three areas for contribution and development. 6 Using his categories, we can
develop a sense of the character and scope of recent work in this area. Yet his
categories—especially the second and third—are largely formal, and in that
sense attention to them tells us relatively little about the substantive concerns
or commitments that environmental political theory embraces or with which
it struggles.
TheWrst area, according to Dobson, is rooted in the argument ‘‘that the
natural world—normally ‘invisible’ to political theory—aVects, and is
aVected by, political decisions in a way which makes it necessary to consider
it a site of political activity’’ (Dobson 1993 , 230 ). This redeWnition of the
political has been central to the work of environmental political theory in
recent years. For example, Douglas Torgerson ( 1999 ) has oVered a systematic
challenge to the instrumental rationality of what he terms the ‘‘administrative
mind’’ in favor of a vibrant ‘‘green public sphere’’ within which concerns for
and about the natural world emerge as central subjects of debate. Similarly,
John Dryzek presents ecological resistance in, and democratization of, civil
society as a force promoting a politics beyond the state—especially necessary
in an age dominated by the power of global capitalism (Dryzek 1996 , 2001 ;
Dryzek et al. 2003 ). He also points to mechanisms by which political com-
munication might be extended beyond the human sphere, oVering yet an-
other challenge to the existing boundaries of the political (Dryzek 1995 ).
Others have pressed at the boundaries of the political in diVerent ways. Val
Plumwood has argued for the centrality of ‘‘remoteness’’ (in time, distance,
consequences, and knowledge) to the genesis of ecological problems, and
hence for the expansion of the political in order actively to incorporate
ecologically vital perspectives of those ‘‘closest’’ to these problems (Plum-
wood 2002 , 71 – 80 ). Here, issues of equity and voice become central, thus
arguing for the importance of a restructured political economy to the reduc-
tion of remoteness. Timothy Luke’s ‘‘eco-critiques’’ problematize the political
boundaries of liberal-democratic societies by focusing on the ‘‘sub-political’’
realm, which he argues is ‘‘all too often depoliticized by the professional-
technical rhetorics of civil engineering, public health, corporate management,
scientiWc experiment, technical design, and property ownership’’ (Luke 1999 ,
112 ). To the discomfort of many of his environmentalist readers, Luke argues
that similar depoliticizing tendencies inhere in the practices of environmental
advocacy organizations themselves (Luke 1997 ).
6 All of these can be seen as having useful parallels in the emergence and growth of feminist
political theory.
778 john m. meyer