The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory

Set at the intersection of political theory and environmental politics, yet with broad engagement across the environmental social sciences and humanities, The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, defines, illustrates, and challenges the field of environmental political theory (EPT).

Featuring contributions from distinguished political scientists working in this field, this volume addresses canonical theorists and contemporary environmental problems with a diversity of theoretical approaches. The initial volume focuses on EPT as a field of inquiry, engaging both traditions of political thought and the academy. In the second section, the handbook explores conceptualizations of nature and the environment, as well as the nature of political subjects, communities, and boundaries within our environments. A third section addresses the values that motivate environmental theorists--including justice, responsibility, rights, limits, and flourishing--and the potential conflicts that can emerge within, between, and against these ideals. The final section examines the primary structures that constrain or enable the achievement of environmental ends, as well as theorizations of environmental movements, citizenship, and the potential for on-going environmental action and change.

Teena Gabrielson, Associate Professor, University of Wyoming,Cheryl Hall, Associate Professor, University of South Florida,John M. Meyer, Professor, Humboldt State University in Arcata, California,David Schlosberg, Professor, University of Sydney

Teena Gabrielson is Associate Professor of Political Science and teaches political theory at the University of Wyoming. Her work on environmental citizenship, justice, and toxics discourse has been published widely in distinguished scholarly journals such as Environmental Politics, Theory & Event, and Citizenship Studies.


Cheryl Hall is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Trouble with Passion, Recognizing the Passion in Deliberative Democracy, What Will it Mean to Be Green? and other work exploring the interconnected roles that values, emotions, reason, imagination, deliberation, habits, stories, and structures play in encouraging or discouraging more just and sustainable ways of life.

John M. Meyer is Professor in the Department of Politics, in Environmental Studies, and in the Environment and Community program at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He is the author of Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma (MIT Press, 2015), as well as other books and articles in environmental political theory.


David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics in the Department of Government and International Relations, and the Co-Director of the Sydney Environment Institute, at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Defining Environmental Justice, co-author of Climate Challenged Society, and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, all with Oxford University Press.

I. Introduction
1. Introducing Environmental Political Theory, Teena Gabrielson, Cheryl Hall, John M. Meyer, and David Schlosberg
II. Environmental Political Theory as a Field of Inquiry
A. Engaging Traditions of Political Thought
2. EPT and the History of Western Political Theory, Harlan Wilson
3. Culture and Difference: Non-Western Approaches to Defining Environmental Issues, Farah Godrej
4. EPT and the Liberal Tradition, Piers H.G. Stephens
5. EPT and Republicanism, Peter Cannavo
6. Human Nature, Non-Human Nature, and Needs: EPT and Critical Theory, Andrew Biro
B. Engaging the Academy
7. Environmental Political Theory, Environmental Ethics, and Political Science: Bridging the Gap, Kimberly Smith
8. Environmental Political Theory's Contribution to Sustainability Studies, Seaton Tarrant and Leslie Paul Thiele
9. EPT and Environmental Action Research Teams, Romand Coles
III. Rethinking Nature and Political Subjects
A. Nature, Environment, and the Political
10. 'Nature' and the (Built) Environment, Steven Vogel
11. Theorizing the Nonhuman through Spatial and Environmental Thought, Justin Williams
12. Challenging the Human x Environment Framework, Samantha Frost
13. Environmental Management in the Anthropocene, David Schlosberg
B. Environment, Community, and Boundaries
14. Interspecies, Rafi Youatt
15. Floral Sensations: Plant Biopolitics, Catriona Sandilands
16. Cosmopolitanism and the Environment, Simon Caney
IV. Ends, Goals, Ideals
A. Sustainability
17. Sustainability - Post-sustainability - Unsustainability, Ingolfur Bluhdorn
18. Population, Environmental Discourse, and Sustainability, Diana Coole
19. Are There Limits to Limits?, Andrew Dobson
20. Beyond Orthodox Undifferentiated Economic Growth, John Barry
B. Justice, Rights, and Responsibility
21. Environmental and Climate Justice, Steve Vanderheiden
22. Environmental Human Rights, Kerri Woods
23. Responsibility for Climate Change as a Structural Injustice, Robyn Eckersley
24. Environmental Justice and the Anthropocene Meme, Giovanna Di Chiro
C. Freedom, Agency, and Flourishing
25. The Limits of Freedom and the Freedom of Limits, Jason Lambacher
26. Bodies, Environment, and Agency, Teena Gabrielson
27. Cultivating Human and Non-Human Capabilities for Mutual Flourishing, Breena Holland and Amy Linch
28. Consumption and Well-Being, Paul Knights and John O'Neill
V. Power, Structures, and Change
A. Identifying Structural Constraints and Possibilities
29. Capital, Environmental Degradation, and Economic Externalization, Adrian Parr
30. Environmental Governmentality, Timothy Luke
31. Political Economy of the Greening of the State, Matthew Paterson
32. Environmental Science and Politics, Mark Brown
33. Democracy as Constraint and Possibility for Environmental Action, Elisabeth Ellis
34. Environmental Authoritarianism and China, Mark Beeson
35. Global Environmental Governance, John Dryzek
B. Theorizing Citizenship, Movements, and Action
36. Global Environmental Justice & the Environmentalisms of the Poor, Joan Martinez-Alier
37. Indigenous Environmental Movements & the Function of Governance Institutions, Kyle Whyte
38. Reimagining Radical Environmentalism, Emily Howard and Sean Parson
39. Framing and Nudging for a Greener Future, Cheryl Hall
40. Citizenship: Radical, Feminist, and Green, Sherilyn Macgregor
41. Ecological Democracy and the Co-Participation of Things, Lisa Disch