This book applies social and political theory to the field of environmental politics in Ireland. It offers both a substantive contribution to understanding environmental politics in this country and a test case of the application of theory within the field of environmental scholarship more generally.The essays are integrated by a concern for analysing the relationship between culture, discourse and action in this political field, hence the emphasis on the communicative turn. The book is innovative in offering a sustained application of social and political theory within environmental scholarship as well as in combining theoretical and empirical approaches to advancing environmental scholarship in a particular case. This synergy of theory and substantive analysis is a key feature of the book and offers an important contribution to the environmental literature in the social sciences. The authors apply key developments in the modern social sciences and offer compelling evidence of their value for clarifying the cultural foundations of political action and for its evaluation and critique. Academics in the social sciences and in philosophy, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate, both in Ireland and beyond, will find this book highly rewarding for its multi-faceted application of social and political theories and associated methodologies to the environmental field.

Introduction - Patrick O'Mahony1. The communicative turn and cosmopolitan ecological consciousness in the global risk society: an assessment of the discourse- Piet Strydom2. Discourses of transition to sustainability in Ireland: outlines of a green republican strategy- John Barry3. Communications practices and Irish environmental politics: oral hearings, tribunals and planning & sustainable development- Kieran Keohane4. Social positions and dynamics within the cognitive order of Irish environmental discourse- Patrick O'Mahony5. Nurturing dissent in the Irish political imagination: the contribution of environmental law to a new civic cosmopolitanism- Tracey Skillington6. Conventions of quality and governance of artisan food: revealing the tyranny of 'sound science' in the regulation of Irish raw milk cheese- Colin Sage7. Wasting Ireland and consuming sustainability: the 'Celtic Tiger' years and beyond- G. Honor Fagan8. Promoting participatory planning: a West of Ireland case study- Catherine Corcoran and Ciaran Lynch9. Irish environmental discourse: towards an ecological ethic?- Pat O'Mahony