In his systematic comparison of the evolution of the welfare state and the ecological state, James Meadowcroft (2005) observed that the welfare state was largely a national creation, aided by cross-national policy transfer, whereas the emerging ecological state is increasingly an international creation, shaped by a growing raft of international environmental institutions, transnational networks and discourses about the differentiated responsibilities of developed and developing states. This paper takes this feature of the ecological state as a point of departure from which to explore how developed states have responded to the differentiated responsibilities bestowed upon them by the climate regime. Whereas the construction of the welfare state was legitimated as a self-evident nation-building exercise, the construction of the ecological state depends on a more heroic narrative of the state as a local agent of the common good and, in the case of developed states, local agents with special international responsibilities to lead in mitigation. This poses a profound legitimation challenge for national governments and calls for new ways of theorizing and researching the transformation of the modern state in response to global ecological problems. Instead of focusing on state institutions and/or capacities, this paper take a ‘narrative turn’ in exploring to what extent, if any, a new, cosmopolitan ecological state is ‘under construction’ in five developed states: Germany, the UK, Norway, the USA and Australia. Since the political executive serves as the linch-pin between domestic politics and the international diplomacy, this analysis will focus on the ‘two-level’ climate discourses of the political executive of five developed states (Germany, the UK, Norway, the USA and Australia) and explore how they narrate the purposes, identity and interests of the state and the nation in the course of embracing, rejecting or reinterpreting international environmental responsibilities.
