Overview

""Democracy and the Claims of Nature"" tackles the core questions raised by the intersection of our democratic and environmental commitments. Among these include: the conceptual and practical connections between democratic theory and environmental ethics, the potential for an environmentally defined democratic citizenship, the concerns of equity and justice in environmental discourse and policy making, and the shape and future of democratic environmental movements. The prominent contributors-philosophers, political theorists and social scientists engage both the complexities and the possibilities of a robustly democratic environmentalism, and each offers their own unique insights into the particular challenges that flow from the intermingling of environmental ethics and politics in human experience. Taken together, the essays provide an indispensable multi-disciplinary analysis of the ways in which our loyalties to democracy and the environment confront and mutually reinforce one another in theory and practice. ""Democracy and the Claims of Nature"" should be of great interest not only to students and educators in environmental studies, American political thought and democratic theory, but to environmental professionals and citizens concerned about the health of both our democratic ideas and institutions and the environment in the 21st Century.

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9780742515239

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This collection will become the definitive text to consult to understand the interplay of democratic norms and environmental values. In this benchmark study, the leading philosophers in the field integrate past research and lay out the intellectual agenda for the future.--Sagoff, Mark

This collection will become the definitive text to consult to understand the interplay of democratic norms and environmental values. In this benchmark study, the leading philosophers in the field integrate past research and lay out the intellectual agenda for the future. -- Mark Sagoff, Institute of Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland It is a testament to the innovation shown by the contributors that this volume exhibits such a high degree of originality. The book successfully traverses environmental ethics, democratic theory and environmental movements. It is a valuable contribution to an important area of green political theory. Political Studies Review There is no more necessary debate within environmental studies than that defining the 'proper' role for responsive democratic politics in making collective choices regarding nature. Should anticipatory institutions, within a republic, regulate humanity's use of the environment on the basis of prior principle, or should collective choices only be made when communities perceive the need for them and give their active consent? This important book sets out the moral, political, and social parameters of this debate in stark relief and challenges the reader to consider all its ramifications. -- John Martin Gillroy, director of the Environmental Studies Program, Bucknell University

Author Information

Ben A. Minteer is assistant professor of environmental studies at Bucknell. Bob Pepperman Taylor is associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont.

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