POLITICAL ECOLOGY IN THE SEMI-PERIPHERY - LESSONS FROM GREECE

What accounts for the emergence of the Greek ecological movement? It is argued that Greek political ecology has grown in parallel with a slightly older and larger environmental movement and that both movements are the products of the politics engendered by the urban and regional reorganization policies of the last 20 years. These characteristics distinguish the Greek case from most European countries where political ecology is considered a manifestation of postindustrial societies, and naturalist environmentalism preceded and has been much larger than the ecological movement. This paper examines the emergence of Greek ecological politics by concentrating both on the broad contextual factors which catalysed environmental politics, and on the processes that spurred the emergence of an autonomous ecological movement. The lessons of this case are then drawn upon to suggest directions for the comparative study of ecological politics in general, and the study of ecological politics in industrializing countries in particular.