Global Green Visions and World Order in the Anthropocene

This special issue on what we call global green visions offers a vantage point for understanding global environmental governance in the Anthropocene through the lens of world order(s). Specifically, we suggest in this introduction that a variety of international and transnational actors craft green visions, thereby not only outlining what (un)sustainability means for them but also promoting distinct conceptions of future world order. In other words, ideas about sustainability are not politically innocent; instead, each explicitly or implicitly revolves around a particular conception of world order. The special issue bridges and complements existing work in international relations and global environmental politics by examining how the global green visions of various actors interact with understandings of world order, rather than merely acknowledging that claims about what is “sustainable” and “unsustainable” are contested. In fact, global green visions are contested precisely because they entail renegotiations of how to govern under the increasingly difficult conditions of the Anthropocene.