Environmental Democracy: A Contextual Approach

by Michael Mason

Overview

Through a wide range of case studies, Mason reveals just how sensitive we all must be to styles of power, vulnerability and resilience in any democratic transition to sustainability. This is a fine book.' Timothy O'Riordan, Professor of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, and Associate Director, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment. Civic self-determination and ecological sustainability are widely accepted as two of the most important public goals. This book explains how they can be combined. Using vivid and telling case studies from around the world, it shows how liberal rights can include both ecological and social conditions for collective decision-making - environmentalist goals and social justice can be achieved together. Integrating theory and original case studies, the book makes a very significant contribution to the fundamentals of how environmental democracy can be advanced at all levels. Cogently argued and engaged, Environmental Democracy provides a superb teaching text and a source of ideas and persuasive arguments for the politically and environmentally engaged. It will be essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in politics, policy studies, environmental studies, geography and social science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781136548246
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/23/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Michael Mason is Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental Studies at the School of Social Sciences, University of North London.

Table of Contents

Introduction * Conceptualising Decision-Making in Western Europe and North America: Democratic Capacity Building? * Administrative Fairness and Forest Land Decision-Making: A Canadian Experiment in Participatory Environmental Planning * Democratising Nature? The Political Morality of Wilderness Preservationists * Trade Unions and Environmental Democracy: A Study of the UK Transport and General Worker's Union (with Material Contributed by Nigel Morter) * Agenda 21 and Local Democracy: A British Search for New Participatory Forms * Conclusion: Global Environmental Democracy * Notes * References * Index

Editorial Reviews

'A fine book.'
Timothy O'Riordan, Professor of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, and Associate Director, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment.

'This is a sustainability discourse that is more self-aware and prepared to engage with the very real choices about how we ought to live, and to tackle the most enduring obstacles to ecological integrity and social justice on a global scale.'
Urban Policy and Research

From the Publisher