This week we are hosting a series of blogs about the politics of animals. In our third post, Dr Alasdair Cochrane, Associate Fellow of the Crick Centre assesses whether political institutions are adequately reflecting our attitudes towards animals. He highlights the disjuncture between appearance and reality when it comes to the politics of animals, and suggests that we urgently need to re-evaluate how animals are represented in the political process.
Lucy Parry’s blog certainly reveals that our attitudes – both personal and political – towards animals are messed up. And it is certainly true that sometimes we recognise the agency of animals in order to demonise them, sometimes we recognise their agency in order to lavish luxuries upon them, and at other times we try and ignore that they have any desires and feelings at all.
However, I believe that there are a remarkable number of issues concerning our treatment of animals over which people have extremely rational and coherent beliefs. Moreover, and perhaps surprisingly, there is also widespread agreement about what ought to be done in respect of these issues. The problem is that our political institutions and structures – at both the domestic and international level – are either incapable or unwilling to realise our collective will over the treatment of animals.
For example, everybody agrees that we should not be cruel to animals. Anti-cruelty animal welfare legislation exists in nearly all states in the world – including here in the UK. Indeed we British often mock ourselves for being a hopeless nation of animal lovers. But we shouldn’t mock too much, for in fact reported cases of cruelty to the RSPCA are going up. They were up 14% in 2013, which mirrored similar rises in both 2012 and 2011.
Secondly, everybody – perhaps with the exception of some members of the National Farmers Union – agrees that we should eat less meat, and that the animals we do use for food should be treated with far higher welfare standards. Indeed, report after report shows that slashing our meat and dairy consumption would have huge benefits for the environment, for human health, and of course for animals themselves. But the reality is that per capita global meat consumption has doubled in the past 50 years and is expected to double again by 2050. This increase in consumption obviously requires the intensification of production – extracting more protein from the bodies of animals at lower costs – which necessitates animal suffering.
Christopher Michel [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Thirdly, everybody also agrees that we should do all that we can to find alternatives to animal testing, and reduce the numbers of animals that are currently used in laboratory experiments. Indeed, one of this coalition government’s pledges when it came to office in 2010 was to reduce the numbers of animal experiments in the UK. And in fact, the former Minister in charge of regulating animal experiments said last year that he wanted to see an end to all animal testing. And yet, the numbers of animal experiments conducted in UK has consistently risen year by year since the coalition government came to power.
Finally, everybody also agrees that we should preserve rare species of animal. Indeed, the Convention on Biological Diversity was set up back in 1993 – and all UN members (except the USA and Andorra) are party to this treaty aimed at protecting biodiversity. But the latest estimates tell us that over 22% of all known mammals are under threat; as are 31% of all known amphibians; and 13% of all known birds. In short, we are facing an extinction crisis.
So while it is true that our attitudes towards animals are often messy and diverse, there are also some matters about which we all possess the same coherent desires. Our collective will to reduce animal cruelty, to farm fewer and happier animals, to reduce animal testing and to stem the extinction crisis, is being unheard, ignored or thwarted. Our political institutions and structures are failing, and as such require a radical overhaul. Surely the introduction of a simple means by which our interests in respect of animals – and the interests of animals themselves – can be represented is a modest first step. Dan Lyons’s call for an Animal Protection Commission in these same blog pages seems eminently sensible in this regard. This and other ideas urgently need to be proposed and evaluated – both for our sake and for the sake of animals.
Bio
Alasdair Cochrane is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield. He currently holds a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and is also an AHRC / BBC Next Generation Thinker for 2014. Alasdair’s research focuses on questions of animal rights and the political representation of animals. He is author of ‘An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory’ and ‘Animal Rights without Liberation’.
Note: this article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Crick Centre, or the Understanding Politics blog series. To write for the Understanding Politics blog, email our editor Nicholas Try at [email protected]
