At a time when we've been talking about the environment and sustainable development for the past thirty years, and when the problems have been getting worse for thirty years, Dominique Bourg and Kerry Whiteside wanted to find out why this paradox exists. They have shown that this impasse can be explained first and foremost by political and institutional ineptitude: modern representative government, inherited from the 18th century, is incapable of responding to contemporary environmental problems. Dominique Bourg and Kerry Whiteside have studied a number of institutional innovations (bioconstitution, Academy of the Future, new Senate, consensus conferences) capable of rebuilding our sense of the common good and taking better account of environmental issues, both at the level of citizens and public policy. The ecological challenge, they say, is above all a democratic challenge.
Dominique Bourg is a professor at the University of Lausanne (Faculty of Geosciences and Environment). His recent publications include Le Nouvel Âge de l'écologie (Descartes et Cie, 2003), Conférences de citoyens mode d'emploi (ECLM, 2005) and Risques technologiques et débat démocratique (La Documentation française, 2007).
Kerry Whiteside is Professor of Political Science at Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Divided Natures: French Contributions to Political Ecology (MIT Press, 2002) and Precautionary Politics: Principle and Practice in Confronting Environmental Risk (MIT Press, 2006).
