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Revolving doors, regulatory capture, and climate change

a case of state-corporate environmental crime in Europe

Green criminology is a sub-field of criminology that studies environmental crimes. Differing from mainstream criminology, green criminology challenges the state definitions of crime by employing a harm-based approach; widens the definition of the victim by making it extensive to non-human species, the environment, and the planet itself; and places the responsibility of environmental deterioration in structural rather than individual factors. Using a green criminology approach and the case study of the revolving doors between the Spanish government and the fossil fuel industry, we will explore how climate change is a form of state-corporate crime. As found, the intensified interconnection between the state and the corporate sector in the neoliberal era paves the way for environmental damage through regulatory capture. Overall, the proposed case study places the responsibility for environmental damage on powerful actors and illustrates the need for a green criminological approach when studying environmental crimes in general.

Mònica Pons-Hernández is a PhD student at the Department of Public Law of the University Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. Her research interests are in green criminology, state-corporate crime, and illegal markets.