Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction
Chapter 1: Basic issues: Liberal accountability to interpretivism
Basic Issues and Definitions in accountability research.
Chapter 2: Background: Current accountability, environmental and social challenges and policy
Explores the dominant western beliefs about humanity's relationship with the environment, and how current environmental issues have been shaped by government policies in the past 20 years.
Chapter 3 - Liberal accountability: a critical perspective
Explores Brundtland's and Rawls' definition of sustainability, and an instrumental and procedural approach to environmental management. Have times changed, and is the report still relevant in an increasingly globalised world?
Chapter 4 - Accountability and democratic structures: coping with environment and social crises
Relationships in civil society are more than market-based, and the work of Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas demonstrates how commonalities and differences between people can be reconciled in a new political space.
Chapter 5 - Global dimensions of accountability: relationships between the global and the local
Global environmental decisions often ignore local values and relationships, and perpetuate one-sided approaches to accountability and political decision-making. This chapter explores how proposals and protocols such as Kyoto have failed to address local issues.
Chapter 6 - Nature's value I : Deep ecology and community
Deep Ecology was one of the first environmental movements to argue that nature is more than just a simple resource and has intrinsic value. The communitarian approach explores how resource value and intrinsic value are not necessarily incompatible in environmental decision-making.
Chapter 7 - Nature's Value II: social ecology and how people relate to the world
Fringe environmentalists are gaining mainstream political leverage, with a range of beliefs from the destruction of capitalism, to full social anarchy followed by the return to small village communities. This chapter explores how activists such as Murray Bookchin are gaining influence in the environmental debate.
Chapter 8 - The Role of NGOs: filling the void between governments and the environment
Non-Government Organisations are becoming increasingly influential activists in environmental politics, as they expand into public roles that were once the sole province of Government. This chapter examines the role and rise of NGOs, and the implications of their activities.
Chapter 9 - Critical Accountability: From Derrida To Taylor's Interpretivism
With the failure of socialist economics, it is useful to compare the ideas of Derrida, Habermas and Taylor as they apply to current environmental problems. Critical social theory can be used to interpret existing dualisms in dominant western philosophy.
ConclusionNew directions for accountability, environmental democracy and transparency.
