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ECPR

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Reassessing Environmentalism: Towards an Environmental Political Theory of the City

Citizenship
Democracy
Environmental Policy
Green Politics
Critical Theory
Political theory
Nir Barak
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Nir Barak
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Abstract

Given the new challenges put forward by the Anthropocene and climate change, and as analyzed in the description of the intended ECPR workshop, reframing EPT entails requestioning the relationships between society and nature. Even more so with regards to current trends of urbanism, and the city in general. Therefore, the questions arise: to what extent are cities part of nature and to the extent that they are, what differentiates them from nature nevertheless, and finally, what are the normative and political implications of these relationships? This paper offers two theoretical contributions. The first is a typology and critique of three existing approaches to the relationship between cities and nature. The second contribution is a move towards an environmental political theory of the city which is based on what I term ‘civic ecologism’. To elaborate, the first identified approach is dualism. The relationship between cities and nature is considered as opposition and antithesis, i.e. the city is not part of nature and vice versa. This includes two standpoints – that of cities as ‘bounded containers’ in nature and that which regards urban parks, wildlife etcetera as islands of ‘nature in cities’. The second approach is the ‘natural city’. This holistic approach identifies the city as part of nature and argues that so it must be planned, organized and managed. Nature here is taken as a higher moral order that can serve as a model for urban life and social interaction. The third approach is ‘urban political ecology’. It identifies the city as a ‘socionatural’ entity and focuses on the political economy of metabolic exchanges between cities and nature. Each of these approaches is analyzed and critiqued. It is then suggested that civic ecologism bypasses the considered drawbacks and provides an adequate normative and political framework for thinking about cities and nature.