Internalizing Animals and Ecosystems in Social Sustainability and Social Policy: Going from Political Community to Political Country

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to explore, conceptualize, and research the need to internalize both animals and ecosystems in our understanding of social citizenship, social policy, and sustainable development. This Special Issue aims to rethink the nexus of social policy and the environment by bridging the strands of deep ecology/ecologists, environmental justice, and citizenship/animal rights literature and also to integrate social policy, international development, and environmental protection/conservation. The overarching goal of the issue is to create a theoretical framework for sustainable development and social policy that includes systematic consideration for animals and ecosystem services. This Special Issue argues the importance of integrating animals and ecosystems as a way to re-politicize humans social relation with both animals and our ecosystem as in sustainable development and social policy.

There have been many attempts to expand our political understanding to include the environment in a political and social understanding of animals and ecosystems. These proposals draw upon both animals rights and environmental justice literature to conceptualize a political country but also cover other theoretical strands in the individual articles.

Donaldson and Kymlicka’s groundbreaking Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011) argues not simply for animal rights but for an extensive animal citizenship. The overall argument is that the interests of animals should be seen as an essential part of what we perceive as the common good and is an ambitious attempt to not just grant citizenships to animals but also expanding political and social community beyond humans. Donaldson and Kymlicka’s (2011) developed a rather advanced and nuanced understanding that would recognize multiple communities with animal members, and with varying human obligations toward them. Other scholars such as O’Sullivan have highlighted in Animals, Equality and Democracy (2011) the need to include animals in a community based around liberal values and an understanding of species egalitarianism. The author contend that uniform and egalitarian standards for animal treatment should be of highest standards.

Similar thoughts have also been developed within the environmental justice literature. Schlosberg argues further that there is a need to add a capability dimension to the environment in environmental justice; this would ‘enrich conceptions of environmental and climate justice by bringing recognition to the functioning of these systems, in addition to those who live within and depend on them’ (Schlosberg 2013:44). Scholars such as Drake and Keller (2004) and Hillman (2006) have explored the importance of ecological integrity.

There is a good argument that we need to have a change our global understanding of social sustainability and human development and that resource intensive development threatens both the environment through climate change, a drastic decrease of biodiversity, and the ecological integrity of many habitats.

Dr. Johan Nordensvard
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• social sustainability
• deep ecology
• environmental justice
• social policy
• low carbon development