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Promoting environmental citizenship as a path to achieving sustainability -- encouraging people to act according to the public environmental good -- offers an alternative to the mainly market-based incentives used by most governments today. This book considers the theory and practice of environmental citizenship, the obstacles to its realization, and the opportunities it presents for bringing about environmental and social sustainability. The multidisciplinary perspective -- drawing on work in sociology, political theory, philosophy, psychology, and education -- and the variety of approaches (from high theory to ethnographic studies) all converge on the relationship between citizenship and sustainability. Placing environmental citizenship in the two-thousand-year tradition of citizenship itself, the book considers the nature, possibilities, and limits of citizenship as a way of promoting sustainability.
Part I considers the theory and practice of environmental citizenship -- what it is and how it can be achieved. Part II examines obstacles and opportunities for environmental citizenship. The book covers such topics as the necessity of an active role for the state; the claims of environmental justice; the democratic potential of online participation in rulemaking; and the role of education in promoting environmental citizenship. The multidisciplinary perspective and the combination of theory and practice make the book ideal for classroom use.
Andrew Dobson is Professor of Politics at the Open University, UK. He is the author of Justice and the Environment, Green Political Thought, and Citizenship and the Environment.
Derek Bell is Lecturer in Political Thought at the University of Newcastle.
Andrew Dobson is Professor of Politics at the Open University, UK. He is the author of Justice and the Environment, Green Political Thought, and Citizenship and the Environment. Derek Bell is Lecturer in Political Thought at the University of Newcastle.
This collection offers a wonderfully fresh, critical, and thought-provoking examination of the multifaceted dimensions of environmental citizenship--indeed, no stone in the broad field of citizenship studies is left unturned. This book will serve as an essential touchstone in the ongoing inquiry into what it means, or should mean, to be an environmental citizen. --Robyn Eckersley, Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne "Dobson and Bell have done a great job collecting a set of thoughtful essays on a subject at once theoretical and practical. Their book provides a nice introduction for readers new to the subject of ecological citizenship and some interesting new material for a more advanced audience." --William Shutkin, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT "This book opens up an important new topic in political and environmental studies and illuminates it from a range of perspectives. The contributions are thoroughly researched and written in clear and accessible terms, making the book inviting to a wide audience." --Tim Hayward, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh
