Robyn Eckersley’s provocative new study  of environmental governance reinvests belief in the  democratic state as a site of ethical action and ecological responsibility. She counters a trend in recent Green thinking to see the state, in particular the liberal democratic state, as the enemy of current and future environmental well-being. Eckersley’s own background is in political science, and she largely engages with other political theorists. However, the anti-statist perspective that she questions is common across a range of environmental disciplines, and it is refreshing to see a re-visioning of the political structures we already have rather than an imagined future ‘ecotopia’ as an answer to environmental ills.