The Problem of Causation in the linkage of Environment- Security and Zoonotic Pandemics

Abstract

This article aims to be an intervention into the recent discussions on the importance of the relations among zoonotic pandemics- environmental problems and security. It offers an alternative critical starting point based on the concept of causality in relation to the linkage of environment- security and zoonotic pandemics. The purpose of the article is to contribute to the development of an emancipatory understanding of socio-biological security. The article argues that the existing literature focusing on the question of “security: for whom, from what” ignores the relationality between society and nature and causal mechanisms. It is inspired by the contribution of critical realism at the philosophical level and Marxism on the theoretical level to the social sciences. While the material- dialectical abstractions brought to the fore by critical realism help us to emphasize the mechanisms underlying insecurity, the Marxist approach, informed by critical realism, focuses on how to solve the problem in practice. In this respect, the article shifts the focus of the discussion from the question of what should be the object of security (state, human or nature) to the causality between the structures and mechanisms that emerge insecurity. Accordingly, the article argues that socio-biological insecurities do not emerge as a result of coincidence.

Keywords

• Critical Realism
• Causality
• Environmental Security
• Zoonotic Pandemic
• Nature- Society Relations

Zoonotik Salgınlar ve Çevre-Güvenlik Bağlantılarında Nedensellik Sorunu

Abstract

Bu makale zoonotik salgınlar-çevre sorunları ve güvenlik arasındaki ilişkilerin önemine dair son dönemde artan tartışmalara müdahil olmaktadır. Makalede, zoonotik salgınlar ve çevre-güvenlik bağlantıları ile ilişkili olarak nedensellik sorununa dayanan -mevcut literatüre alternatif- bir başlangıç noktası sunulacaktır. Makalenin amacı özgürleştirici bir sosyo-biyolojik güvenlik anlayışının gelişimine katkıda bulunmaktır. Makalede, “kimin için, ne için güvenlik” sorusuna odaklanan mevcut literatürün, doğa ve toplum arasındaki ilişkiselliği ve nedensel mekanizmaları göz ardı ettiği iddia ediliyor. Makale, felsefi düzlemde eleştirel gerçekçiliğin, kuramsal düzlemde ise Marksizm’in toplum bilimlerine yaptığı katkıdan besleniyor. Eleştirel gerçekçiliğin ön plana çıkardığı materyalist- diyalektik soyutlamalar güvensizliğin altında yatan mekanizmalara vurgu yapmamıza yardımcı olurken, eleştirel gerçekçilikle desteklenmiş Marksist yaklaşım pratikte sorunun nasıl çözüleceğine odaklanır. Bu bakımdan makale, tartışmanın odağını güvenliğin nesnesi ne olmalı (devlet, insan veya doğa) sorusundan güvensizliği ortaya çıkaran yapı ve mekanizmalar arasındaki nedenselliğe kaydırmaktadır. Buna uygun olarak makalede sosyo-biyolojik güvensizliklerin bir tesadüf sonucu ortaya çıkmadığı da savunulmaktadır.

Keywords

• Gerçekçilik
• Nedensellik
• Çevresel Güvenlik
• Zoonotik Salgınlar
• Doğa-Toplum İlişkisi

References

1. Albert, Craig, Amado Baez ve Joshua Rutland (2021), “Human Security as Biosecurity: Reconceptualizing National Security Threats in the Time of COVID-19”, Politics and the Life Sciences, 40 (1): 83-105.
2. Baldwin, David (1997), “The Concept of Security”, Review of International Studies, 23 (0): 5-26.
3. Barnett, John (2001), The Meaning of Environmental Security: Ecological Politics and Policy in New Security Era (Londra: Zed Books).
4. Benton, Ted (1993), Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights and Social Justice (New York: Routledge).
5. Benton, Ted (1996), “Marxism and Natural Limits: An Ecological Critique and Reconstruction”, Benton, Ted (Der.), The Greening of Marxism (New York: Guildford Press): 157-186.
6. Bhaskar, Roy (1975), A Realist Theory of Science (Londra: Verso).
7. Bhaskar, Roy (1979), The Possibility of Naturalism (Londra: Routledge). Bhaskar, Roy (1987), Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation (Londra: Verso).
8. Bhaskar, Roy (1993), Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom (Londra: Verso).

9. Bhaskar, Roy (2012), “Critical Realism in Resonance with Nordic Ecophilosophy”, Bhaskar, Roy, Karl Georg Hoyer ve Petter Naess (Der.), Ecophilosophy in a World of Crisis: Critical Realism and the Nordic Contributions (New York: Routledge): 9-25.
10. Bhaskar, Roy (2017), İnsan Bilimlerinin Felsefi Eleştirisi: Natüralizmin Olanaklığı (Ankara: Nika) (Çev. Öğütle, Vefa. S.).
11. Burke, Anthony (2023), “Interspecies Cosmopolitanism: Non-human Power and the Grounds of World Order in the Anthropocene”, Review of International Studies, 49 (2): 201-222.
12. Buzan, Barry (1983), People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books).
13. Buzan, Barry, Ole Waever ve Jaap de Wilde (1998), Security: A New framework for Analysis (Londra: Lynne Rienner).
14. Campbell, Kurt ve Rush Doshi (2020), “The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order”, https://www.viet-studies.net/kinhte/COVIDReshapeOrder_FA.pdf (20.08.2021).
15. Castree, Noel (2010), “Neoliberalism and the Biophysical Environmental Governance: A Reply to Karen Bakker”, Environment and Planning A, 41 (0): 1788-1794.
16. Chandler, David (2020), “Coronavirus and the End of Resilience”, https://www.e-ir.info/2020/03/25/opinion-coronavirus-and-the-end-of-resilience/ (20.08.2021).
17. Clark, Brett ve Richard York (2005), “Global Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Biospheric Rift” Theory and Society, 34 (4): 391-428.
18. Clark, Brett, Daniel Auerbach ve Stefano B. Longo (2018), “The Bottom Line: Capital’s Production of Social Inequalities and Environmental Degradation”, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 8 (4): 562-569.
19. Collier, Andrew (1991), “The Inorganic Body and the Ambiguity of Freedom” Radical Philosophy, 57 (3): 3-9.
20. Corry, Olaf (2020), “Nature and the International: Towards a Materialist Understanding of Societal Multiplicity”, Globalizations, 17 (3): 419-435.
21. Creaven, Sean (2024), Contagion Capitalism: Pandemics in the Corporate Age (Londra: Routledge).
22. Cudworth, Erika ve Stephen Hobden (2022), “Zoonotic Politics: The Impossible Bordering of the Leaky Boundaries of Species”, Millennium, DOI: 10.1177/03058298221110921.
23. Çoban, Aykut (2020), Çevre Politikası: Ekolojik Sorunlar ve Kuram (Ankara: İmge).
24. Dalby, Simon (2009), Security and Environmental Change (Cambridge: Polity).
25. Deudney, Daniel (1990), “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security.” Millennium, 19 (3): 461–476.
26. Dickens, Peter (1992), Society and Nature: Towards a Green Social Theory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).
27. Dickens, Peter (1996), Reconstruction nature: Alienation, Emancipation and the Division Labor (New York: Routledge).
28. Elder-Vass, Dave (2010), The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
29. Evans, Jane (2010), “Pandemics and National Security”, Global Security Studies, 1 (1): 100-109.
30. Erçandırlı, Yelda (2021a), “Dünya Metabolizmasında Yarık: COVID-19, Ekoloji ve Neoliberalizmin Diyalektik Birlikteliği Üzerine”, Mülkiye, 45 (4): 993-1018.
31. Erçandırlı, Yelda (2021b), “Antroposen, Posthümanizm ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kuramının ‘Ekoloji’ Taahhüdünün Tarihsel Materyalist Eleştirisi”, Uluslararası İlişkiler, 18 (71): 87-107.
32. Erçandırlı, Yelda (2023), “Antroposen’i Nasıl Anlamalıyız? Eleştirel Gerçekçilik, Diyalektik Materyalizm ve Özne Sorunsalı”, Amme İdaresi Dergisi, 56 (2): 35-62.
33. Floyd, Rita ve Richard A. Matthew (2013), “Environmental Security Studies: An Introduction”, Floyd, Rita ve Richard A. Matthew (Der.) Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues (Routledge: New York): 1-20.
34. Forsyth, Tim J. (2003), Critical Political Ecology: The Politics of Environmental Science (Londra: Routledge).
35. Foster, John Bellamy ve Paul Burkett (2000), “The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations”, Organization & Environment, 13 (4): 403–425.
36. Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark ve Richard York (2010), The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (New York: Monthly Review Press).
37. Foster, John Bellamy ve Intan Suwandi (2020), “COVID-19 and Catastrophe Capitalism”, Monthly Review, https://monthlyreview.org/2020/06/01/covid-19-and-catastrophe-capitalism/ (07.03.2023).
38. Fukuyama, Francis (2020), “The Pandemic and Political Order”, Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2020-06-09/pandemic-and-political-order (07.04.2023).
39. Guo, Qinfeng ve Danny C. Lee (2022), “The Ecology of COVID-19 and Related Environmental and Sustainability Issues” Ambio, 51 (4): 1014-1021.
40. Harvey, David (2020), “Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Time of COVID-19, http://davidharvey.org/2020/03/anti-capitalist-politics-in-the-time-of-covid-19/ (20.03.2020).
41. Homer-Dixon, Thomas (1999), Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
42. Kaplan, Robert (2001), The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post-Cold War (New York: Vintage Books).
43. Kirk, Jessica ve Matt McDonald (2021), “The Politics of Exceptionalism: Securitization and COVID-19” Global Studies Quarterly, 1 (3), https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksab024.
44. Kissinger, Henry (2020), “The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order”, https://www.amchamegyptinc.org/bic/pdf/corona1/The%20Coronavirus%20Pandemic%20Will%20Forever%20Alter%20the%20World%20Order%20by%20WSJ.pdf (02.05.2021).
45. Klare, Michael (2002), Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Metropolitan Books).
46. Kurki, Milja (2007), “Critical Realism and Causal Analysis in International Relations”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 35 (2): 361-378.
47. Kurki, Milja (2008), Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
48. Kutzik, David M. ve Douglas V. Porpora (2021), “Critical Realism and the Varieties of Materialism”, Science& Society, 85 (1): 13-37.
49. Leep, Matthew (2023), “Introduction to the Special Issues: Multispecies Security and Personhood”, Review of International Studies, 49 (2): 181-200.
50. Litfin, Karen (1999), “Constructing Environmental Security and Ecological Interdependence”, Global Governance, 3 (5): 359-377.
51. Malm, Andreas (2016), Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (Londra: Verso).
52. Malm, Andreas (2018), The Progress of This Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming World (Londra: Verso).
53. Malm, Andreas (2019), “Against Hybridism: Why We Need to Distinguish between Nature and Society, Now More than Ever”, Historical Materialism, 27 (2): 156-187.
54. Marx, Karl (1976), Capital Volume I (Londra: Penguin).
55. Marx, Karl (1977), Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Londra: Penguin).
56. Marx, Karl ve Friedrich Engels (2018), Alman İdeolojisi (İstanbul: Kor Yayınları) (Çev. Geridönmez, Olcay ve Tonguç Ok).
57. McDonald, Matt (2018), “Climate Change and Security: Towards Ecological Security?”, International Theory, 10 (2): 153–180.
58. McDonald, Matt (2021), Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
59. McNeely, J.A. (2021), “Nature and COVID-19: The Pandemic, the Environment, and the Way Ahead”, Ambio, 5 (0): 767-781.
60. Newman, Edward (2001), Human Security and Constructivism, International Studies Perspectives, 2 (3): 239-251.
61. Newman, Edward (2021), “Covid-19, A Human Security Analysis”, Global Society, DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2021.2010034.
62. Patomaki, Heikki ve Colin Wight (2000), “After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism”, International Studies Quarterly, 44 (2): 213-237.
63. Pointing, Clive (2012), Dünyanın Yeşil Tarihi Çevre ve Büyük Uygarlıkların Çöküşü (İstanbul: Sabancı Üniversitesi) (Çev. Sander, Ayşe Başcı).
64. Ullman, Richard (1983), “Redefining Security”, International Security, 8 (1): 129-153.
65. Sayer, Andrew (1979), “Epistemology and Conceptions of People and Nature in Geography”, Geoforum, 10 (4): 19-43.
66. Soper, Kate (1995), What Is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human (Oxford: Blackwell).
67. Wallace, Rob (2016), Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science (New York: Monthly Review).
68. Wallace, Rob (2020), “Capitalist Agriculture and Covid-19: A Deadly Combination”, Climate & Capitalism, https://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/03/11/capitalist-agriculture-and-covid-19-a-deadly-combination/ (20.03. 2020).