This thesis examines Hannah Arendt’s phenomenological theory of action (vita activa) to assess its capacity to accommodate environmental politics within its conception of the public sphere. Critics have argued that vita activa’s triadic structure excludes social questions—in which Arendt includes environmental concerns—from political action. In fact, her writings explicitly seek to shield politics from social incursions—a phenomenon she terms “the rise of the social.” However, this criticism overlooks the distinction Arendt draws between politics and governance, politics being a manifestation of freedom and governance the management of necessity. By arguing for vita activa’s ability to accommodate contemporary environmental concerns, this reading seeks to promote Arendt’s conception of freedom within the emerging green political tradition, for her understanding of politics recognizes its existential function in creating identities for both communities and individuals. To pose an environmental challenge to Arendt’s thought, this thesis employs some of the key themes and conceptions from four prominent green theorists: John Dryzek, Robyn Eckersley, Andrew Dobson, and John Meyer. In relation to these theorists, it will be argued that vita activa’s form of politics carries the possibility of allowing environmentalism to appear within the public sphere’s political contents without contradicting its triadic boundaries. To develop an environmentally sustainable society, political communities must create new narratives for bridging the divide between their built and natural environments, a process that requires the existential power of Arendtian politics. / Graduate

This project examines the development of renewable policy in California and Germany through the theoretical lens provided by John Dryzek's democratic theory of social movement engagement with the liberal democratic nation-state. Specifically, this thesis considers the impact of social movements on what the theory identifies as five core imperatives of state. The argument uses a qualitative, comparative, process tracing methodology, supported by critical discourse analysis, to analyze environmental social movement engagements with the state in relation to the development of renewable energy policymaking in the state of California and in the Federal Republic of Germany between 2000 and 2017. Whereas Dryzek and colleagues argue that environmental movement activism may have prompted a new, sixth, environmental conservation imperative of state, this thesis differs. Rather, the analysis finds that if indeed such a sixth imperative is emergent, it might better be defined as a resource conservation imperative. That is, in California and in Germany, it is not so much the environment but rather access to abundant and economically sustainable natural resources that states aim to conserve. / Master of Arts

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, explain, compare and to a degree criticize the two theories Global Stakeholder Democracy by Terry Macdonald and Transnational Discursive Democracy by John Dryzek and their respective arguments for a global democracy, by using the method of an internal idea analysis. The two main questions of the thesis are: -  With what arguments do Macdonald and Dryzek legitimize their respective form of global democracy? -  What similarities as well as differences can be found in their argumentation for their respective theory and is it possible to see any potential internal problems in their argumentation? The results show that both Global Stakeholder Democracy and Transnational Discursive Democracy can be interpreted to share the same basic way of legitimizing democracy through a liberal value and notion of autonomy. Because of the current democratic deficit on a global level, this value is threatened. Both theories therefore try to solve this problem by promoting a pragmatic theory to democratize the global political system. The study recognizes some potential problems regarding the way both Macdonald and Dryzek argue for a global democracy. In MacDonald’s theory, the potential problem concerns mainly the lack of a clear definition of the theory’s fundamental part, what a stakeholder is. The potential problems with Dryzek’s theory derive from the fact that he might put to much trust in the concept of reflexive modernization, whether his theory will be able to actually influence discourses despite a lack of formal institutions, and finally if the theory will be able to guarantee political equality in the decision making process.

This thesis shows how democratic politics requires a commitment to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other in their otherness. I contend that it is necessary to commit to such an idea of pluralism because of the problem of incomplete understanding. I establish this premise by drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Based on this premise, I argue that the instantiation of Gadamer’s principle of openness leads democratic politics to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other. Further, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. In chapter 1, I establish discourse as a necessary element for democratic politics by drawing from the way Jurgen Habermas uses ‘discourse ethics’ to address the problems of understanding in plural societies. In chapter 2, I demonstrate how incomplete understanding poses a problem for discourse and gives rise to interpretive conflicts by drawing from Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Here I also develop an account of openness as a suitable principle for beings with incomplete understanding based on Gadamer’s idea of hermeneutical experience. In chapters 3-5, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. I do so by drawing from Iris Young’s, John Dryzek’s, and Chantal Mouffe’s approaches to the problems that plurality poses to discourse ethics and democratic politics.