Abstract
Climate Leviathan provides an account of the possible trajectories of climate politics, arguing that adaptation to rather than mitigation of global warming is the most likely scenario, a planetary management organised on the basis of new forms of political sovereignty. It is argued that Climate Leviathan’s ambition to project sovereignty globally and on the basis of existing social relations will face enormous problems, not least because of its incapacity to address issues of climate justice, equality and solidarity. Conversely, a non-capitalist form of global leviathan based on a change of policy in China and revolutionary upheaval in Asia would be very effective, but a reversal of its strategy of economic growth may have unacceptable political costs for the PRC. Fundamentally, however, Climate Leviathan embraces neither capitalist nor non-capitalist forms of global sovereignty but argues - following Benjamin’s critique of sovereign power responses to the catastrophe of the 1930s - that only a conception of a politics of counter-sovereignty can be emancipatory and just.
Recommended Citation
Chris Goldie
(2018)
"Book Review- Climate Leviathan A Political Theory of our Planetary Future,"
The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development: Vol. 4:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/agsjournal/vol4/iss1/8