Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge.(Book review)

Dobson, A. and R. Eckersley, eds. 2006. New York: Cambridge University Press, 261 pages, ISBN 978-0-521-83810-8 (hardcover)/978-0-521-54698-0 (paper). US $75 (hardcover) / US $29.99 (paper).

Reviewed by Andrew Biro, Department of Political Science, Acadia University

In The Politics, Aristotle claimed that the existence of political relations was a distinctive feature of human societies. If the Western understanding of politics, in a sense, rests on this claim that separated human beings from the (rest of the) natural world, then it is perhaps not surprising that political science, and political philosophy more specifically, has been slow to incorporate the insights of ecology. Fully acknowledging human embeddedness in natural systems and processes might undermine the very foundations of our understanding of political life. But mounting evidence of human impacts on the natural environment, and the adverse effects of environmental changes, is making the ecological challenge for political philosophy one that is too big to ignore. As Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley state in their introduction to this excellent collection, "mainstream [political] theory is not--at this historical juncture--complete without taking account of its ecological counterpart" (page 2).

Environmental (or Green) political theory has grown considerably in recent years. As the essays in this collection ably demonstrate, it is a field of study that is poised, like feminist theory before it, to move from a more specialized field of enquiry to one that challenges some of the central assumptions of the discipline. As the contributors show, the "ecological challenge" to political theory is manifold: in addition to issues of anthropocentrism and how we ought to deal with non-human species, it also raises issues of intergenerational justice in unprecedented ways, and it poses clear challenges for conventional political boundaries and containers, from the state to national citizenship.

Dobson and Eckersley's collection is structured like a fairly conventional political theory textbook: the first half (seven chapters) covers political ideologies. Here the contributors focus largely on the extent to which various ideologies are fundamentally challenged by, or ultimately compatible with, environmental values. The seven chapters in the second half then focus on political-theoretical concepts. Here the emphasis is on the productive reconsideration of political theory's keystone concepts that are engendered by the ecological challenge. While some edited collections suffer from a lack of cohesion, if anything, contributors here at times bump up against one another. "Nationalism" is treated as an ideology, but chapters on "The state" and "Security" (concepts) are both largely framed in national terms; similarly the chapter on "liberalism" (an ideology) overlaps considerably with the one on "freedom and rights" (a concept). On the other hand though, the comprehensiveness of the traditional textbook structure convincingly demonstrates how pervasive the ecological challenge is to our thinking about politics.

The important questions raised by the authors are too numerous to rehearse here. But one worthy of mention, noted by a number of the contributors, is the way in which the ecological challenge forces us to confront again, squarely, what is perhaps the foundational question for political philosophy: what is the good life for human beings? In this sense, the standard political theory textbook structure makes sense: for all the authors, the ecological challenge ultimately affirms, rather than undermines, political theory as an enterprise.

This is, to my mind, all to the good, as the lack of communication between mainstream political theory and environmentalism has been a two-way problem. It is not just that political theorists ignore ecological developments at their peril. Environmentalists have too often ignored the broad political vision demanded by political theorizing, relying on individualized appeals ("reduce, reuse, recycle"), and focusing either on piecemeal policy reform or abstract utopianism. Political theory, by contrast, stresses the importance of developing a more comprehensive vision of the possibilities for social life, grounded in existing political realities. Thus it was refreshing to see both Roger Scruton's chapter ("Conservatism") and Andrew Linklater's ("Cosmopolitanism") deal with--in quite different ways--the crucial environmental question of how to motivate behavioural change, while Daniel Deudney's ("Security") confronts important issues of rhetorical strategy. Indeed, with one or two exceptions, all the chapters to some extent deal with practical questions of political struggle. But this is still a political theory text rather than a strategy manual: abstract and sophisticated theoretical reflection abounds: one of the book's many highlights is Michael Saward's ecologically-inspired deconstruction of "representation," the "ecological challenge" moves from challenging representative political institutions, to challenging the way that "political representation" itself is represented.

In their introduction, the editors make the claim that because environmental political theory is a relatively new field it is possible to have a book that serves as a textbook for students while also providing "cutting edge" analysis useful for professionals in the field. I confess to being frankly skeptical when I first read this claim. And yet in large part this book delivers just that. While some of the chapters might be difficult going for undergraduates, for those with some background in political theory, it should be a valuable stimulus. And readers more versed in the field will find new insights or a fresh perspective. Importantly--particularly from a pedagogical standpoint--all the chapters are clearly written and engaging.

The one thing I was left wanting at the end of the book was some more comprehensive attempt to set the ecological challenge into the context of political theory as a field of study: an articulation of what political theorists would call a "metatheory." As the ecological challenge is integrated into political theory, what would an overview of the reshaped intellectual terrain look like? Sketching such a map would itself be a contested (political) enterprise, and perhaps the editors of this collection put off this task in the interests of keeping the conversation as open as possible. Still, this seems an important part of integrating the ecological challenge fully into the mainstream of political theory, a project whose importance this book underlines. Nevertheless, for producing an insightful and readable book that should bring environmental concerns into political theory, and political theory into environmentalism, the contributors are to be commended.

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