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Our present political system is dominated by business news and the stock market. But those in support of green politics ask whether human profit should continue to be the bottom line of political deliberations or whether it is time for the interests of the natural world to combine with or even ...

Our present political system is dominated by business news and the stock market. But those in support of green politics ask whether human profit should continue to be the bottom line of political deliberations or whether it is time for the interests of the natural world to combine with or even displace them.In The Promise of Green Politics Douglas Torgerson offers a survey of different strands of ecological schools of thought, discusses their implications for the larger political sphere, and advances a three-dimensional concept of politics that emphasises ethics and discourse, as well as strategy.Arguing that the environmental movement has the potential to contribute to contemporary developments in political theory and social action by changing discursive practices at grassroots gatherings and along the corridors of power, Torgerson draws on the theories of Hannah Arendt and others to advocate a performative type of political debate that values a plurality of opinions and is not always oriented toward the narrowing of debate down to a single conclusion. In a world stuck in administrative, scientific gridlock, Torgerson argues, the theatrical, comic aspects of green politics are as important as other, more goal-oriented, aspects. Gestures of the carnivalesque-such as protestors sleeping in hammocks slung from trees targeted for destruction or funeral processions held for dying rivers-could be the key to the creation of what Torgerson refers to as a "green public sphere," one which promises a reconfiguration of the relationship between human creativity and the natural world. While offering a number of concrete policy suggestions, his focus remains on the complexity and heterogeneity of green thinking, and on the transformative promise implicit in green politics. In creating new ways to speak about the environment, Torgerson argues, the green movement offers a chance to productively rethink many larger issues of political theory and action.The Promise of Green Politics will serve as a gateway to new thinking about green politics and the emerging possibilities of a diverse and vital green public sphere. As such, it will be valued by those interested in environmental and public policy, political theory, social activism, and the future of political action.

What is the optimal framework for environmental reform - reform on a scale commensurate with the global ecological crisis? In particular, how adequate are liberal forms of parliamentary democracy to the challenge posed by this crisis? These are the questions pondered by the contributors to the ...

What is the optimal framework for environmental reform - reform on a scale commensurate with the global ecological crisis? In particular, how adequate are liberal forms of parliamentary democracy to the challenge posed by this crisis? These are the questions pondered by the contributors to the present volume. In their evaluations of liberalism, these authors range from qualified defence to extensive critique, though the majority regard democracy in some - not necessarily liberal - form as the most promising vehicle for ecopolitics. Exploration of the possibilities of democracy in this connection gives rise to certain common themes. These include, firstly, that of the relation between ecological morality and political structures of procedures: are certain political systems more conducive than others to the flowering of an ecological outlook, or are the moral values of citizens formed independently of political processes? A second theme relates to the question of the structure of decision-making and distribution of information in political systems: are ecological interests best served by centralised or decentralised political scenarios? The latter question leads, in several contributions, to ideas of 'democracy without traditional boundaries', where this idea is taken, in different ways by different authors, as a key both to environmentalism in an age of global ecology and to the revitalisation of democracy itself in a world of increasingly protean constituencies and mutable, indeed soluble, boundaries.