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Liberal Democracy and Environmentalism

Edited by Marcel Wissenburg and Yoram Levy (University of Nijmegen); London, Routledge, February 2004. ISBN 0-415-32195-6.

ContributorsRoutledge website

(Picture: Some of the contributors to LDE in Turin, Italy, 2002)

Is there still a need for environmental political thought?

In recent decades, environmental issues have increasingly been incorporated into liberal democratic thought and political practice. Environmentalism and ecologism have become fashionable, even respectable schools of political thought. This apparently successful integration of environmental movements, issues and ideas in mainstream politics raises the question of whether there is a future for what once was a counter-movement and counter-ideology. The hypothesis that environmentalism is at an end can only be proved or disproved by establishing whether environmentalists still have a reason to be environmentalists. Beyond any empirical concern with the 'greening' of political practice lies the deeper question of 'greening' political thought. This book thus focuses on whether liberal democracy's normative foundations can absorb or have absorbed the most fundamental green ideals and whether its institutions can incorporate them if they have not already.

Liberal Democracy and Environmentalism provides a reflective assessment of recent developments, the social relevance and the future of environmental political theory, concluding that although the alleged pacification of environmentalism is more than skin deep, it is not yet quite deep enough. This book will appeal to social scientists and philosophers, both students and researchers, with an interest in environmental issues.

Contents

  1. Introduction - Yoram Levy and Marcel Wissenburg
  2. The role of environmentalism: From the Silent Spring to the Silent Revolution - Gayil Talshir

PART I: THE FACES OF ENDISM

  1. Post-ecologism and the politics of simulation - Ingolfur Blühdorn
  2. The end of environmentalism (as we know it) - Yoram Levy
  3. Little green lies: On the redundancy of 'environment' - Marcel Wissenburg

PART II: DEMOCRACY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

  1. The end of deep ecology? - not quite - Mike Mills and Fraser King
  2. The environment versus individual freedom and convenience - Marius de Geus
  3. Precaution, scientization or deliberation? Prospects for greening and democratizing science - Karin Bäckstrand

PART III: THE GOOD AND GREEN SOCIETY

  1. Ecology, democracy and autonomy: A problem of wishful thinking - Mathew Humphrey
  2. A precautionary approach - Meira Hanson
  3. Liberal democracy and the shaping of environmentally enlightened citizens - Graham Smith

PART IV: PERSPECTIVES AND POSSIBILITIES

  1. Sustainability and plurality: From the moderate end of the liberal equilibrium to the open end of a situated liberal neutrality - Dorothee Horstkötter
  2. The minimum irreversible harm principle: Green Inter-generational Liberalism - Michael Wallack
  3. From environmental politics to the politics of the environment: The Pacification and Normalization of Environmentalism? - John Barry
  4. Conclusion - Yoram Levy and Marcel Wissenburg

Bibliography
Index