Democracy & Nature was a theoretical journal founded in 1992 by Takis Fotopoulos

Takis Fotopoulos

Takis Fotopoulos , born , is a political philosopher and economist who founded the inclusive democracy movement. He is noted for his synthesis of the classical democracy with the libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements...

. Initially launched as Society and Nature, it was renamed Democracy & Nature in 1995. Four volumes of three issues each were released by Aigis Publications in the period from 1992 to 1999. From 1999 to 2003, five more volumes were released by Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom which publishes books and academic journals. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Kingdom-based publisher and conference company.- Overview :...

 Group. Publication ceased at the end of 2003 and since 2004 it has been succeeded online by The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy (see external links).

Democracy & Nature's stated aim was to be a forum for a "new conception of democracy", given the name Inclusive Democracy

Inclusive Democracy

Inclusive Democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, self-management and ecological democracy...

 in 1997. While maintaining that core function, the journal expanded to include coverage of a spectrum of radical alternative views. The journal tried to organize each issue around a central theme, which included themes like: "The Polis and Self-Management Today", "The Expansion of the South", "Mass Media, Culture and Democracy", "Radical Movements in Neoliberal Modernity", "The 'War' against Terrorism" and "Education, Paideia and Democracy". Contributors represented groups such as socialists, radical Greens, and feminists. The journal also served as a colloquium for a wide range of more-marginalized left groups, including libertarian socialists, social anarchists

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

, and supporters of the autonomy/democratic project, which sometimes has led to heated exchanges.

The editorial board changed several times over the eleven years of Democracy & Nature's existence. Takis Fotopoulos as editor and Pavlos Stavropoulos as international co-ordinator served throughout, but several other editors contributed, including Steven Best

Steven Best

Steven Best is an American animal rights activist, author, talk-show host, and associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso...

 from 1999 to 2003.

The "International Advisory Board" consisted at times of some of the most notable figures of the radical left such as Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

 and Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

. The board also included Parisians Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...

, Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...

, and Serge Latouche

Serge Latouche

Serge Latouche is a French emeritus professor at the University of Paris-Sud and a critic of the consumer society.-Books:...

, as well as Americans Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...

 and Andre Gunder Frank

Andre Gunder Frank

Andre Gunder Frank was a German-American economic historian and sociologist who promoted "dependency theory" after 1970 and "World Systems Theory" after 1984...

. Aside from the editorial and advisory boards, the most well known contributors to the journal included Janet Biehl

Janet Biehl

Janet Biehl is a writer associated with social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. In 1986 she attended the Institute for Social Ecology and there began a collaborative relationship with Bookchin, working intensively with him over the next two decades in the...

, Ward Churchill

Ward Churchill

Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...

, Henry Giroux

Henry Giroux

Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

, and Ken Loach

Ken Loach

Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

.

Literature

• Takis Fotopoulos
  Takis Fotopoulos
  Takis Fotopoulos , born , is a political philosopher and economist who founded the inclusive democracy movement. He is noted for his synthesis of the classical democracy with the libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements...
  
  :Towards An Inclusive Democracy (London/New York: Cassell Continuum, 1997), 401 pp.

External links

• Democracy & Nature The journal's official website
• The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, ISSN: 1753-240X. Open access journal
  Open access journal
  Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
  
  successor of Democracy&Nature.
• The Inclusive Democracy Project and Network