Democracy and the claims of nature

"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.