Decisions, disagreement and responsibility: towards an agonistic green citizenship

In recent explications of green citizenship, citizenship responsibilities are emphasised over citizenship rights. Too often it is assumed that deciding the content of these citizenship responsibilities and acting collectively in accordance with them is a straightforward matter of rational consensus. Using Mouffe's account of the political, this article argues that a rational and fully inclusive consensus is impossible. The inevitable conflict of the political realm, however, should not be seen as an obstacle to responsible collective action but rather as integral to the political decisions underpinning collective action. The article outlines a model of ‘agonistic green citizenship’ in which responsibility is understood in terms of acknowledging the irreducible disagreement arising from differently embodied citizens. The environment here is not simply an object of disagreement but contributes to the different perspectives that underpin that disagreement.