Contemporary Environmental Politics : From Margins to Mainstream

This new collection from the leading journal, Environmental Politics, presents an excellent overview of the key themes found in contemporary green political thought since the early 1990s.

Bringing together the journal's major work, this new book charts a fascinating period in which environmental politics developed from a marginal position in society and the academy, to its current place in the intellectual mainstream.

Subdivided into clear sections on political theory, social movements, political economy and policy questions, and assisted by a contextualising introduction, this volume focuses on a set of clear themes:

• the character of green political theory
• relationships with other political traditions and theories
• origins and dynamics of contemporary environmental politics
• differences, similarities and tensions between the North and South
• the relationship of environmentalism to market economics and ecological modernization
• environmental aspects of distributive justice at the local, national and global levels
• the roles, value and valuing of nature in green theory and institutional practice.

As a compilation, this book is unique. It delivers a snapshot of a variety of issues in the field, and is therefore ideally suited to teaching purposes, especially at postgraduate level. In addition, as each section is chronologically arranged, an evolution of related ideas can be clearly seen and appreciated, which builds an excellent understanding of the field of environmental politics

Piers Stephens is Lecturer at Michigan State University, USA. John Barry is Acting Director at the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research, Queen's University Belfast, UK. Andrew Dobson is Professor and Research Coordinator at the Open University, UK.