ESSAY

Refuting Eco-Authoritarianism: A Political Realist Perspective

This essay critically examines Ross Mittiga's argument for eco-authoritarianism in the face of the climate emergency. It challenges his interpretation of political realism and argues for the necessity of inclusive governance.

Under the impression of an unfolding climate emergency, political theorists might be propelled to reconsider how they want to construe normative legitimacy. Should not "ensuring survival" be the ultimate benchmark? Such a case has recently been made by Ross Mittiga. Within a political realist framework, he explicitly defends eco-authoritarian governance. In this essay, I take a close look at the proposal, with the overall aim of assessing whether there could actually be a solid case for authoritarianism, following political realist commitments. I provide two main findings: Firstly, the connection drawn between political realism and authoritarianism is limited in scope, since it may only plausibly represent a rather specific variety of political realism, characterized by a narrow reading of Bernard Williams. Secondly, I find that Mittiga's authoritarian construal of legitimacy, essentially based on the identification of ensuring survival as the ultimate foundation of political legitimacy, is not even inherently plausible. The key point is that ensuring survival depends on the prior condition of political leaders possessing the information to do so.