Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future (2018) by Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann

​I read this earlier on in the year (January or February 2022) and put off writing a book summary until now. The book summary is not as detailed as what I hoped to write.
 
Climate Leviathan is a great work of political theory (I have absolutely no formal training in political science or political philosophy—my assessment should not be taken as authoritative) that attempts to sketch out how the concept of the political will change due to the ongoing pressures of the climate crisis. In Wainwright and Mann’s view, the most likely future is the Climate Leviathan, which marks a continuation of capitalist social relations and planetary sovereignty, justified as a “state of exception” by global capitalist elites to preserve life on Earth. This is not Wainwright and Mann’s preferred future: by writing this book, they also attempt to liberate alternative ways of thinking: “If good climate data and models were all that were needed to address climate change, we would have seen a political response in the 1980s. Our challenge is closer to a crisis of imagination and ideology; people do not change their conception of the world just because they are presented with new data…” (p. 7).
 
Wainwright and Mann sketch out four political possibilities by taking two dichotomous conditions. The first condition asks whether future forms will be capitalist or non-capitalist and the second condition asks whether there will be a planetary sovereignty with decision making authority. From these two conditions, four “ideal type” political possibilities emerge: these are hegemonic blocs with their own class and ideological bases. There is the capitalist Climate Leviathan that strives for planetary sovereignty; Climate Mao, which is a non-capitalist planetary sovereign; Climate Behemoth, capitalist and anti-planetary sovereignty; and the inchoate Climate X, which is non-capitalist and against planetary sovereignty. The challenge of climate change is so great that we cannot assume the continuation of capitalist liberal democracies as the dominant political form. These four forms will struggle to frame political responses to climate change, shaping the world along these struggles.
 
I provide a further (but still brief) description of each form. Climate Leviathan is the realization of a planetary sovereign that “is a regulatory authority armed with democratic legitimacy, binding technical authority on scientific issues, and panopticon-like capacity to monitor the vital granular elements of our emerging world” (p. 30)—Wainwright and Mann point to the UN COP meetings as an early iteration. Bounded, nation-state-based regulatory regimes are unable to meet the challenge of climate change. Climate Leviathan represents an international regime, but one that is “the construction of a nominally ‘global’ frame that is in fact a political and geographical extension of the rule of the extant hegemonic blog: the capitalist global North” (p. 31). Wainwright and Mann point out that the capitalist foundations of Climate Leviathan may prevent its emergence, given that the inequalities generated by capitalism lead to difficulties with trans-class and transnational cooperation.
 
Climate Behemoth is a reactionary movement to the climate crisis. It is often marked by climate change denial and is opposed to international intrusions into domestic politics (and by extension, it is opposed to Climate Leviathan). It has so far expressed itself in ethnonationalist and reactionary populist movements (e.g., Modi, Trump, Brexit) led by neoliberal elites and disenfranchised groups who feel threatened by climate action (e.g., Koch brothers and workers in the gas and oil sector).
 
Like Climate Leviathan, Climate Mao is also based on a planetary sovereign, but one that “wields this power against capital” (p. 38). In contrast to Climate Leviathan’s “lop-sided, elite-based, liberal proceduralism” (p. 39), which is moving us too slowly to make the systemic changes necessary to address climate change, Climate Mao has the power to make rapid state-led transformations to society. Wainwright and Mann think that Climate Mao is a uniquely Asian path given certain historical and current conditions: “massive and marginalized peasantries and proletariats, historical experience and revolutionary ideology, and powerful states governing large economies” (p. 41), along with the disproportionate effects of climate change in Asia (e.g. the floods in Pakistan earlier this year).
 
Finally, Climate X is the future in formation by the climate justice movement; it is a non-sovereign alternative to Climate Leviathan that transcends capitalism, motivated by the guiding principles of equality, inclusion and dignity of all, and solidarity of many worlds. An ever-inchoate formation, it is determined not by universal claims to a common “we,” but by local conditions, histories, experiences; it is Wainwright and Mann’s hopeful future for the troubled world to come. 

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