Abstract:
Since the emergence of the nation state system, international security has been understood and
practiced with reference to the needs and interests of states. The concept of security however took
a different shape during the twentieth century when critical voices were raised for the protection
of human beings and the global environment. Thus an alternative approach to security emerged
that gave priority to individual and societal dimensions. In the process, the scope of security was
broadened and a multi-sectoral approach was suggested to study the same. Environmental sector
was one of the primary areas of multi-sectoral approaches. As a result, environmental security
became high on the agenda at the national and global levels. By the twentieth century,
environmental issues had been on the international agenda for a whole generation of political
leaders, governmental officials, scientists and concerned citizens. The major theoretical
perspectives for understanding global politics have shed light on international environmental
cooperation, even though it is fairly a new area in world politics. In looking at the prospects for
environmental cooperation, realism expects cooperation among sovereign states would be very
difficult because international agreements reflect interests of the most powerful states strongly.
Liberals, in contrast, remain inclined to believe the reality of ecological interdependence.
According to them, environmental problems could only be resolved through new and far reaching
mechanism of cooperation. The Marxists on the other hand blamed Capitalism as the main factor
for environmental degradation. The feminist thinkers drew parallels between male control over
nature and men’s control over women as connected. This apart, Green Political Thinkers provide
a useful base for Green ideas about international relations. In this backdrop, this paper attempts
to study the concept of environmental security through the prisms of various approaches cited
above.
