"Nature, Risk and Responsibility" explores ethical interpretations of biotechnology and examines whether sufficient consensus exists or is emerging to enable this technology to occupy a significant role in the techno-economic, social and cultural order.
The contributors address the nature and prospective implications of biotechnologies for nature, life and social organization. This collection assesses the discourses of biotechnology and asks what a responsible society is when nature itself is engineered. Drawing from a wide range of social theories, the contributors evaluate the risks...

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be...

Why has nationalism proved so durable? What are the roots of its appeal? This sharp and accessible book slices through the myths surrounding nationalism and provides an important new perspective on this perennial subject.

The book argues that: nationalism is persistent, not merely because of its specific ideological appeal, but because it expresses some of the major conflicts in modernity; nationalism reflects and reinforces four key trends in western social development: state formation, democratization, capitalism and the rationalization of culture; the forms of nationalism can be...

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...

Normative democratic theory does not lie securely above societal argumentation but is instead a crucial part of it. We need to know not just how the public should reason, but how it actually does reason, or could reason in better foreseeable circumstances. After all, given the general societal and cosmopolitan challenges that we face, the health and the necessary extension of democracy fundamentally depends on the reasoning capacities of the public. The concept of the public sphere is intrinsic to understanding this process, but it has long been limited by its division into the twin...