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Browsing by Author "Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor"

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    Justice, democracy and the siting of nuclear waste repositories: the Buan and Gyungju cases of South Korea
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Huh, Youngsoo, author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Duffy, Robert J., committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee member; Kim, Joon, committee member
    Siting a radioactive waste repository in a nation is one of the most controversial environmental issues to date. During the last two decades, the Korean government has failed to site a repository in the face of vehement opposition from the potential host sites. The repeated failures of the Korean government's siting policy are due to the fact that it relied on the DAD (Decide, Announce and Defend) siting policy emphasizing the technical and economic criteria while neglecting the demands from the local communities to participate in the decision making process. As a consequence, the Korean government discarded the conventional DAD policy to adopt the VA (Voluntary Approach), which is based on participatory democracy. In 2005, this change in the siting policy took effect resulting in the competitive referenda to host the repository in four cities, in which Gyungju City won the competition. Three requirements for the VA siting policy are safety, compensation and the democratic procedure. No doubt that safety and compensation are the minimum requirements for any siting policy. However, the Korean cases prove that the democratic procedure is a more crucial factor over safety and compensation in order to obtain the local community's acceptance of the facility. The most basic assumption of the VA is that the host communities should not be sacrificed to serve the interests of the rest of the country. Therefore, the siting is feasible only when it can benefit both the host communities and the rest of the country together. In this respect, the democratic procedure in the VA must include the concepts of justice, which takes into account the long-term effects of the siting on the host communities. Hence, the Korean cases will be analyzed in terms of whether the ideal conceptions of justice and democracy are practiced in the siting process. In particular, the "Buan Conflict" and the "Gyungju Referendum" will be compared and analyzed in detail since they represent the two typical examples of success and failure in the Korean siting policy. The process leading to the resolution at Gyungju, however, is too flawed to be considered democratic. Also from the perspective of environmental justice, the Gyungju siting has many problems. Nevertheless, even the imperfect democracy practiced in Gyungju achieved significant success since it contained the most essential element of the VA: self-determination by the affected people. Despite its limitation, the Gyungju case illustrates how the VA has the best potential to elicit a social consensus required to solve the nuclear waste siting dilemma.
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    Pessimism and the Anthropocene
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Witlacil, Mary E., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Daum, Courtenay W., committee member; Dickinson, Gregory, committee member; McIvor, David W., committee member
    This dissertation provides an intellectual history of critical pessimism in the twentieth century to develop a novel theory of ecopessimism sensitive to the challenges of the climate crisis. To theorize ecopessimism, I have considered pessimism alongside the critical philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. By theorizing alongside post-foundationalist philosophers and critical theory, pessimism challenges monolithic concepts, suprahistorical narratives, and technological optimism. As well, pessimism invites us to be a part of this world and to see it as it truly is—for all its sinister violence, injustice, and misery—but also to relish in the beauty of existence without specific expectations. In this manner, and drawing on Nietzsche, pessimism is a life-affirming ethos of spontaneity, which aims to will differently, while being deeply attuned to suffering and injustice. Critical ecopessimism is a form of weak theory that emphasizes contingency and historical discontinuity. Furthermore, because pessimism engages with and accepts the possibility of worst-case scenarios, it provides the intellectual and political resources necessary to deal with environmental crisis, as well as the collective grief for all we stand to lose. Ecopessimism uses critique to cut through the outmoded narrative of progress, the cruelty of technological optimism and ecological modernization, as well as the eco-authoritarianism of the overpopulation alarmists. This dissertation theorizes a critical pessimism that asks us to expect nothing specific as the present dissolves into the future; beckons us to live as though the worst were possible and to live joyfully in the face of adversity; and calls us to be sensitive to the injustice and suffering of human and more-than-human others while being critically attentive to the world we have inherited.
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    Re-imagining the ecological subject: toward a critical materialism of entangled ecologies
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) DeCarlo, Chelsea Loren Welker, author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; McIvor, David W., committee member; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Ishiwata, Eric, committee member
    Given the severity of contemporary environmental degradation, especially climate change, a new understanding of the human-nature relationship is necessary for halting this destruction. Political theorists have tried to explain and rethink this relationship by turning to the social, the political, the structural, the historical, the ethical, the individual, the cultural, and the economic realms. At the same time, the production of subjectivity as both an explanation for environmental degradation and a possible domain where cultivating a better human-nature relationship could be found, remains under-examined by political theorists concerned with the environment. The purpose of my project expresses three different but interrelated trajectories of inquiry, each of which represents a dearth in ecopolitical theory generally. First, I interrogate how various radical ecopolitical theories have understood the production of ecological subjectivity and the consequences of these understandings of subjectivity for producing ecological subjects in the context of capitalism, specifically. If who we are and who we think we are matters for how the human-nature relationship plays out, then it becomes vitally important to understand how radical ecopolitical theory conceptualizes the relationship between the causes of environmental degradation, the production of human subjectivity, and the ecological context in which humanity finds itself. In short, I argue that the production of subjectivity has been neglected as one important political component that must be theorized much more robustly for its utility in creating more ecologically minded societies. Second, I would argue that one of the most powerful and intransigent forces preventing humans from re-imagining the human-nature relationship is capitalism, which in addition to its material production, also aggressively targets the production of subjectivity. This assertion constitutes both a starting point of this project, yet also something that requires greater attention from political theorists concerned with environmental degradation and the human-nature relationship. Given this assertion, the task of critically examining the relationship between capitalist subjectivities and the creative production of ecological subjectivities remains necessary to any attempt at the cultivation of an ecological politics. To this end, and thirdly, I argue that Félix Guattari's work engenders the creative impulse necessary for reconceiving of our own subjectivity in the context of the new ontology presented by Deleuze, Guattari himself, and the new materialists. Furthermore, I explore the possibilities for producing eco-subjects through innovative receptive practices attended to by both Guattari and the new materialists in the context of the capitalist overcoding of being. For instance, "becoming receptive" to a rhizomatically (dis)organized world could produce new sensitivities to environmental ecologies through a fundamental acceptance of existential uncertainty. Importantly, Guattari's work, though deeply committed to ecological goals and the production of ecological subjectivities, has been largely neglected by political theorists seeking a solution to environmental degradation and an ethically and politically bankrupt human-nature relationship. Ultimately, ecopolitical praxis requires a further theorization of the numerous ways that capitalism orders and limits human existence in the context of contemporary life. The triad under examination in my project, namely, subjectivity, ecology, and capitalism, represents a necessary contribution to ecopolitical theory which can re-invigorate Guattari's work for its utility in re-imagining the ecological subject, combating capitalism, and working towards a real ecopolitics.
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    Rethinking deep ecology: from critique to synthesis
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Welker, Chelsea L., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Stevis, Dimitris, committee member; Trembath, Paul, committee member
    Deep ecology represents a strain of radical ecopolitical theory that has, over the past forty years, engaged in various debates with other strains of radical ecopolitical thought. Though deep ecology has attempted to defend itself against many critiques from this field, my analysis aims to reassess deep ecology's responses (or its silences) related to some of these charges. My goal is to adequately respond to these critiques that have been made against deep ecology, particularly the critiques that have arose from social ecology and from perspectives concerned with the Global South. At the same time, I utilize these critiques and my own responses to them to rethink deep ecology's role in the transformation of contemporary societies toward greater ecological sustainability. I add to this debate amongst radical ecopolitical theories by outlining the most important critiques that have been made at deep ecology from the above fields, in addition to formulating more adequate responses from the perspective of deep ecology. Moreover, I explicitly concern my analysis with how this re-envisioned deep ecology can constitute a viable political theory and play a vital role in the radical transformation of political societies for the benefit of both nature and human beings.
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    The animal paradox: animals, sovereignty and the politics of eating
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2008) Young, Katherine E., author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Chaloupka, William J., advisor
    Looking at the history of political thought, it becomes clear that animals are the decisive political exception in Western politics. It is not that animals are simply excluded in the history of political thought, however, but that they are "inclusively excluded," demarcating the constitutive outside of politics. In other words, animals are characterized as unable to differentiate themselves from their world because they are irrational, speechless and/or appetite driven, and for these reasons, they function as markers for the state of nature and the exit point of politics. Expanding the Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben's work on the state of exception, it appears that the sacrifice of animal bodies-not simply the idea of animality-becomes vital to sustaining key political concepts like sovereignty, democracy and rights. More specifically, there is an underlying politics of eating that nourishes the Western canon. In the simplest terms, the politics of eating is a secular transubstantiation of sovereign power, in which meat is the material good (signifying the good life) that is consumed by political subjects to mitigate the tension between individual and state sovereignty. Of course, this economy of relations is exacerbated under late capitalism. With the advent of the animal rights movement, however, animals are now drawn into this anthropological political space. Yet, because so many animal advocates (scholars and activists alike) embrace traditional understandings of rights, democracy and sovereignty, they inadvertently support juridical forms that undermine their projects. With this in mind, and given the exceptional political state of animals, it is timely to think about new political strategies that take seriously the irony of animals within the larger context of politics as well as restore the public spectacle of meat, in order to reveal and disrupt the sacrificial politics of eating, which includes both humans and animals.
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    The fracturing of Rousseau's social contract
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Fryer, Melissa Zoe, author; Macdonald, Bradley J., advisor; Davis, Charles, committee member; Trembath, Paul, committee member
    Although not without debate, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has become the primary extraction method for hard to reach natural gas trapped in shale rock around the globe. In the United States, fracking for natural gas has alleviated the need for foreign oil by creating a domestic fuel source, facilitating job creation, and sparking contentious debates from California to New York. The most prevalent arguments from the citizens against the technique are the potential risks posed to the air, water, human, and animal health from the methane and carcinogenic byproducts released into the atmosphere, the threat of water contamination, and the risks posed to those who live, work, and play in the vicinity of well pads. Citizens have organized in shale rich states in opposition to the extraction technique to protect their families and neighbors, and for the stewardship of future generations. Yet others claim that fracking for natural gas is a safe technique to extract clean burning, domestic fuel. Looking through the lens of Jean Jacques Rousseau, this work will use hydraulic fracturing as a case study to evaluate the relevance of theoretical concepts as: the state of nature, the common good, the general will, and the Sovereign. The state of nature, according to Rousseau, was the original source for virtuous qualities in humans, before the driving passions and desires of greed, competition, and corruption arose in society. Due to the redefinition of nature that occurred during the intellectual revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries that created the dichotomy wherein humans either live in society or in nature, Rousseau interpreted the state of nature to be inclusive and attempted to deconstruct this dichotomy. I argue, with Rousseau, that once one realizes the interconnectedness of humans, nature, and society through experience and the development of a sense of place, one can access the original and virtuous dispositions that existed in the state of nature. The common good is the concept that explains that what makes the collective society flourish and attain well-being. Rousseau believes that the common good can be realized through strong virtuous morals and acceptance of the two-fold responsibility of humans: that one must develop an interest in those in the community around them, and then one must have a duty to that interest. Each individual has the potential to recognize the common good, which is expressed through the general will. This will is the common expression of the good through democracy in order to make laws that are by the people and for the people. The Sovereign's primary role is to enact this general will into law. Rousseau's concepts will be applied to the reality of hydraulic fracturing in the United States in order to access the cohesiveness of the modern social contract. First, I argue that fracking is against the common good of society through the intensive consumption of fresh water and waste produced, the risks posed to the environment and life around the wells, and the decline in the quality of life which does not ultimately promote health, well-being, and flourishing for a community. Next, in some Colorado cities, the citizens have expressed their general will to ban hydraulic fracturing through an act of popular sovereignty, as required by Rousseau's social contract. I then discuss how the general will is not being enacted by the Sovereign, as required by the contract. Instead, the people and some cities in Colorado are entrenched in litigation, based on the people's expression of the common good. Finally, I argue that the Sovereign, and some representatives of government, are enraptured by the desires and passions of the individual will, which is the third fracture in Rousseau's social contract. The fracturing of the social contact, according to Rousseau, deems for a dissolution of government. However, throughout this work, I show some potential ways in which society can learn to realize what is commonly good for all through a sense of place, through recognizing that we all have a duty and interest in others, and to attain well-being and health through a flourishing environment.