Document Type

Journal Article

Role

Author

Journal Title

New Political Science

Publication Date

10-2025

Abstract

Much of contemporary environmental thought operates within paradigms of conservation, sustainability, and resilience—frameworks that assume the goal of ecological politics must be to prevent loss, preserve stability, and mitigate decline. However, these frameworks inadequately address cases where persistence and abundance, rather than disappearance, are the source of harm. By contrast, this article argues that an ecological ethic oriented toward decline, unbecoming, and decomposition reveals an alternative set of political and material stakes: not the conservation of things but their proper dissolution. Drawing from the materialist philosophy of Lucretius, the article critiques the prevailing assumption that endurance is inherently beneficial, highlighting how materials like plastics embody a toxic form of immortality, persisting beyond biological timeframes. In rethinking the conditions under which stability and preservation are desirable, the article ultimately calls for a shift in ecological thought that acknowledges the generative potential of decomposition and the dangers of unchecked persistence. Through destabilizing assumed binaries (harmful/beneficial, ruinous/productive, loss/presence), this conception of declination operates as a crucial lens through which to understand contemporary ecological crises, particularly those involving waste materials, like plastic, that refuse to decompose.

Comments

This is the author’s accepted manuscript, deposited in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. This version has been accepted but not copyedited or typeset by the publisher. The final published version of record is forthcoming in New Political Science.

Download

Share

COinS