Abstract

The Anthropocene presents a challenge to democracy as both a contemporary political form of government and as a normative ideal for politics in general. This article considers the tensions between democratic practices and ecological exigencies as these became virulent around the turn of the twenty-first century. Democracy in the Anthropocene is not only about grappling with long overlooked ecological concerns, but also recognizing how democratic institutions and imaginaries are themselves political-ecological products implicated in earth system processes that operate on radically different orders of scale. If democracy in its ideal form has been oriented to expanding inclusivity and participation in politics, the Anthropocene radicalizes this democratic impulse extending to agency and collectivity beyond the human.