These challenges to familiar boundaries of political action are central to
recent environmental political theory. Strikingly, this politicization of envir-
onmental concerns also has the eVect of highlighting the diversity of voices
and views encompassed within the environmental debate. Some, including
Torgerson, explicitly embrace the ‘‘inescapably broad and diverse nature of
the green movement’’ (Togerson 1999 , 25 ) and other authors seem, at least
implicitly, to concur. Yet in doing so, these authors illuminate the distance
between such a politicizing project and an earlier conWdence that environ-
mental concern might be oVered as a uniWed world-view or ideology. What-
ever unity or commonality is to be found in this context is at the level of
pragmatic collaboration around speciWc political objectives (cf. Norton 1991 ).
The second of the three areas that Dobson identiWed is the study of familiar
political concepts from a ‘‘green’’ perspective ( 1993 , 231 ). Here, again, there is
much recent work. Dobson himself has contributed important studies of
both justice ( 1998 ) and citizenship ( 2003 ); John Barry has advanced an
ecologically inXected conception of political virtue ( 1999 ); Tim Hayward is
examining constitutionalism and rights in relation to environmental claims
( 2002 ); David Schlosberg has explored political pluralism ( 1999 ); and Sheryl
Breen has addressed conceptions of property ( 2001 ), to name but a few.
Finally, Dobson argued that environmental political theory might have a
distinctive contribution to make to the study of the history of political
thought, by rereading familiar theorists in a new light, and by resurrecting
previously under-recognized theorists who oVer a distinctive insight. One
historical strand is the literature on Marx’s ecological implications and legacy,
in works such asMarx’s Ecologyby John Bellamy Foster ( 2000 ) and Paul
Burkett’sMarx and Nature( 1999 ). John Meyer has considered the ideas of
Aristotle and Hobbes ( 2001 ), while William Ophuls’ recent book also engages
extensively with Hobbes ( 1997 ). John Gillroy has reinterpreted Kant ( 2000 ).
Two political theorists with environmental interests have completed book-
length treatments of Thoreau: Jane Bennett ( 1994 ) and Bob Pepperman
Taylor ( 1996 ). Terence Ball has explored JeVerson’s views on intergenerational
relations ( 2000 ). Twentieth-century theorists including Dewey (Chaloupka
1987 ; Taylor 1990 ), Frankfurt school critical theorists (Eckersley 1992 ; Brulle
2002 ), and Arendt (Whiteside 1994 ) have been examined by political theorists
for their ecological insights. A new generation of political theorists will soon
be publishing additional studies in this genre.
Utilizing Dobson’s framework retrospectively, we are able to appreciate the
growing breadth, depth, and complexity of environmental political theory
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