Governing the responsible self : EU climate policy and the production of green subjectivities

Zevnik, Luka (author)

The article presents critical analysis of the regime of eco-governmentality behind the EU’s green transition project, focusing on how it is exercised via the forming of green subjectivities and their individual environmental responsibility. We trace the four dimensions of ethics outlined by Foucault (ethical substance, mode of subjection, practices of the self, telos). Contemporary green citizenship is shown to be characterised by continuous everyday green behaviour and self-monitoring that may be traced back to Christian renunciation practices. This mode of governance, grounded in pastoral power, is argued to serve a dual function: in the name of green modernisation, it consolidates a neoliberal regime of eco-governmentality by promoting a form of subjectivation whereby individuals govern themselves according to the capitalist imperatives. At the same time, this mode of subjectivation complements the EU’s technocratic depoliticisation of the climate crisis. By partitioning responsibility within the domain of individual self-deciphered conduct, it systematically redirects focus away from the structural dimensions of ecological crises, preventing them from being articulated as matters of power, inequality, or systemic transformation.

• Language: English
• Keywords: climate policy, eco-governmentality, technologies of the self, pastoral power, European Greeen Deal, ndividualised responsibility
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 411-427
• Numbering: Letn. 62, št. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171075
• UDC: 32:502/504
• ISSN on article: 0040-3598
• DOI: 10.51936/tip.62.2.411
• COBISS.SI-ID: 244019715
• Publication date in RUL: 01.08.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Teorija in praksa
• Shortened title: Teor. praksa
• Publisher: Fakulteta za sociologijo, politične vede in novinarstvo, Fakulteta za družbene vede
• ISSN: 0040-3598
• COBISS.SI-ID: 763652

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Upravljanje odgovornega sebstva

Abstract

Članek izpelje kritično analizo režima ekovladnosti v ozadju projekta zelene tranzicije EU, pri čemer se osredini zlasti na to, kako se izvaja prek oblikovanja zelenih subjektivitet in njihove individualne okoljske odgovornosti. Sledimo štirim razsežnostim etike, ki jih je začrtal Foucault (etična substanca, način podrejanja, prakse sebstva in telos), in dokazujemo, da sta za sodobno zeleno državljanstvo značilna stalno zeleno obnašanje in samonadzor, ki izvira iz krščanskih praks odrekanja. Glavna teza članka je, da ta način upravljanja, ki temelji na pastoralni oblast, služi dvojni funkciji: s spodbujanjem oblike subjektivacije, v kateri se posamezniki upravljajo v skladu s kapitalističnimi imperativi, v imenu zelene modernizacije utrjuje neoliberalni režim ekološke vladavine. Po drugi strani pa ta način subjektivacije deluje komplementarno s tehnokratsko depolitizacijo podnebne krize, ki jo izvajajo strukture EU. Z umeščanjem podnebne odgovornosti v domeno posameznikovega ravnanja sistematično odvrača pozornost s strukturnih razsežnosti ekološke krize in preprečuje, da bi jih artikulirali kot vprašanja razmerij moči, neenakosti ali sistemske preobrazbe

• Keywords: podnebna politika, ekovladnost, tehnologije sebstva, pastoralna oblast, evropski zeleni dogovor, individualna odgovornost