Green Politics and Civic Republicanism

The political and environmental crises of the twenty-first century require new approaches to the way we think and act politically. This book explores the potential for engagement between green and civic republican thought as part of these new approaches.

The green and civic republican traditions have important historical and conceptual connections. They share an emphasis on the idea of interdependence, the common good as distinct from individual and sectional interests, and a corresponding critique of freedom as non-interference and of arguments for minimising the state. Both see the human project as marked by vulnerability, and the achievement of stability and sustainability as a critical though fragile goal, in whose realisation the state must play a significant role. Both focus accordingly on constitutional law, active citizenship and participatory democracy, and adopt a critical stance towards economic inequality and capitalist economic growth.

The chapters address these in a variety of ways - from examining fundamental concepts: freedom, rights and political judgement, through analysing the potential grounds for connections between green and republican political theory – vulnerability, limits, sustainability and civic virtue – to outlining the kind of agonistic republican politics and green political economy that these imply.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy.

Ashley Dodsworth is Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at University of Bristol. She is interested in the intersection of environmental political theory and the history of political thought.

Iseult Honohan is Emeritus Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. Her research interests lie mainly in normative political theory, particularly civic republican political thought and its application to issues of citizenship, immigration and diversity, justice and moral obligations, and ethics and public affairs.