September 7, 2017

The judges offered glowing praise for Hultgren's book, writing: "Hultgren offers a level of clarity of thinking and writing too seldom seen in academic books."

They continued: "[Border Walls Gone Green] is a serious and important accomplishment...an empirically rich examination of the nineteenth-century roots and twenty-first century legacy of environmentalists’ engagement with and promotion of immigration restriction. Hultgren’s analysis offers insights into the hidden – and not-so-hidden – exclusionary power of contemporary environmental discourses. This is a rich and thoroughly researched critique of the very problematic use of borders and othering in supposedly progressive environmental movements. It offers a theoretically sophisticated intervention toward an “environmental political theory of migration” capable of confronting the critical issues of both environmental degradation and social justice. From the first page, he communicates his specific argument and why it matters to both environmentalism and contemporary America. The theoretical discussion is insightful and incisive – it questions what others take for granted - and the argument is empirically rich and well-grounded. This combination of clarity, theoretical sophistication, and empirical rigour works well to create a devastating critique of the relationship between conceptions of nature and anti-immigrant politics." 

The award, offered by the Environmental Political Theory section of the Western Political Science Association, "recognize[s] outstanding scholarship, published in a book-length monograph, which utilizes the resources, literatures, and approaches of the field of political theory to address intersections between contemporary or historical environmental challenges on the one hand and the philosophical and ideological concepts, principles, and debates animating political life on the other."