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Animals and the Right to Politics
The assumption that only humans can engage in politics - that only humans are 'zoon politikon' - is foundational to the Western tradition of political philosophy. While there is increasing recognition of animals' moral status (both within moral philosophy and at the level of public opinion), animals are not recognized as political subjects. This carefully researched but accessibly written volume - following on from the authors' earlier book Zoopolis - argues that animals too have a right to politics: a right to be recognized as political subjects and agents, and as members of political communities entitled to collective self-determination. The book draws on recent scientific work on animal societies, cultures, and decision-making, as well as recent work by political theorists rethinking ideas of agency and community - especially the significance of emplaced and embodied encounters and relationships to the activity of politics. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka draw a picture of what it would mean to create spaces and practices, not only for politics conducted by humans on behalf of animals, but also politics with and by animals on their own terms. It then explores how this approach could inform a wide range of contemporary debates in human-animal relations, including wildlife conservation, urban planning, and animal labour.
- GenresPolitics
352 pages, Paperback
Published December 11, 2025
About the author
Sue Donaldson
15 books12 followersSue Donaldson (also known as Susan Cliffe) is a Canadian author and philosopher who is a research fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University, and an affiliate fellow in the department's Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law & Ethics (APPLE) research cluster.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 7, 2025
Rounding up despite critiques because this is likely the most exciting academic book I’ve read (I’m a 3rd year PhD student), imagining a complex multispecies democracy that respects other animals as minded social agents rather than just passive victims or beneficiaries of human action. It is often dense but usually in a generative and provocative way. The domesticated animals chapter was I think the highlight, the chapter on wild animals was less satisfying for me but maybe that’s why I want to do a whole dissertation on the issue. Looking forward to thinking with, against, and beyond these ideas moving forward.
April 28, 2026
3.8/5
I am a political philosopher working on how just and legitimate societies should treat nonhuman animals. It is hard to exagerate the influence Donaldson and Kymlicka's work (their previous book, Zoopolis , and their many academic articles and book chapters) has had in this research program. They helped legitimize it as a serious, respectable area of study, and provided foundational ideas which are still debated. I was really looking forward to reading this book.
Pros:
- Animals and the Right to Politics contains many suggestive, important, indeed some crucial, ideas. The basic intuition is that a just society is not merely one where animal interests are adequately protected and represented. It is also one where animals' agency - their ability to do things, individually and in groups, and to communicate their interests, preferences, etc. - is promoted and integrated in policy-making. That strikes me as correct, important, and (so far) regretably overlooked. The book also makes additional valuable points about territorial rights, legitimate authority, etc. For those working on these issues, it will - should - become a reference, and I myself will return to it, and incorporate it in my own research.
Cons:
- At times, the book feels a bit repetitive, and too heavy in jargon (bounded, grounded, resilient, epistemically responsive, distributed, relational, structural, embodied, habituated, unconscious, emplaced, etc). This is often illuminating, sometimes overwhelming.
- D&K believe animals are political agents. Or, alternatively, that we should "engineer" the notion of political agency so that it can incorporate many kinds of animal agency. I am a bit skeptical. My own view is that we can vindicate (and expand) upon the original intuition (stated above) without making this further claim. D&K disagree. The background assumption seems to be that large-scale transformative change requires seeing animals as political agents. This assumption, crucial as it may be, is not explicitly defended in the book. Skeptics, therefore, will be disappointed here.
- Some of the critical bits, where D&K engage with other authors, strike me as overblown, and not always entirely charitable. Early in the book, they introduce a series of ideology critique pre-defined boxes (the "minimal animal," the "capacity contract"...) to which they end up assigning those with which they disagree. Unfortunately, I think this move sometimes makes things too easy for them, and glosses over crucial nuances and complexities.
- Some of the arguments are too quick. For instance, D&K argue (very reasonably) that we should be cautious of very minimalist/deflationary views of animals' minds. As they point out, these impressions may be due to unfavorable - often oppresive - conditions (i.e. we prevent animals from communicating, and we don't listen anyway). If we hold them captive in completely unnatural environments, cause them immense suffer, and ultimately kill them, it might not be surprising if their behaviors seem very rudimentary to us. From this point, however, they conclude that we should attribute to animals the most complex mental capacities compatible with the available evidence. I don't see how this maximalist strategy follows, nor am I sure it is a methodologically sound. While the negative claim is well-taken, the positive proposal doesn't clearly follow (and sometimes, I fear, leads them to interpret ethological studies too optimistically).
I expanded on the cons because this is a book that got me thinking from the beginning. In my mind, I was having unending discussions with D&K. One may claim that this is a positive sign: it means this is an engaging book, with substantive ideas. I fully agree.
I am a political philosopher working on how just and legitimate societies should treat nonhuman animals. It is hard to exagerate the influence Donaldson and Kymlicka's work (their previous book, Zoopolis , and their many academic articles and book chapters) has had in this research program. They helped legitimize it as a serious, respectable area of study, and provided foundational ideas which are still debated. I was really looking forward to reading this book.
Pros:
- Animals and the Right to Politics contains many suggestive, important, indeed some crucial, ideas. The basic intuition is that a just society is not merely one where animal interests are adequately protected and represented. It is also one where animals' agency - their ability to do things, individually and in groups, and to communicate their interests, preferences, etc. - is promoted and integrated in policy-making. That strikes me as correct, important, and (so far) regretably overlooked. The book also makes additional valuable points about territorial rights, legitimate authority, etc. For those working on these issues, it will - should - become a reference, and I myself will return to it, and incorporate it in my own research.
Cons:
- At times, the book feels a bit repetitive, and too heavy in jargon (bounded, grounded, resilient, epistemically responsive, distributed, relational, structural, embodied, habituated, unconscious, emplaced, etc). This is often illuminating, sometimes overwhelming.
- D&K believe animals are political agents. Or, alternatively, that we should "engineer" the notion of political agency so that it can incorporate many kinds of animal agency. I am a bit skeptical. My own view is that we can vindicate (and expand) upon the original intuition (stated above) without making this further claim. D&K disagree. The background assumption seems to be that large-scale transformative change requires seeing animals as political agents. This assumption, crucial as it may be, is not explicitly defended in the book. Skeptics, therefore, will be disappointed here.
- Some of the critical bits, where D&K engage with other authors, strike me as overblown, and not always entirely charitable. Early in the book, they introduce a series of ideology critique pre-defined boxes (the "minimal animal," the "capacity contract"...) to which they end up assigning those with which they disagree. Unfortunately, I think this move sometimes makes things too easy for them, and glosses over crucial nuances and complexities.
- Some of the arguments are too quick. For instance, D&K argue (very reasonably) that we should be cautious of very minimalist/deflationary views of animals' minds. As they point out, these impressions may be due to unfavorable - often oppresive - conditions (i.e. we prevent animals from communicating, and we don't listen anyway). If we hold them captive in completely unnatural environments, cause them immense suffer, and ultimately kill them, it might not be surprising if their behaviors seem very rudimentary to us. From this point, however, they conclude that we should attribute to animals the most complex mental capacities compatible with the available evidence. I don't see how this maximalist strategy follows, nor am I sure it is a methodologically sound. While the negative claim is well-taken, the positive proposal doesn't clearly follow (and sometimes, I fear, leads them to interpret ethological studies too optimistically).
I expanded on the cons because this is a book that got me thinking from the beginning. In my mind, I was having unending discussions with D&K. One may claim that this is a positive sign: it means this is an engaging book, with substantive ideas. I fully agree.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews