The diagnosis of a new geological epoch, The ‘Anthropocene’, has implications far beyond geological science. If human activity has disrupted the planet, then this diagnosis potentially disrupts socio-political conventions. This article assesses the implications the Anthropocene has for democratic politics, by delineating three challenges: challenges of knowledge, time and boundary. In contrast to the claim that democratic institutions are unable to adequately respond to these challenges, I suggest that they might be strengthened through an engagement with them. Following an ‘agonistic’ understanding of politics, I argue that the contestation instigated by the challenges of the Anthropocene is key to democratic renewal. Just as democracy in the Anthropocene can be enhanced through an agonistic approach, agonistic theory can be enriched through an engagement with the Anthropocene.
BaberW.F. and BartlettR.V.. 2016. ‘Democratic accountability in the Anthropocene: Toward a non-legislative model’. In PattbergP. and ZelliF. (eds), Environmental Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene: Institutions and legitimacy in a complex world, pp. 168–183. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
2.
BarryJ.1999. Rethinking Green Politics: Nature, Virtue and Progress. London, Thousand Oaks CA and New Delhi: Sage.
3.
BaskinJ.2015. ‘Paradigm dressed as epoch: the ideology of the Anthropocene’. Environmental Values24 (1): 9–29. Crossref.
BiermannF.2014. ‘The Anthropocene: a governance perspective’. The Anthropocene Review1 (1): 57–61. Crossref.
6.
BlühdornI.2015. ‘A much-needed renewal of environmentalism? Eco-politics in the Anthropocene’. In HamiltonC., BonneuilC. and GemenneF. (eds), The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis, pp. 156–167. London and New York: Routledge.
7.
BonneuilC. and FressozJ.P.. 2016. The Shock of the Anthropocene. London and New York: Verso.
8.
BrondizioE.S.. 2016. ‘Re-conceptualizing the Anthropocene’. Global Environmental Change.39: 318–327. Crossref.
9.
BrownM.2009. Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions and Representations. Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press.
10.
BulkeleyH. and MolA.P.J.. 2003. ‘Participation and environmental governance: consensus, ambivalence and debate’. Environmental Values.12 (2): 143–154.
ChakrabartyD.2009. ‘The climate of history: four theses’. Critical Inquiry35 (2): 197–222. Crossref.
15.
ChakrabartyD.2014. ‘Climate and capital: on conjoined histories’. Critical Inquiry41 (4): 1–23. Crossref.
16.
ClarkN.2014. ‘Geo-politics and the disaster of the Anthropocene’. The Sociological Review62 (1): 19–37. Crossref.
17.
ConnollyW.2005. Pluralism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
18.
ConnollyW.2011. A World of Becoming. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
19.
ConnollyW.2013. The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies and Democratic Activism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
20.
CoulthardG.S.2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
21.
CristE.2013. ‘On the poverty of our nomenclature’. Environmental Humanities3 (1): 129–147. Crossref.
22.
CrutzenP.J. and StoermerE.F.. 2000. ‘The “Anthropocene”’. The Global Change Newsletter41: 17–18.
23.
DelantyG. and MotaA.. 2017. ‘Governing the Anthropocene: agency, governance, knowledge’. European Journal of Social Theory20 (1): 9–38. Crossref.
24.
Di PaolaM.2015. ‘Virtues for the Anthropocene’. Environmental Values24 (2): 183–207. Crossref.
25.
DibleyB.2012. ‘“The shape of things to come”: seven theses on the Anthropocene and attachment’. Australian Humanities Review52. Crossref.
26.
DischL.2016. ‘Ecological democracy and the co-participation of things’. In GabrielsonT., HallC., MeyerJ.M. and SchlosbergD. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27.
DruckerP.1993. ‘The rise of the knowledge society’. Wilson Quarterly17: 52–71. Crossref.
28.
DryzekJ.2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29.
DryzekJ.2014. ‘Institutions for the Anthropocene: governance in a changing Earth system’. British Journal of Political Science46 (4): 937–956. Crossref.
30.
EckersleyR.2017. ‘Geopolitan democracy in the Anthropocene’. Political Studies65 (4): 983–999. Crossref.
31.
ErcanS. A. and GagnonJ.P.. 2014. ‘The crisis of democracy: Which crisis? Which democracy?’ Democratic Theory1 (2): 1–10. Crossref.
32.
FuntowiczS. and RavetzJ.. 1993. ‘Science from a post-normal age’. Futures25 (7): 739–755. Crossref.
33.
GalstonW.A.2001. ‘Political knowledge, political engagement and civic education. ARPS4 (1): 217–34. Crossref.
34.
HailwoodS.2016. ‘Anthropocene: delusion, celebration and concern’. In PattbergP. and ZelliF. (eds), Environmental Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene: Institutions and Legitimacy in a Complex World, pp. 168–183. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
35.
HeldD. and HerveyA.. 2011. ‘Democracy, climate change and global governance: democratic agency and the policy menu ahead’. In HeldD., Fane-HerveyA. and TherosM. (eds), The Governance of Climate Change. Cambridge and Malden: Polity.
36.
HolleyC., ShearingC., HarringtonC., KennedyA. and MutongwizoT.. 2018. ‘Environmental security and the Anthropocene: law, criminology and international relations’. Annual Review of Law and Social Science14 (1): 185–203. Crossref.
37.
HonigB.1993. Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
38.
JasanoffS.2005. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
39.
JohnsonE. and MorehouseH.. 2014. ‘After the Anthropocene: politics and geographic inquiry for a new epoch’. Progress in Human Geography38: 439–456. Crossref.
40.
LatourB.2004. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy, translated by PorterCatherine. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press.
41.
LatourB.2014. ‘Agency at the time of the Anthropocene’. New Literary History45 (1): 1–18. Crossref.
42.
LatourB.2017. Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge, Medford: Polity Press.
LockieS.2014. ‘Climate, scenario building and governance: comprehending the temporalities of socio-ecological change’. In LockieS., SonnenfeldD.A. and FisherD.R. (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Social and Environmental Change, pp. 95–105. London and New York: Routledge.
45.
LövbrandE.. 2015. ‘Who speaks for the future of Earth? How critical social science can extend the conversation on the Anthropocene’. Global Environmental Change32: 211–218. Crossref.
46.
LövbrandE., StrippleJ. and WimanB.. 2009. ‘Earth system governmentality: reflections on science in the Anthropocene’. Global Environmental Change19 (1): 7–13. Crossref.
47.
LukeT.2017. ‘Reconstructing social theory and the Anthropocene’. European Journal of Social Theory20 (1): 80–94. Crossref.
48.
MachinA.2019. ‘Agony and the Anthropos: Democracy and boundaries in the Anthropocene’. Nature + Culture14 (1): 1–16.
49.
MachinA.2017. ‘Sustaining democracy: science, politics and disagreement in the Anthropocene’. In PfisterT. (ed.) Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften und die Suche nach neuen Wissensregimen. pp. 169–186. Munich: Metropolis.
50.
MachinA.2013. Negotiating Climate Change: Radical Democracy and the Illusion of Consensus. London and New York: Zed Books.
51.
MalmA. and HornburgA.. 2014. ‘The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene narrative’. The Anthropocene Review1 (1): 62–69. Crossref.
52.
MonasterskyR.2015. ‘Anthropocene: the human age’. Nature519 (7542): 144–147. Crossref.
53.
MooreA.2015. ‘The Anthropocene: a critical exploration’. Environment and Society: Advances in Research6 (1): 1–3. Crossref.
54.
MouffeC.2013. Agonistics. London and New York: Verso.
55.
MouffeC.2005. On the Political. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
56.
MouffeC.2000. The Democratic Paradox. London and New York: Verso.
57.
NiemeyerS.2014. ‘A defence of deliberative democracy in the Anthropocene’. Ethical Perspectives21: 15–45.
58.
NorvalA.2009. ‘Democracy, pluralization, and voice’. Ethics and Global Politics2 (4): 297–320. Crossref.
59.
PahlS., SteppardS., BoomsmaC. and GrovesC.. 2014. ‘Perceptions of time in relation to climate change’. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change5 (3): 375–388. Crossref.
60.
PalssonG.. 2013. ‘Reconceptualizing the “Anthropos” in the Anthropocene: Integrating the social sciences and humanities in global environmental change research’. Environmental Science and Policy28: 3–13. Crossref.
61.
PattbergP. and ZelliF.. 2016. Environmental Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene: Institutions and legitimacy in a complex world. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
62.
PurdyJ.2015. After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.
63.
RowanR.2014. ‘Notes on politics after the Anthropocene’. Progress in Human Geography38 (3): 449.
64.
RuncimanD.2014. Politics. London: Profile Books.
65.
SandilandsC.2002. ‘Opinionated natures: toward a green public culture’. In MinteerB.A. and Pepperman TaylorB. (eds), Democracy and the Claims of Nature, pp. 117–132. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
66.
SchaapA.2009. Law and Agonistic Politics. Surrey: Ashgate.
67.
SchulzK.A.2017. ‘Decolonizing political ecology: ontology, technology and “critical” enchantment’. Journal of Political Ecology24 (1): 125–143. Crossref.
68.
SmithG.2003. Deliberative Democracy and the Environment. London: Routledge.
69.
SpashC.L.2015. ‘The dying planet index: life, death and man's domination of nature’. Environmental Values24 (1): 1–7. Crossref.
SteffenW.. 2015. ‘Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet’. Science347 (6223).
72.
StehrN.2001. ‘A world made of knowledge’. Society39 (1): 89–92. Crossref.
73.
StehrN.2015. ‘Climate policy: democracy is not an inconvenience’. Nature525 (7570): 449–450. Crossref.
74.
SuldovskyB.2016. ‘In science communication, why does the idea of the public defi-cit always return? Exploring key influences’. Public Understanding of Science25: 415–426. Crossref.
75.
TullyJ.2002. ‘Reimagining belonging in circumstances of cultural diversity: a citizen approach’. In HedetoftU. and HjortM. (eds), The Postnational Self: Belonging and Identity pp. 152–214. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
76.
TullyJ.1999. ‘The agonic freedom of citizens’. Economy and Society28 (2): 161–182. Crossref.
77.
VermeulenP.2017. ‘Creaturely memory: Shakespeare, the Anthropocene and the new nomos of the Earth’. Parallax23 (4): 384–397. Crossref.
78.
WainwrightJ. and MannG.. 2013. ‘Climate leviathan’. Antipode45 (1): 1–22. Crossref.
79.
WapnerP.2014. ‘The changing nature of nature: environmental politics in the Anthropocene’. Global Environmental Politics14 (4): 36–54. Crossref.
80.
WenmanM.2013. Agonistic Democracy: Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
81.
WilkeS.2013. ‘Anthropocenic poetics: ethics and aesthetics in a new geological age’. In TrischlerH., (ed.) Anthropocene: Exploring the Future of the Age of Humans, pp. 67–74. RCC Perspectives 3.
82.
WhyteK.2017. ‘Indigenous climate change studies: indigenizing futures, decolonizing the Anthropocene’. English Language Notes55 (1–2): 153–162. Crossref.
