by Greenpeace and Green Parties on these ecological issues, and characterization of the Parties as concerned with a single-issue - although supporters counter that "life is body within ecology", and that there is no point or value putting anything before a human's own health.

That conviction aside, there are very substantial policy differences between and among Green Parties in each country and culture, and constant debate about the degree to which natural ecology and individual needs align.

Critics sometimes claim that the universal and immersive nature of ecology, and the necessity of converting some of it to serve humanity, renders the entire political program of Green Parties a shallow excuse to claim a monopoly on the means of production that sustain all human lives. These critics often see Green programs as just a form of socialism or fascism - which some claim are more characteristic of Gaians who part of the Green Movement but less committed to democracy or humanity.

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 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. This is a relatively minor controversy - Greens do not disagree on principle so much as the process by which it is appropriate to announce a consensus.

It is unlikely that any top-down definition of Green Ethics or Values in any one language can actually be accepted by the entire Green Movement. The Green Parties 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.

Whether this idealism can lead to an effective global political program, is up for debate. Greens often argue that the implementation of the tenets of The Communist Manifesto and the rise of working-class parties took well over a century, and that the Green movement is not half that mature. Patience seems to be an unstated requirement to join the Greens.

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.

Often confused with "left" political parties advocating central control of capital, Green Parties usually advocate stark divisions between public commons (in land or water) and private enterprise, with little cooperation - higher energy and material prices are presumed to create efficient enterprise. Green Parties rarely support subsidies to corporations - sometimes excepting research grants to find more efficient industrial techniques.

Many "right" 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 human consumption of the wealth created by the natural world. 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. There is no single "Green Ethic".

Values

Values of indigenous peoples (or "First Nations"), and to a lesser degree the ethics of Mohandas Gandhi, Spinoza and Crick, and the growth of awareness of ecology, have had a very heavy influence on Greens - most obviously in their advocacy of long-term "seven generation" foresight, and on the personal responsibility of every individual to make moral choices. These ideas have been summed in the Ten Key Values drafted by the U.S. Green Party which include restatement of 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.

Some Greens view the compromises of other political parties as dishonest, inherently unethical, as they fail to respect

Platforms

Green platforms draw terminology from the science of ecology, and policy from Feminism, political liberalism (U.S. style), libertarian socialism and even sometimes libertarian survivalists.

It is rare for a Green platform to propose lower fossil fuel prices, unlabelled artificial organisms, tax, trade and tariff liberalizations that remove protections for ecoregions or communities. It is far easier to characterize what Greens oppose than to say what they support.

Alliances

Still, what defines Green Parties is respect for ecology and mimicry of its decentralized control (which operates by feedback not rules).

Depending on local conditions or issues, platforms and alliances may vary drastically. In line with the goal of bioregional democracy, neighboring ecoregions may require drastically different policies or protections.

Green Parties are often formed in a given jurisdiction 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.

Strategies

Such alliances often highlight strategic differences between participating in Parties and advancing the values of the Green Movement. 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, who most Greens consider to be a stark enemy of environmentalism.

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 (what they consider to be) irresponsible corporate subsidies and public ethics.

Growth and maturity of Green Parties

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. Usually growth is sparked by a single issue where Greens can bridge the gap to ordinary citizens' concerns.

The first such breakthrough was by the German Green Party, famous for their opposition to nuclear power, as an expression of anti-centralist and pacifist values traditional to greens. They were founded in 1983 and have recently worked in coalition with the German Social Democrats in a so-called Red-Green Alliance. In 2001, they reached an agreement to end reliance on nuclear power in Germany, and agreed to remain in coalition and support the German government of Chanceller Gerhard Schroeder in the 2001 Afghan War. This put them at odds with many Greens worldwide but demonstrated also that they were capable of difficult political tradeoffs.

Green Parties in the English-speaking world

In English-speaking countries, Green Parties face electoral systems that have traditionally disadvantaged smaller parties, and a culture which has not been subject to invasion or colonization by others - they have achieved influence in Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand and (as mentioned above) the United States. Two provinces of Canada, BC and ON, have strong provincial Green Parties. In the United States, at least 143 Greens hold elected positions the local level as of 2002, including 49 in California (according to ). In Australia, New Zealand, in almost every country in the European Union, and recently in some elections even in the United Kingdom, proportional representation and other Electoral reform strengthened the position of the Green Parties and enabled them to participate directly in legislatures and committees.

In countries following British-style 'first past the post' electoral rules, Green Parties face barriers to gaining federal or provincial/regional/state seats. As of the end of 2002, there were no Greens in the national legislatures of the United States, United Kingdom or Canada. Accordingly, in these countries, Green Parties focus on Electoral reform.

Green Parties in the developing world

Green Parties are often organized with help from those in other nations. As of 2002, most notably in Africa (See story 'Crisis of Growth?') (Agreement between the African and American Federations). However, the European Federation of Green Parties has worked to support weak Green Parties in European countries. Until recently, they were giving support to Green Parties in the Mediterranean countries. These Green Parties are now making electoral gains, e.g. in Spain and Greek Cyprus, or getting organized to do so, e.g. in Greece and Malta. Green Parties in Italy and France are part of the political pendulum and return to government with the success of the main parties of the left. So the European Federation is now turning its attention to Eastern Europe - all these countries have Green Parties, but in materially-poor Eastern Europe the success of Green Parties is very patchy. (Text about the Green East-West Dialogue) The Green East-West Dialogue.

Skeptics point out that industrial nations are in the best position to adopt state-of-the-art clean energy and corresponding high pollution standards - and that Green Parties advocate going against progress.

Other than hosting the first Afghanistan peace conference as part of the German government, Green Parties in the developed world have made few concrete moves to spread their values using the diplomatic channels. This is usually seen as one of the responsibilities of the Green Movement - letting Parties concentrate on their voters.

Policy 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:

List of green parties

Parties describing themselves as 'green' but not observing the Four Pillars or Ten Key Values

Libertarian National Socialist Green Party
green party generic description

Parties describing themselves as 'green' with observation of the Four Pillars unknown

GroenLinks GreenLeft (Netherlands)
de Groenen the Greens (Netherlands)

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