green parties

Green parties grew out of the concern for the ecological stability of the planet and the quality of life in industrial societies which sharpened perceptibly in the 1970s. The German greens, Die Grünen, were the most successful and influential; their movement grew out of a wide range of ‘grass roots’ and ‘outsider’ organizations which developed ‘lists’ of approved candidates at local elections and constituted themselves as a party in 1980. It was a remarkably successful party for a time. 1983 it crossed the 5 per cent threshold in Bundestag elections and took twenty-seven seats; at its peak 1987 it had 8.2 per cent of the vote and 46 seats. Its best known figure was Petra Kelly (1947-92).

Many countries, including most in Western Europe, developed green parties during this period. Several existing parties renamed themselves as greens, including the Ecology Party in Britain and the Values Party in New Zealand. This partly was out of respectful imitation of Die Grünen, but also because the image of greenness, with its connotations of freshness and nature, was thought to have proved so powerful. It also carried the advantage, as a colour, of a certain ideological freshness; although the colour of Islam and of some nationalist movements, it was not tainted with images of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ in politics, unlike blue, red, black, white, and others.

The nuclear accident at Chernobyl 1986 proved a fillip to the green cause in many countries and green parties met with considerable electoral success in the late 1980s. In the elections to the European parliament 1989 most green parties achieved record performances, including a remarkable 14.9 per cent of the vote in Britain. Green Parties entered national governments in Europe for the first time in the 1990s, in broad left coalition governments; in France 1997 and in Germany in 1998. It remains to be seen how the responsibilities of office affect the erstwhile radical nature of the Green programme.

— Lincoln Allison

The British Green Party started life in 1973 as an environmental pressure group called ‘People’. Two years later it became the Ecology Party. In the 1983 general election the party fielded 108 candidates but mustered barely 1 per cent of the vote. In 1985 it changed its name to the Green Party in line with similar international environmental movements. However it never managed to emulate the success of its continental counterparts. Its biggest success came in winning 15 per cent of the vote in the European elections in June 1989, but in the 1997 election 88 Green candidates polled under a quarter of one per cent of the poll.

The Green party blossomed as an outgrowth of the environmental and conservation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1970 Charles Reich published The Greening of America, a popular extended essay that effectively inserted environmentalism into politics. Reich, along with anarchist Murray Bookchin, helped inspire a worldwide environmental movement. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, environmental activists, calling themselves Greens, began to work within the political system to advance environmental causes around the globe.

The Green party first achieved electoral success in Germany in the early 1980s. German Green party candidates were elected to public office on platforms that stressed four basic values: ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence. In the mid-1990s, the Green party was established in over fifty countries, and Green party politicians held seats in approximately nine European parliaments.

In the United States, Greens originally were reluctant to move into electoral politics. Throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s, they teamed with military and nuclear power protesters to promote their agendas from outside the formal political system. In 1984 the Greens began to discuss the organization of a political party, and in 1988 the U.S. Green party fielded its first candidates for elective office in Wisconsin and Connecticut.

The U.S. Green party offers a proactive approach to government based on ten key values: ecology; grassroots democracy; social justice; nonviolence; common leadership (as opposed to powerful, charismatic leadership); small-scale, community based economic structures; feminism; respect for diversity; personal and global responsibility; and a focus on the future.

In 1996 the party fielded candidates in twenty-four states and in the District of Columbia. It increased its national profile the same year by nominating Ralph Nader as its candidate for president. Nader accepted the nomination, but stipulated that he would not become a member of the Green party and that he would not feel obliged to follow faithfully its political platform. Nader ran a no-frills campaign, eschewing advertising and usually traveling alone to speak at various locales. He accepted no taxpayer money and spent approximately $5,000 on the campaign. With political activist Winona LaDuke as his running mate, Nader appeared on the ballot in twenty-one states and in the District of Columbia. The ticket also received write-in votes in all but five states. Nader and LaDuke lost to the Democratic incumbents, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

The young Green party has realized almost immediate electoral success on the local level, especially in California.

In 1996 Arcata, California, became the first town in the United States to be controlled by the Green party. There, Green party politicians held three of the five seats on the city council. In all, Green party candidates in California won six city council seats in 1996.

See: environmental law; independent parties.