Two decades after its launch by the UN Brundtland Commission, the paradigm of sustainability seems to have reached its limit. The concept might figure ever more prominently in public debate, but the ecological footprint of advanced consumer societies grows ever larger. This volume examines this paradox in the context of a new 'politics of unsustainability'.

1. Eco-Politics Beyond the Paradigm of Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda 2. Changing Public Discourse on the Environment: Danish Media Coverage of the Rio and Johannesburg UN Summits 3. Participation and Sustainable Development: The Post-Ecologist Transformation of Citizen Involvement in Denmark 4. Sustaining the Unsustainable: Symbolic Politics and the Politics of Simulation 5. Symbolic Environmental Legislation and Societal Self-Deception 6. Sustainable Development as Symbolic Commitment: Declaratory Politics and the Seductive Appeal of Ecological Modernisation in the European Union 7. Dissolving the Nation: Self-Deception and Symbiotic Inversion in the GM Debate 8. The Post-Ecologist Condition: Irony as Symptom and Cure 9. In Defence of Civilisation: Terrorism and Environmental Politics in the 21st Century

Ingolfur Blühdorn is Reader in Politics and Political Sociology at the University of Bath, UK. His work connects aspects of political sociology, social theory, eco-political theory and environmental sociology. He has published widely on social movements, Green Parties and processes of societal modernisation.

Ian Welsh is Reader in Sociology in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences. He has worked on the interface between science, environment and social movements. His most recent work addresses the social and political implications of complexity theory.