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Critical environmental justice and the state: a
critique of pellow
David Purucker
To cite this article: David Purucker (2021): Critical￿environmental￿justice and the state: a critique of
pellow, Environmental Sociology, DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.1878575
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Critical environmental justice and the state: a critique of pellow
David Purucker• 
Environmental and Political Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Oregon, USA
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY 
How should movements for environmental justice orient themselves towards the state? Recent Received 13 July 2020  
work in the environmental justice field critiques the legalistic basis of both environmental justice Accepted 16 January 2021 
research and movement strategy based in juridical action, regulation, and advocacy within state KEYWORDS 
institutions. Meanwhile, rightward-moving politics in the United States threatens to choke off even Environmental justice; state 
this limited strategy. Scholars have responded by urging movements to adopt a more skeptical theory; strategy; social 
strategic posture towards the state, one informed by an anarchist conception of states as uniformly movements; anarchism
repressive structures. This essay addresses the most systematic attempt at re-theorizing the state for 
these movements, David Pellow’s What is Critical Environmental Justice? While Pellow’s work to 
integrate intersectionality theory into environmental sociology has been recognized, less attention 
has been paid to his anarchist state theory, which implies an untenable strategy of movement 
withdrawal from politics. Environmental justice movements and scholarship need a state theory that 
allows for the possibility of action both against and within states. I introduce an alternative, 
‘strategic-relational’ view of states, and suggest that changing structural patterns of environmental 
injustice will require re-thinking both the state and the ‘movement’ of environmental justice, as they 
are conventionally imagined.
Introduction that socially marginal populations are treated as sinks 
Something is changing in American environmental pol- for capitalism’s waste. The movement has also now 
itics. After years of environmental advocacy dominated become a truly international phenomenon (Martinez- 
by a professional-class liberalism, an insurgent progres- Alier et al. 2016). But today, there is a growing senti-
sive movement is beginning to offer an alternative. The ment among environmental justice scholars that the 
emerging politics of the Green New Deal is forcing movement in the United States has failed to end sys-
a public debate on the speed and scale of state inter- temic patterns of environmental injustice, and that the 
vention necessary to avert climate catastrophe. Leading legalistic strategy of the movement’s activists and 
Democratic presidential candidates campaign on ambi- organizations needs to be reassessed. In a recent arti-
tious policies to euthanize the fossil fuel industry and cle, the American environmental justice scholar Laura 
mobilize massive public investments in clean energy, Pulido declared that ‘In order to move forward both as 
public transportation, and regenerative agriculture. Big a movement and scholarly field, we must rethink envir-
labor unions, led by workers in the strategic education onmental justice’ (2017, 525).
and health sectors, are finally beginning to engage in The most far-reaching effort towards this ‘rethinking’ is 
coalitions demanding a just transition away from fossil David Naguib Pellow’s What is Critical Environmental 
fuels. Though it faces formidable barriers, the move- Justice? (2018), a manifesto for remaking both the theo-
ment to root radical ecological policies in popular poli- retical foundations of the field and the political strategy 
tics has made significant progress in a very short time.1 of the movement. Pellow, an American environmental 
Meanwhile, another part of the green Left is at sociologist and activist-scholar, argues that conventional 
a crossroads. The environmental justice movement movement strategies have failed, and that scholars in the 
emerged in the 1980s in response to the dispropor- field have theorized environmental inequality in a narrow 
tionate exposure of poor and nonwhite communities way that ignores larger systems of oppression. His alter-
to various kinds of environmental risks generated by native framework of ‘critical environmental justice’ 
industry and the military. Academics allied with the merges the insights of a generation of environmental 
movement produced research demonstrating the mas- justice scholarship with ideas from Black feminist, animal 
sive scale and systemic nature of environmental injus- liberation, and anarchist traditions. Geographer Ryan 
tice and how these inequalities were reproduced by Holifield, in a review, calls Critical Environmental Justice 
laws that favored polluters (Cole and Foster 2001, ‘a distinctive and compelling new path’ for scholarship in 
24–26).2 Since its inception, activists have had success the field (2018, 303). Pulido writes that the book is ‘poli-
in drawing public and government attention to ways tically robust and theoretically informed’, and that it is 
CONTACT David Purucker dpurucke@uoregon.edu
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 D. PURUCKER
‘the book that the environmental justice movement has look to a more disaggregated theory of states that has 
been waiting for.’3 recently emerged in political sociology and anthropol-
Critical Environmental Justice is an ambitious contri- ogy (Jessop 2016; Thelen, Vetters, and von Benda- 
bution that pushes the field to think more expansively Beckmann 2014). In this strategic-relational perspec-
about the subjects, scale, politics, and ethics of envir- tive, states are seen as complex assemblies of social 
onmental justice. The attention paid by the book to the relations layered with contradictions, instead of as sin-
intersectional construction of social difference has gular, monolithic entities. While structurally biased 
already proven useful as a means of bringing environ- against working-class and marginalized groups, states 
mental sociology into dialogue with intersectionality are not doomed to reproduce oppressive relations, and 
theory (Malin and Ryder 2018). And as Holifield points are potentially open to entry and contestation by pro-
out, Pellow’s project can be understood as an attempt gressive forces. To do this, however, I suggest that 
to bring environmental justice’s theoretical founda- environmental justice will have to reconceive its 
tions back into alignment with the expansive vision assumptions about its own social base, and move 
of the movement’s early days, captured in the ground- beyond struggles based in ‘livelihood’ (Huber 2019) 
breaking Principles of Environmental Justice document to struggles based in class.
drafted at the First National People of Color 
Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 (2018, 304).
I share Pellow and Pulido’s conviction that the theory Justice denied: the failure of eco-legalism
and strategy of the environmental justice movement Critical Environmental Justice appears at a time of great 
need to be reconceived. But Critical Environmental difficulty for the environmental justice movement in the 
Justice’s state theory – its analysis of the state’s role in United States. Though the last 30 years have yielded 
the production, mediation, and maintenance of environ- some victories against polluters, raised the political sal-
mental injustice – is problematic. Specifically, Pellow’s ience of environmental inequalities, and created institu-
insistence upon an anarchist conception of the state tional footholds in the American state, the movement 
poses serious problems for movement strategy and has failed to end structural patterns of environmental 
stands in tension with his simultaneous emphasis on injustice. The continued reality of racial and class 
‘multiscalar’ analysis and action. Pellow’s reliance on anar- inequalities in exposure to polluted air and water, hazar-
chist political theory leads him to understand the state as dous wastes, and other forms of environmental burdens 
a functional, monolithic entity that can only be opposed is well-documented (Bullard et al. 2008; Desikan et al. 
from the outside or evaded entirely. If translated into 2019). Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic is striking 
movement strategy, this strong skepticism of states risks low-income and nonwhite communities ferociously 
pushing the movement away from a politics that could hard, and there is evidence indicating a positive associa-
win and utilize state power for socio-environmental ends. tion between exposure to air pollution and mortality 
This state-skepticism is particularly poorly equipped to from the virus (Lerner 2020; Wu et al. 2020).
respond to urgent struggles in the US, such as those At the same time, recent research in environmental 
confronting the COVID-19 pandemic and a racist policing sociology and law have demonstrated that the strategies 
system. Mobilizing public health investment to protect pursued by the environmental justice movement have 
the most vulnerable from COVID-19, transforming (or failed to change the behavior of state regulators or pol-
abolishing) the unjust system of policing and incarcera- luters. This research shows that the EPA and other federal 
tion, and – most urgently of all – confronting the global agencies have not effectively implemented Bill Clinton’s 
challenge of climate change, will require movements to 1994 Executive Order on Environmental Justice, that the 
move beyond an anarchist rejection of state institutions. EPA’s appeals board for adjudicating claims of discrimina-
This essay seeks to offer an alternative. I begin by tion in administrative enforcement has never once denied 
sketching the present dilemmas of the dominant envir- a permit on environmental justice grounds, and that Civil 
onmental justice strategy, what I call eco-legalism, Rights Act-based complaints of environmental injustice 
before reviewing the four ‘pillars’ of Pellow’s frame- have succeeded in just a single case (Pulido, Kohl, and 
work. I show that Critical Environmental Justice views Cotton 2016, 14-16). Universally-targeted environmental 
the state as deterministically-bound to produce regulations have been found to under-regulate polluters 
oppressions. This position on the state, a variety of eco- in poor and minority communities. State-based laws, 
anarchism, would pose significant strategic obstacles where they have been implemented, have likewise failed 
for movements. Though Pellow offers the most to alleviate environmental injustices (Pulido, Kohl, and 
detailed articulation of eco-anarchism in this context, Cotton 2016, 16).5 The power of the movement to effec-
similar themes have recently appeared in the work of tively use anti-discrimination laws has been hamstrung by 
other scholars in the field, such as Pulido, Kohl, and an inability to demonstrate discriminatory intent by pol-
Cotton (2016, 26), and are also, of course, represented luters (Cole and Foster 2001, 63–65). More perniciously, 
in the eco-anarchist field.4 Against this tendency, movement participation within regulatory and advisory 
I argue that environmental movements should instead bodies like the EPA’s National Environmental Justice 
® 
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 3
Advisory Board (NEJAC) seems to expose activists to co- 2014). Neoliberalism as a governing logic prioritizes 
optation by industry and may end up shielding polluters market-based responses to environmental problems – 
from meaningful democratic oversight (Pulido, Kohl, and though it does not, as is sometimes assumed, oppose 
Cotton 2016, 17). a strong role for state intervention to create and main-
Prospects for change through regulatory agencies tain those markets. From an environmental justice per-
or the courts only worsened under the Trump presi- spective, neoliberal governance involves a turn towards 
dency. Trump’s administration succeeded in crippling NGOs as stand-ins for the public, diminishing effective 
parts of the government previously relied upon by democratic control (Alstyne 2015). The diffusion of neo-
both the environmental justice movement and main- liberal ways of thinking within state agencies also tends 
stream environmental organizations. According to to weaken the power of non-market based issue fram-
a report by Public Employees for Environmental ings, even in regulatory bureaucracies that adopt the 
Responsibility, an advocacy group, Trump’s EPA made language of environmental justice (Liévanos 2012).
only 166 referrals of polluters for criminal prosecution A second body of work emphasizes the pervasive 
in fiscal year 2018, representing a nearly 60% decline in fact of state-based coercion existing alongside this 
enforcement activity from 2011 (Public Employees for neoliberal market logic. This research has considered, 
Environmental Responsibility (PEER) 2019).6 The Trump for example, the grim ‘climate opportunism’ of military 
administration also severely curtailed scientific and corporate elites in the US (Bonds 2016), the con-
research carried out by the EPA and state, local, and tinuous, transnational state violence in extractive 
non-governmental organizations that depend on fed- industry in Guatemala (Fox 2015), and the role of poli-
eral funding (Desikan et al. 2019). Over the long-run, tical power in producing ‘multiple marginalisations’ 
perhaps the most dangerous legacy of this period for among displaced populations in Mexico and Ethiopia 
the movement against environmental injustice will be (Nygren and Wayessa 2018). A third recent current in 
the small army of conservatives that Trump has environmental sociology has focused on strategies for 
appointed to the federal judiciary: by the beginning resisting state- and market-mediated environmental 
of 2019, five of the 12 circuit courts in the United States injustices. Analyzing the 2016–17 Standing Rock strug-
were composed of at least 25% Trump-appointed gle, LeQuesne (2019) argues that successful anti- 
judges (Johnson 2019), and the Supreme Court is extractive movements must stitch together an ‘inter-
now in the firm grip of a 6–3 conservative majority. sectional populism’ to confront the complex ‘petro- 
The incoming administration of Joe Biden, a centrist hegemony’ of a state and fossil fuel complex, which 
Democrat, may or may not present opportunities for combines relations of consent, compliance, and force. 
meaningful regulation—though the Democrats’ razor- Rivera (2017) considers the quite different case of 
thin Senate majority, and the strongly reactionary trend movement-state cooperation in the Ecuadorean 
of the federal and state judiciary, are not hopeful signs. Yasuní-ITT initiative from 2007 to 2013, highlighting 
These facts, and the discouraging persistence of environ- the role played by the movement’s asymmetrical insti-
mental injustice even in the decades preceding Trump, tutionalization within the state in contributing to its 
are forcing scholars to grapple with the legalistic assump- eventual betrayal and defeat.
tions built into the theory and strategy of the movement, It is within this context of critical theorizing about the 
and in particular its theories of the state. For example, state in environmental sociology that David Pellow’s call 
sociologist Robert Bullard’s classic definition of environ- for a ‘critical environmental justice’ should be situated. 
mental justice frames claims of disparate environmental Pellow’s book is the most ambitious critique of eco- 
impact specifically in relation to the law. For Bullard, legalism yet to be appear in the field, and also the most 
environmental justice is the principle that ‘all people developed articulation of what I call eco-anarchism as 
and communities are entitled to equal protection of a strategic alternative. But while his theorization of the 
environmental and public health laws and regulations’ state is central – and, I will argue, critically flawed – it is 
(quoted in Pellow 2018, 5). This assumption that the state not the only argument developed in this framework. 
is neutral terrain for movements, and that discriminatory Before examining Pellow’s account of the state, it will 
environmental harms can be consistently remedied by be necessary to review these other parts of the theory.
movement experts acting through conventional state- 
institutional means, can be called eco-legalism.
Recent scholarship in environmental sociology Critical environmental justice: difference, 
demonstrates the risks of treating the state like scale, indispensability
a neutral actor. This research, which considers cases in Critical Environmental Justice frames its alternative to 
the United States and elsewhere in the world, can be eco-legalism as a set of four ‘pillars’, or principles of 
divided loosely into three currents. First, sociologists analysis, and applies these pillars to novel case studies 
have examined the system of neoliberal environmental of environmental injustice. Taken together, the pillars 
governance, which has become the dominant global aim to move environmental justice scholarship and 
framework for environmental policymakers (Lockie movement strategy well beyond their conventional 
4 D. PURUCKER
limits. Pellow’s first pillar concerns the intersectional as environmental justice cases. This analysis is interest-
nature of environmental injustice, which he argues is ing and valuable. Each case highlights under-examined 
always experienced through multiple categories of dif- features of prominent contemporary social move-
ference. Environmental injustices, like any other ments and argues that there is a common experience 
experience of oppression, are treated here as distinct of environmental disparity running through each. As 
and non-commensurable, but connected by Holifield notes, this is potentially a basis for coalition- 
a common ‘logic of domination and othering as prac- building between movements, and indeed, capacious 
ticed by more powerful groups’ (Pellow 2018, 19; justice-based framings of this kind are increasingly 
emphasis in original). Pellow identifies the inclusion visible within coalitions on the American radical Left 
of non-human nature as an important departure from (2018, 305). This is, of course, especially true of the 
conventional thinking in the field, and emphasizes the movement against racist policing that exploded across 
importance of considering ‘socionatures’, which the United States in spring 2020. This movement, com-
encompass ‘the entangled and inseparable character’ bined with the devastating impact of the COVID-19 
of urban public space and their associated ecosys- pandemic, is already galvanizing a revival of organizing 
tems (20).7 against environmental racism, and empirical work in 
Critcal Environmental Justice’s second principle these areas will only become more relevant as the 
encourages a ‘multiscalar’ method. Pellow means by movement grows (Lerner 2020).
this to encourage researchers to explore geographical Critical Environmental Justice makes valuable theo-
linkages between apparently-separate cases of envir- retical contributions, as well. Pellow’s efforts to bring 
onmental harms or resistance, and then to embed the tools of intersectionality theory into environmental 
these linkages in deep historical context. This is sociology have already been noted (Malin and Ryder 
meant as a corrective to the tendency in environmen- 2018). In addition, though Pellow doesn’t directly 
tal justice research to focus on the local effects of engage with the work of scholars like David Roediger 
pollution occurring over relatively short periods of on the racialized production of social difference under 
time. Pellow instead hopes for research that examines capitalism, this framework can be read as an attempt 
broader and longer-duration continuities between to theorize the production of environmental difference 
cases, citing as examples the connection between the as one part of capitalism’s general need to fracture 
accumulation of carcinogenic pollutants in Arctic working-class solidarity and diffuse class subjectivities 
Nunavik populations and the local-level environmental through logics of race, gender, and nation (Roediger 
hazards caused by the production of those chemicals, 2017, 121–23). This would represent an advance upon 
or the connection between elevated rates of asthma Pellow’s earlier framework of environmental inequality 
around a coal-fired power plant in the Bronx and cli- formation, which addressed the institutional genera-
mate change effects experienced on the other side of tion of environmental inequalities, but not the produc-
the world. The approach to history here is also broader tion of social subjects (Pellow 2000). Viewed this way, 
than in conventional environmental justice scholar- the book contributes the insight that environmental 
ship, considering, for example, the temporal continu- inequalities, and the social experience of them, oper-
ities between settler-colonial ecocide and ate as another vector through which difference is con-
environmental injustices experienced today by Native structed and institutionalized over time.
Americans, or the (literally epochal) implications of the These strengths notwithstanding, Critical 
Anthropocene for socio-ecological systems (20–22). Environmental Justice is seriously limited by how it con-
The third pillar in Pellow’s framework concerns the ceptualizes the origins of environmental injustice, which it 
origins of inequality and oppression, which Pellow associ- identifies strongly with states. This is also the part of 
ates with hierarchical, state-enforced forms of social Pellow’s argument that has the greatest bearing on ques-
order. This is the weakest part of Critical Environmental tions of movement strategy. These two issues are the 
Justice and is examined in detail in the following section. concern of Pellow’s third pillar, and to this I now turn.
Pellow’s final pillar incorporates work from the field of 
critical race theory that argues for the ‘indispensability’ of 
populations oppressed within an exclusionary social Eco-anarchism and the state
order (27). I read this pillar as a statement about the A repressive ‘purpose’
political ethics of environmental justice. For a group to 
be truly indispensable is for it to be included wholly in the Critical Environmental Justice’s third pillar seeks to identify 
movement for its own emancipation, and to be active as the structural origins of environmental injustice. For 
a political subject. Pellow, this is the state itself.8 Pellow associates his view 
Pellow’s empirical chapters address environmental explicitly with anarchist thinking on the state, which has 
justice in the context of movements against police not previously been integrated into environmental justice 
violence, mass incarceration, and oppression in theory (Pellow 2018, 113, 156). Pellow argues for 
Palestine, none of which have been studied extensively a ‘transformative vision’ to carry the movement beyond 
® 
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 5
the parameters of law and the state itself (17–18). He movement. Black Lives Matter, Pellow says, takes 
opposes his analysis to the conventional ‘progressive- a ‘rigorous and critical’ approach to the state, but 
Left’ politics of most scholars and activists who, he says, doesn’t go far enough (55). Pellow quotes movement 
naively assume that state capacities can be directed away leaders Patrisse Cullors and Darnell Moore advocating 
from ‘anti-socioecological’ purposes (23). The repressive for local, state, and federal divestment from police and 
functions of the state, in Pellow’s view, ‘tend to be inte- prison budgets. This money, they say, should instead be 
grally linked’ with other, seemingly progressive state func- ‘“redirected to those federal departments charged with 
tions (23). He implies that these two types of state providing employment, housing and educational ser-
function, progressive and repressive, are difficult or vices”’ (57). But Pellow is skeptical. This approach, he 
impossible to separate. says, ‘overlooks the possibility that reinforcing progres-
Why would this be the case? It is, Pellow says, because sive state power may also reinforce state power more 
the state ‘was never intended to provide justice for mar- generally, including its repressive dimensions’ (57).
ginalized peoples and nonhuman natures’ (23). Rather, Pellow seems to be arguing here that social move-
the ‘purpose’ of states is to dominate – to control popula- ments cannot really ever win when they engage with 
tions, ecosystems, territory, migration, knowledge, ideas, the state – public investment directed to schools, jobs, 
and ‘everyday existence’ (23, 58). This ‘management and or anything else ‘progressive’ redounds to the benefit 
manipulation’ is accomplished via ‘exclusion, control, and of the repressive apparatus, even when power and 
violence’ and projected along categories of difference resources are directly taken away from that apparatus. 
such as ‘race, gender, class, sexuality, citizenship, and Why would this be the case? Pellow’s argument is one 
species’, categories which in fact ‘co-emerged with’ and about legitimacy. He writes:
were made possible by the modern nation-state form 
(58). More concretely, states manage and manipulate The issue here is that such an approach may leave 
through practices such as policing, incarceration, civil intact the very power structures that produced envir-
onmental injustices in the first place. Yes, it names 
vigilantism, bureaucratic negligence, racially-unequal those institutions as sources of the problems and 
legal structures, state-created socionatures (45–49), seeks to reform them, but by working in collaboration 
and – surprisingly – public employment, housing, and with those entities, such efforts ultimately risk reinfor-
9 
education (57). cing their legitimacy. (17; emphasis added)
This last trio of state practices identified by Pellow as 
repressive raises the problems posed by a theory which Putting aside Pellow’s usual qualifications (‘may leave 
proposes that the state can be said to have a ‘purpose’. intact, risk reinforcing’), the boiled-down argument for 
Concrete historical practices of state repression, abun- why movements should avoid the state is this: when 
dantly demonstrated in Pellow’s case studies and cited movements interface with the state to win progressive 
literature, come to stand in as a sufficient explanation for changes, the state as a whole gains legitimacy, and this 
the existence of those practices – they are functional and hegemonic consent can in turn be deployed to justify 
causally sufficient, simply because they occur. This func- further repression.
tionalist view of the state poses a major obstacle for 
theory and movement strategy vis-a-vis the state. 
Simply put, if the purpose of states is always to control Movement strategy: withdrawal from the state?
and repress, then by definition those social groups sub- The strategic implications of this attitude towards the 
jected to repression could never hope for anything pro- state are hard to discern, because Pellow appears to be 
gressive to come from engagement with state making both a weak and a strong argument about strat-
institutions – at least not over the long-run. egy. In the weak argument, social movements should be 
Pellow appears to realize the problems with this, careful and build institutions mostly outside the ambit of 
because he constantly hedges his position. the state. Given the failure of eco-legalism, this does not 
Movements ‘may be better off’ evading the state, seem to be bad advice – but does this strategy really 
states may not be ‘reliable partners’, state practices follow from Pellow’s argument that the state is by defini-
‘tend to lean toward’ (a double qualification!) author- tion an instrument of violence and control? This theory of 
itarian and exclusionary arrangements, and so on (22–- a permanently-oppressive state would seem to demand 
23). The historical ‘purpose’ of states is to control and not a politics of state avoidance, but rather a politics that 
oppress, ‘among other things’ – a rather large caveat could dismantle the state – because as long as the state 
(23). He admits that movements may sometimes exists, it will act to produce and reproduce oppression. 
change the character of the state, but only if they But Pellow clearly rejects this, too – the environmental 
engage in ‘massive disruption’ (24). justice movement should not, in his view, seek to abolish 
Pushing past these equivocations, however, Pellow’s the state (24). Instead, movements should ‘seek the aboli-
actual views on the relationship between movements tion of socioecologically violent, hierarchical relationships 
and the state lean in an anarchist direction. This is most that tend to support state institutions and flow from 
obvious in Pellow’s chapter on the Black Lives Matter them’ (24).
6 D. PURUCKER
Pellow’s repeated assertions to the effect that states Such a strategy would also alienate most environmen-
are essentially (and permanently) forces for violence and tal justice activists, who are usually involved in place- 
control, and his rationale for rejecting strategies like based struggles to defend their communities. At least 
Cullors and Moore’s divestment/reinvestment proposal, for activists in the Global North without access to non- 
indicate a more pessimistic view – that progressive commodified, defensible territory, ‘walking away’ from 
change involving the state is actually impossible. This the state would represent not an effective practice of 
is his strong argument. In this view, movements should resistance, but surrender.10
build their own institutions and withdraw from engage- Despite Pellow’s inconsistent position on withdra-
ment to the greatest extent possible, in a kind of eco- wal from the state, what does seem clear is that he 
separatism ‘beyond the state’ (22), which ‘walk[s] away believes there is a permanent asymmetry of force 
from the state rather than toward it’ (13; emphasis in between movements and states in all or nearly all 
original). Touching the state at all – even if this means contexts, and that, in most cases, there is more to 
defunding its repressive apparatuses to meet collective lose than to gain by engaging with them. The implica-
needs, like building schools and homes – ends up rein- tions of this are serious. Rejecting states and their 
forcing hegemonic consent to all other state practices, capacities would have dramatic effects on the ability 
including those more directly implicated in repression. of the environmnetal justice movement to accomplish 
This is logically consistent: if the purpose of states is to its goals. In particular, a strong skepticism of state 
oppress, then all state practices must come around in power cripples any effort to achieve environmental 
the end to that task. The state and all its practices form justice in a ‘multiscalar’ way, in the sense implied by 
a monolith that cannot be entered nor pulled apart, Pellow’s second pillar. At best, movements operating 
because each piece of it is bound, somehow, to the on this model could effect micro-scale redistributions 
imperative of oppression. of power and resources to front-line communities. 
Even worse, the state appears to be invulnerable. Pellow cites mutual aid initiatives in the wake of 
Pellow’s explicit disapproval of strategies of state abo- Hurricane Katrina and environmental cleanup organiz-
lition, taken alongside his analysis of the state as ing in Barcelona, Boston, and Havana as successful 
a powerful hegemonizing force, suggests that he examples of the strategy in action (24–25).
doesn’t think destroying the state would even be pos- But environmental justice goals must extend far 
sible. And yet, despite this pessimism, Pellow still sug- beyond re-establishing moral economy under condi-
gests that movements ‘may’ be able to make parts of tions of state failure or neglect. The global ecological 
the state ‘more robustly democratic’ by ‘work[ing] crisis – climate change, mass extinction, zoonotic dis-
through’ them (24). He cycles back and forth between eases, and the rupture of planetary biospheric limits – 
these positions, driven by the implications of his func- sits far to the other side of the book’s conceptual- 
tionalist state theory to endorse escape and withdra- strategic scale, and Pellow spends little time consider-
wal, and by the actual history and current practice of ing it. Pellow does occasionally discuss climate change 
movements to reluctantly recommend careful engage- as a form of environmental injustice (15, 49), and he 
ment. For example, earlier in the very same paragraph, also seems to endorse climate justice efforts to boycott 
Pellow wonders ‘why we should exert so much energy and divest from fossil fuel corporations (16), intervene 
in making largely undemocratic institutions [states] in the UNFCCC climate negotiations (16), and partici-
more democratic rather than just practicing direct pate in large demonstrations like the 2014 People’s 
democracy ourselves’ (24). Climate March (29). But these few references all occur 
Where do these paths lead? Pellow’s strong argu- in Pellow’s discussions of intersectionality, multiscalar-
ment suggests a movement strategy of maximal with- ity, and indispensability, not his analysis of state power. 
drawal from interaction with state institutions. Tellingly, each example of movement activity involves 
Depending on how seriously one takes Pellow’s argu- the state. The UNFCCC process is primarily a forum for 
ment that states are functionally and inescapably com- governments to develop and adopt (or fail to adopt) 
mitted to oppression, and that engaging with state climate policy instruments. The People’s Climate 
institutions necessarily risks reproducing that oppres- March, as Pellow points out, was carried out in support 
sion, then it may become necessary for movement of ‘progressive climate change policy’ (29; emphasis 
activists to withdraw entirely from capitalist society, added). And the movement to divest from fossil fuel 
maintained as it is by state infrastructures subtending companies quite often involves activists pressuring 
property relations, money, and markets. But this would local governments or public bodies, like universities, 
confuse the pursuit of a communal logic separate from to divest their holdings of fossil fuel stocks. Pellow 
the state with one that is antagonistic to it. The state, provides just a single example of climate justice orga-
and capitalism, are more than capable of accommodat- nizing that is plausibly ‘beyond’ the state (22) – a brief 
ing these movements because they neither disrupt reference to international solidarity between anti-Shell 
state practices nor provide an appealing alternative Oil campaigners in Louisiana, Nigeria, the Philippines, 
for most people (Srnicek and Williams 2015, 47–48). and elsewhere (20–21).
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ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 7
The reason Pellow can’t offer guidance about how overly concrete. For example, Pellow at one point admits 
movements might slow or reverse the global ecological that ‘there are moments and spaces where states can be 
crisis while truly acting ‘beyond the state’ is because there pushed’ (24, emphasis added). The state here seems to be 
is no way to do so. There are simply no extra-state institu- an intransigent thing that can, at best, be acted upon, not 
tions with the power to shut down fossil fuel companies, within or through.
mobilize investment into a green energy transition, or To theorize an alternative, we can turn to recent 
restrain global eco-imperialism. Even assuming that work in anthropology and political sociology that 
movement institutions with the power to do these things emphasizes the relational, processual character of the 
could be built (a kind of global dual-power situation), the state, grounded in an ontology which begins with 
ecological crisis does not give us time to build them, and interactions, not entities (Emirbayer 1997). The state 
they would inevitably come into conflict with states at is a famously difficult object for social theorists, with 
some point. And yet, pursued rigorously, the strategy debate raging since the early days of Marxism over its 
implied at least by Pellow’s strong theory of states institutional composition, relationship to the class 
would force climate justice movements to commit to structure, and ultimate necessity in a complex society. 
just this kind of extreme dual-power strategy. When the The diversity of historical forms displayed by this mod-
state is treated in functionalist terms as a purely oppres- ality of power led the influential Greek political theorist 
sive force, a monolithic and all-powerful entity that move- Nicos Poulantzas to conclude that ‘the fact remains 
ments can neither split apart nor destroy, there is simply that there is no general theory of the State because 
no other option. there can never be one’ (Poulantzas 2014 [1978], 20). 
Instead, as the Spanish political theorist Juan Carlos 
Monedero notes, it seems more helpful to speak of 
Relational states, class politics: state theory ‘states’ in the plural, connected theoretically by the 
and movement strategy minimal Weberian determinants of territory, popula-
Pellow deserves credit for attempting to provide tion, and apparatus of rule (Monedero 2019, 7).
a coherent state theory for environmental justice: an From the perspective of political anthropology, Thelen, 
account of the state’s role in the production, media- Veters, von Benda-Beckmann (2014) set out a theory 
tion, and maintenance of environmental injustice, and focused on the role of symbolic interaction in the social 
a set of guidelines for movement strategy vis-a-vis the definition of states. Abstracting from the familiar institu-
state. As we have seen, however, his theory would tional forms associated with states, they write that, in 
pose serious problems for movements. Most impor- a general sense, ‘situational power differentials’ structure 
tantly, it gives us no way to imagine popular power the articulation of different ‘state images’ and ‘practices’ 
being exercised at the speed and scale demanded by by different social actors, and these together ‘sediment 
the Anthropocene. This point is crucial. Unless we have into larger political formations and lend the state as 
means of envisioning strategies that carry movements a political formation an appearance of coherence through 
across regional, national, and international scales, time.’ (8) These ongoing contests of state definition also 
environmental justice in the twenty-first century will involve active ‘boundary work’ – struggles to construct 
only be realized at small scales through desperate, where ‘the state’ ends and ‘civil society’ begins (8). This 
rear-guard struggles. Technocratic eco-legalism is perspective furnishes the relational, processual micro- 
now clearly a dead-end, but at least efforts to enlist foundations for the macro-level institutional anatomy of 
laws and regulators involves acting offensively to state forms theorized by Bob Jessop (2016), in 
change relations of power between private polluters, a framework he characterizes as ‘strategic-relational’. 
state agencies, and affected populations, and then to The keystone concept of Jessop’s work, extending an 
‘lock-in’ those progressive changes. Critical idea originally developed by Poulantzas (2014 [1978] 
Environmental Justice, on the other hand, by rejecting [1978]), is what he calls ‘crystallization’ (Jessop 2016, 
the state tout court, denies the possibility of institutio- 42–44). Particular conjunctures of negotiation, conflict, 
nalizing re-balanced power relations at all. and alliance between different forces ‘outside’ the 
The weaknesses in Pellow’s account of the state are at state – classes, but also regional, religious, or ethnic 
least in part the product of a tendency – carried over from groups, with gender relations cutting across all of 
anarchist theory – to reify the state as a singular entity. In these – cohere into more or less stable sets of arrange-
this framework, the sociological and institutional compo- ments ‘inside’ the state.
sition of the state is de-emphasized. Though Pellow does This historical process means that states display 
distinguish between ‘progressive’ and ‘repressive’ state particular ‘strategic selectivities’, or biases, arising 
practices (57), the main tendency of his analysis is to from the ‘situational power differentials’ of the differ-
treat the state as a monolithic whole unified by the ent actors contesting the terms on which their parti-
‘purpose’ of oppression. Even when he acknowledges cular interests and rationalities are crystallized. 
some possibilities for movements to interact with state Concretely, this crystallization ‘represents the interests 
institutions, Pellow tends to treat those institutions as of the dominant bloc, the victors of past social 
8 D. PURUCKER
struggles – of capital over labour, men over women, the common usage of ‘front-line’ or ‘fence-line’ com-
whites over blacks and indigenous peoples, the centre munities to refer to the social base of the movement, 
over the periphery’ (Monedero 2019, 8). The familiar or in the tendency to focus attention on struggles 
formal institutions of the state apparatus – executive, waged against the dispossession of traditional rela-
legislature, bureaucracy, military, judiciary – are all tionships to land and nature. Those directly exposed 
constructed from this heterogeneous mixture of past to environmental injustice – whether by a toxic landfill 
social struggles. Finally, to act cohesively, these institu- in the American South or bulldozers in the Brazilian 
tions must themselves adhere to what Jessop calls Amazon – are, logically, often the first to resist it, and 
a ‘state project’ which determines the overall orienta- the ethics of what Pellow calls ‘indispensability’ involve 
tion of the state system (Jessop 2016, 84–86).11 a moral duty to recognize struggles against injustice 
The emphasis on process and heterogeneity in this waged by those already at the margins.
framework makes it easier to imagine how popular move- Environmental justice discourse, however, often 
ments, once ‘in power’ (beginning usually in the executive presumes that these struggles over livelihood are co- 
or legislature), can and indeed must move rapidly to re- extensive with the movement’s base. In other words, 
condense a new set of social relations throughout the the only people who ‘really’ have a stake in challenging 
whole apparatus of the state, the ‘strategic selectivities’ of extractive industry and disparities in environmental 
which will always be biased against historically subaltern harm are those groups with a ‘direct material experi-
groups. This will necessarily involve, in a relational sense, ence’ of such harms. The basic problem with this fram-
a re-definition of the boundaries and meaning of the state ing is that those engaged in livelihood struggles are 
from both its ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.12 Conceptualizing the often the least powerful groups in a society. Huber asks 
process this way also makes clear that, in a real sense, re- the pertinent question: ‘[H]ow does environmental 
making parts of the state is always simultaneously justice politics build solidarity with the majority of 
a process of re-making the social ‘outside’. The state people who are fully engulfed within the commodity 
comes into view, finally, not as an ‘entity’, but as society, but not exposed to any apparent threat of toxic 
a ‘relationship of forces’ (Poulantzas 2014 [1978] [1978], pollution?’ (21; emphasis in original) For him, the 
128–29). answer is clear: the common ‘logic of domination and 
While this perspective hopefully dispels the image of othering’ that Pellow identifies (2018, 19) needs to be 
a monolithic state which movements can neither enter constructed in class terms, with a clear narrative that 
nor transform, it leaves open the ‘movement’ part of this identifies environmental injustice as class oppression, 
equation. It is one thing to articulate in theory how states and the capitalist class as the common enemy structu-
exist in continuous relational interaction with the socie- rally responsible for that oppression (2019, 9). By doing 
ties that form their (constructed) exteriors, and how so, the constituency for environmental justice is 
organized political blocs within societies can contest for revealed to be much more extensive than just those 
and re-found the state apparatus, in part or – in the case at the ‘front-lines’, encompassing all people who must 
of revolutions – in whole. It is another to understand the sell their labor to survive.
scale of this task, especially when the conditions one What would this look like in practice? In the United 
hopes to change – pervasive environmental injustice, States, it could mean a Green New Deal that balances 
a pattern as old as class society – are so deeply ‘sedimen- urgent environmental goals with policies that benefit 
ted’. This point suggests a possible reason for Pellow’s the broad working-class at the expense of the wealthy 
pessimism about the state, as well as his unwillingness to (Kurtzleben 2019). Or one could look to the experience 
think about the global ecological crisis: a too-narrow idea of the Latin American ‘Pink Tide’ profiled by Monedero 
of who counts as an environmental justice agent. (2019), in which mass movements of indigenous pea-
Usually, for a movement to be described as an effort sants and urban workers won serious footholds of state 
to achieve environmental justice, it must be based in power across South America between 1998 and 
what geographer Matt Huber, in an important recent 2015.13 Whatever form it takes, this movement would 
critique, calls ‘livelihood struggles’. ‘The underlying have two basic characteristics. First, it would be 
political focus [of environmental justice]’, writes oriented in some way towards the state, as in the 
Huber, ‘is that it is these marginalized communities ‘weak’ version of Pellow’s argument, and would seek 
themselves that should lead environmental move- to ‘crystallize’ more just and sustainable social institu-
ments against the corporations poisoning them and tions through this engagement. Second, it would need 
their communities. It is their direct material experience be rooted in the only social agent with the interest and 
with pollution and toxicity which grants them this capacity to actually overcome the state’s ‘strategic 
special political status’ (Huber 2019, 21, emphasis selectivities’ in a lasting way: the working-class. 
added). Indeed, it is this insistence on the agency of Historical experience and careful theorizing show that 
those directly suffering and resisting environmental states are not unassailable, monolithic structures. But 
harms that distinguishes environmental justice from to change them, the social base of environmental 
technocratic environmentalism. This is reflected in justice will need to be reconceived.
® 
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 9
Conclusion: a path forwards for environmental 5. For a general review of the difficulties encountered by 
justice the environmental justice movement in attempting to 
use laws like Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, see Taylor 
David Pellow’s Critical Environmental Justice provides (2014, 98–122). Taylor concludes that ‘plaintiffs bring-
a needed critique of legalistic approaches to the state, ing EJ [environmental justice] cases in the courts have 
as well as useful conceptual resources and case studies found little success and filing Title VI complaints has 
for thinking through environmental justice in a more been an ineffective strategy for halting or reducing the exposure to environmental hazards.’ (122)
inclusive and methodologically dynamic way. However, 6. The report notes that civil and administrative enforce-
his anarchist analysis of the state does not offer clear ment actions have similarly declined, and that state 
strategic guidance to environmental justice move- governments have been given ‘veto power’ over some 
ments. The rejection of movement struggles within EPA enforcement decisions. For a summary of anti- 
the state would limit prospects for carrying out a truly regulatory actions taken by the EPA from 2017–2019, 
see Popovich, Albeck-Ripka, and Pierre-Louis (2019).
‘multiscalar’ movement capable of intervening at 7. .Though beyond the scope of this critique, it is worth 
national and global scales. In response, I sketched an noting that Pellow’s particular usage of intersection-
alternative, ‘strategic-relational’ state theory. Following ality makes ‘hybridist’ ontological assumptions. It is 
Jessop (2016), I argued that the environmental justice ‘impossible’, Pellow writes, to delineate human and 
movement needs to view the state as a contested field non-human aspects of built environments (20). 
of power, which may structurally favor oppressive social Natural resources like water or oil should be treated as ‘agents... literally shaping our imagination, policy-
relations but is not destined to do so. making, and the material contours of nation states.’ 
Reconceptualizing the state in this way makes structural (118, emphasis in original) For a critique of this posi-
change possible to envision, but also prompts new tion, see Malm (2018).
questions about the scale of the movement necessary 8. Pellow is clear that his theory applies to all modern 
to achieve it. With Huber (2019), I argue that environ- nation-states, not just the United States (2018, 58). This 
represents a significant extension of Pulido’s critique 
mental justice scholarship will need to expand its of the state, which is in some ways similar but is 
understanding of the constituency for environmental applied only to the American state (2017, 525). 
justice, moving beyond direct struggles over livelihood Pellow also gestures towards a much more expansive 
to encompass class-wide movements against the struc- theory of social inequalities as rooted in the ‘current 
tural sources of injustice, environmental and otherwise. social order’ and ‘reinforced by’ the state, but not 
reducible to it (2018, 22, 138). This broader analysis 
recurs occasionally throughout the book, but is never 
Notes systematized. Pellow says early on that his argument 
will focus mostly on the state (22).
1. The ‘Green New Deal’ is a proposed climate policy 9. Pellow makes this statement in the context of 
framework involving ambitious public investment to a critique of more conventional movement 
rapidly decarbonize the U.S. economy and reduce approaches to the state (a rather broad list encom-
inequality (Kurtzleben 2019). For recent Democratic passing ‘legislation, institutional reforms, and other 
Party climate proposals, see Irfan (2019). On organized policy concessions’ [16–17]), but as we have seen, he 
labor and a ‘just transition’ to a decarbonized econ- extends the argument about reinforcing legitimacy to 
omy, see Isser (2020). also justify turning away from more radical strategies 
2. Scholarship documenting the disproportionate impact like Cullors and Moore’s divestment-reinvestment 
of toxics and pollutants has aided litigation to shut proposal.
down some sources of pollution, and advocacy and 10. Eco-separatist movements that do literally ‘walk away’ 
research by scholars such as Robert Bullard, Bunyan from the state have experienced some success in 
Bryant, Charles Lee, and Beverly Wright eventually Global South countries – the Zapatistas are a well- 
contributed to the establishment of both the EPA known example. For other examples of autonomous 
Office of Environmental Justice, and an executive indigenous struggles in Latin America, see Gómez- 
order by President Bill Clinton in 1994 mandating Barris (2017). However, separatism in these cases is 
federal agencies take into account the disparate envir- based on localized control of land and communitarian 
onmental and health effects of government programs property relations. These conditions are very rare in 
and policies on minority and low-income populations. the United States, and would require direct, violent 
For a review of this history, see Cole and Foster (2001). confrontation with an immensely powerful state to 
3. Pulido’s endorsement appears on the back cover of establish through a strategy of direct action. This 
Pellow’s book. does not mean, as is sometimes assumed, that there 
4. ‘Eco-anarchism’ is a broad and heterogeneous body of can be no role for ‘prefiguration’. Yates (2020), synthe-
work, ranging from deep green/neo-primitivist argu- sizing research in social movement studies, argues 
ments for radically simplified social and technological persuasively that movement cultures and, to an 
systems, to ‘communalist’ arguments that emphasize extent, forms of organization are always ideologically 
municipal-based politics. It is also possible to distin- prefigurative, infusing present-day means with the 
guish between work that attempts to define an ecolo- ethos of hoped-for ends.
gically sustainable, non-hierarchical future society, and 11. I believe that this view of the state is compatible with 
arguments that focus on the present-day need for the claim, made by theorists of governance, that the 
anarchist strategy. For communalism, see Bookchin configuration of power has changed in advanced capi-
(2007). For anarchist social ecology, see Kadalie (2019). talist societies, away from a preference for government, 
10 D. PURUCKER
centralized and bureaucratic, and towards a logic of Brown, W. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth 
governance, with social power and authority see- Revolution. New York: Zone Books.
mingly ‘decentered’, networked, and non-hierarchical Bullard, R. D., P. Mohai, R. Saha, and B. Wright. 2008. “Toxic 
(Brown 2015, 122–27). Markets are the key model and Wastes and Race at Twenty: Why Race Still Matters after All 
technology of this neoliberal form of administration of These Years.” Environmental Law 38 (2): 371–411. 
(Lockie 2014), which favors ‘partnerships’ to mobilize https://www.jstor.org/stable/43267204?seq=1#metadata_ 
non-state actors (Alstyne 2015) and involves info_tab_contents.
a depoliticized fetish for ‘problem-solving’ and ‘con- Cole, L. W., and S. R. Foster. 2001. From the Ground Up: 
sensus’ between ‘stakeholders’. State agencies struc- Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental 
tured around a logic of governance struggle to Justice Movement. New York: New York University Press.
integrate movement framings based around justice, Desikan, A., J. Carter, S. Kinser, and G. Goldman. 2019. 
or even agent-driven politics as such (Liévanos 2012). Abandoned Science, Broken Promises: How the Trump 
The effect is to produce a diffused modality of power Administration’s Neglect of Science Is Leaving Marginalized 
quite distinct from the post-war system that preceded Communities Further Behind. Cambridge, MA: Union of 
it. But the state, though its borders have clearly Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/ 
become more porous in the era of neoliberalism, has abandoned-science-broken-promises.
only been ‘decentered’ in an ideological sense: it Emirbayer, M. 1997. “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology.” 
remains in reality the central locus of social power. American Journal of Sociology 103(2):281–317. doi:  
Strategically, social movements will need to remain 10.1086/231209.
aware of the diffused, networked character of power Fox, S. 2015. “History, Violence, and the Emergence of 
in neoliberal society. But rolling back oppressive forms Guatemala’s Mining Sector.” Environmental Sociology 1 
of governance will, I contend, require movements to (3): 152–165. doi: 10.1080/23251042.2015.1046204.
first focus on achieving and exercising government. Gómez-Barris, M. 2017. The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and 
12. What I have called Pellow’s ‘weak’ argument about Decolonial Perspectives. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
strategy suggests exactly this kind of approach. He Holifield, R. 2018. “David Naguib Pellow, What Is Critical 
writes: ‘...by building and supporting strongly demo- Environmental Justice?“ Review of Agricultural, Food, and 
cratic practices, relationships, and institutions, move- Environmental Studies 99: 303–306. doi: 10.1007/s41130- 
ments for social change will become less dependent 018-0078-5. 3–4
upon the state, while any elements of the state they do Huber, M. 2019. “Ecological Politics for the Working Class.” 
work through may become more robustly democratic.’ Catalyst 3 (1): 7–45. https://catalyst-journal.com/vol3/no1/ 
(24, emphasis added) However, his ‘strong’ skepticism ecological-politics-for-the-working-class.
about the state, rooted in his functionalist theory, Irfan, U. 2019. “A Guide to How 2020 Democrats Plan to Fight 
leads him to consistently emphasize the first part of Climate Change.”Vox, December 19, 2019. https://www. 
this formulation (building ‘practices, relationships, and vox.com/2019/9/10/20851109/2020-democrats-climate- 
institutions’ outside the state) to the detriment of change-plan-president.
the second. Isser, M. 2020. “The Green New Deal Just Won a Major Union 
13. Of course, none of these movements to transform Endorsement. What’s Stopping the AFL-CIO?” In These 
deep structures of economic and cultural oppression Times, https://inthesetimes.com/article/green-new-deal- 
have been entirely successful. Each has also posed aft-afl-cio-climate-labor-unions-workers.
predictable contradictions for environmental protec- Jessop, B. 2016. The State: Past, Present, Future. 
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land, as Rivera (2017) demonstrates in a careful analy- Johnson, C. 2019. “Trump’s Judicial Appointments Were 
sis of state-movement interaction in Ecuador. Confirmed At Historic Pace In 2018.” NPR, January 2, 2019. 
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/681208228/trumps-judicial 
-appointments-were-confirmed-at-historic-pace-in-2018.
Disclosure statement Kadalie, M. 2019. Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, 
Conversations, and Essays. Atlanta, GA: On Our Own 
I am not aware of any potential conflicts of interest. Authority! Publishing.
Kurtzleben, D. 2019. “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Releases 
Green New Deal Outline.” NPR, February 7, 2019. https:// 
www.npr.org/2019/02/07/691997301/rep-alexandria- 
ORCID ocasio-cortez-releases-green-new-deal-outline.
David Purucker http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0403-5932 LeQuesne, T. 2019. “Petro-hegemony and the Matrix of 
Resistance: What Can Standing Rock’s Water Protectors 
Teach Us about Organizing for Climate Justice in the 
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