Negotiating Climate Change: Radical Democracy and the Illusion of Consensus - Softcover

Machin, Amanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780323972 ISBN 13: 9781780323978

Publisher: Zed Books, 2013

Synopsis

Climate change is the greatest challenge of the age and yet it is also one of the most disputed. Fierce disagreement still exists over the best way to tackle the problem and, indeed, even about whether it should be tackled at all. Viewed as problematic, however, such disagreement is often dismissed as irrational, irrelevant or unethical and is thus hidden behind an artifice of consensus.

This book provides a refreshing new perspective that decries the illusions of consensus in current climate change discourse. It suggests that there are four main accounts of the issue; technological, economic, ethical and deliberative democratic. Although each contributes important and different perspectives, all assume that agreement is both accessible and necessary. Considering each account in turn, the book suggests that none secure the political engagement necessary for collective action on the issue. Such political engagement, it is argued, arises through political disagreement. Using insights from radical democratic theory, political conflict is revealed to be something that doesn't hinder collective action but rather underpins the decisive action necessary to address the challenges of climate change. An important read for researchers, students, policy makers and anyone concerned about the current (lack of) politics of climate change.

About this title

About the Author

Amanda Machin is a lecturer at the Department of Politics and IR, University of Westminster. After being awarded a PhD for her thesis in political theory, she worked as a research fellow to develop ideas on political responsibility and climate change. Her other research interests include political identification, politics and psychoanalysis, cohesion and citizenship, and embodied political protest.

Review

'The post-political nature of contemporary debate on climate change tells us something fundamental about how politics is done today. In this wonderful book, Amanda Machin evaluates techno-economic, ethical-individual, green republican and deliberative approaches to climate change politics, concluding that by encouraging disagreement radical democracy most appropriately revitalises politics and foments engagement with the political stakes of climate change. Seeking to open up spaces of democracy in this way, Machin will surely revitalise debate surrounding one of the key challenges of our time.' Jon Pugh, author of What is Radical Politics Today? and director of the Spaces of Democracy network 'Negotiating Climate Change joins the small but growing body of literature challenging the popular framing of climate change as a planetary crisis which must trump political dissent. As Amanda Machin shows in this lucid intervention, asking climate science to forge a consensus that will drive decisive political action misunderstands climate, science and politics in equal measure. We need more political disagreement, not more scientific consensus, about what climate change signifies for the present moment. Be warned: if you are sure about how climate change can be solved, and why it's not being, then this book is not for you.' Mike Hulme, professor of climate and culture, King's College London. 'The issue of climate change is characterised by both scientific and political disagreement. The usual antidote to this is a drive towards consensus underpinned by a common ethic and deliberative democracy. In this highly original treatment, Amanda Machin invites us to overturn these terms of debate and to organise our response to climate change around local disagreement rather than an impossible and undesirable global agreement. "Radical" democracy, she argues, requires us to embrace rather than to shun disagreement - only then will the foundations for decisive action be laid'. Andrew Dobson, professor of politics, Keele University

Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1780323972
• ISBN 13: 9781780323978
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176