A Tale of Two Milibands: From Environmental Citizenship to the Politics of the Common Good

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2010.02121.x Byline: MATTHEW LOCKWOOD (1) Keywords: climate change; citizenship; public goods; populism; materialism; Miliband Abstract: Two different proposals for a political basis for a low carbon transformation in Britain have been put forward in recent years by the Miliband brothers. In 2006, David Miliband argued for a new 'environmental contract' between state and citizens, in the spirit of the post-war social contract. Last year Ed Miliband proposed a 'politics of the common good'. The historical sociology of citizenship suggests that the environmental contract approach will not work, mainly because of the pure public bad nature of the climate nature and the politics that flow from this. The 'common good' approach is more promising, but to make any headway, will have to tackle the strengthening of materialism and populism over the last generation. Author Affiliation: (1)Associate Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research.