Environmentalism, a flirt with eco-authoritarianism and the robustness of ordoliberalism

Abstract

AbstractMore and more citizens around the world do not believe that market liberal democracies are up to the challenge of climate change. Instead, they favour radical solutions. Important parts of the environmentalist literature build on this fertile ground, reject liberal democracy and markets, and openly flirt with authoritarian solutions to environmental challenges. In my paper I ask whether it is correct that liberalism is not up to environmental challenges. I concentrate on ordoliberalism as a variety of liberal alternatives and test whether it provides a robust institutional framework to address the issue of climate change. The research agenda of Robust Political Economy analyses the performance of institutional orders under conditions where human agents are neither perfectly rational and informed nor perfectly altruistic. I point at two institutional features of green ordoliberalism as source of its robustness: First, I point at the green ordoliberal focus on the market economy as (1) a driver of technology, (2) a driver of coordination and (3) a driver of community. Second, I point at the green ordoliberal focus on universalizable political rules which decrease the likelihood of environmental government failure through (1) higher transparency, (2) less rent-seeking, and (3) the predictability of state action. While the political solutions favoured by ordoliberals exhibit serious shortcomings, ordoliberalism offers a liberal institutional alternative to solve environmental problems in a less than ideal world.