‘Climate Protection’ as Empty Signifier: A Discourse Theoretical Perspective on Climate Mainstreaming in World Politics
‘Climate Protection’ as Empty Signifier: A Discourse Theoretical Perspective on Climate Mainstreaming in World Politics
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“气候保护”作为空洞的能指：世界政治气候主流化的话语理论视角
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发表时间：
2010
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通讯作者：
C. Methmann
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文献类型：
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作者：
C. Methmann
越来越多的国际组织开始将气候保护作为一项重要的政策目标。引人注目的是，尽管短期经济目标和长期环境目标之间存在紧张关系和矛盾，但大多数机构只是在气候保护方面重新表述现有活动，而不是改变它们。本文的目的是探讨气候主流化的逻辑，并解释这种一贯不一致的矛盾结果。它采用了后结构主义的方法，结合了治理和话语理论的元素。通过分析世贸组织、国际货币基金组织、世界银行和经合组织的论述，本文认为，气候保护的全球治理是建立在四个论述支柱之上的-全球主义、科学主义、增长伦理和效率-这些支柱使气候保护成为一个空洞的能指;也就是说，它们使气候保护有可能融入全球霸权秩序，而不改变世界经济的基本社会结构。国际组织可以声称支持气候保护，同时坚持一切照旧。这一主张得到了支持的31个文本的各自组织的解释性话语分析。
More and more international organisations are starting to incorporate climate protection as an important policy goal. Strikingly, most institutions only rephrase existing activities in the terms of climate protection instead of changing them, although there are tensions and contradictions between short-term economic and long-term environmental goals. The aim of this article is to explore the logic of climate mainstreaming and explain the paradoxical result of such a consistent inconsistency. It employs a poststructuralist approach that combines elements of governmentality and discourse theory. Analysing discourses of the WTO, IMF, World Bank and OECD, it argues that the global governmentality of climate protection is built on four discursive pillars — globalism, scientism, an ethics of growth and efficiency — that make climate protection function as an empty signifier; that is, they make it possible to integrate climate protection into the global hegemonic order without changing the basic social structures of the world economy. International organisations can claim to be in favour of climate protection and stick to business as usual at the same time. This claim is backed up by an interpretive discourse analysis of 31 texts of the respective organisations.