Climate imperative as a legitimizing framework of structural domination: green regulatory frameworks of coercive modernization

Abstract

The aim of this article is to substantiate an analytical framework for the critical reading of the climate imperative as the institutional form of a contemporary wave of coercive modernization, implemented through the mechanisms of green neoprotectionism. Green neoprotectionism is interpreted as the fourth successive wave of coercive modernization following import-substituting industrialization, the Washington Consensus reforms, and the harmonization of regulatory standards within regional trade agreements; the distinctive feature of the current phase lies in the systemic fusion of trade, financial, and technological policy into a single regulatory architecture. The research establishes that green neoprotectionism constitutes a systemic feature of the emerging regulatory architecture rather than a by-product of an unconsolidated climate consensus. Five operational levers of this regime are identified (resource, regulatory, territorial, technological, and discursive); a three-contour model of green gatekeeping is set out, operating across market (CBAM), capital (taxonomy, CSRD, CSDDD), and technology access contours. The analysis demonstrates that the revenue distribution formula of CBAM is structurally equivalent to a classical neoprotectionist barrier, albeit under a fundamentally different normative framing; the architecture of green fintech serves as the infrastructural foundation of gatekeeping, generating technological asymmetry between standard-setting jurisdictions and countries subject to ESG screening.