Michael K. Menser

Dr. Michael Menser teaches Philosophy, Urban Sustainability Studies, and Caribbean Studies at Brooklyn College and Earth and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Psychology at The Graduate Center, CUNY, is the Associate Director for Public Engagement at the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay and on the advisory board of the Center for the Study of Brooklyn. He is the author of We Decide! Theories and Cases in Participatory Democracy (Temple 2018) and is a contributor to Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City’s Jamaica Bay (Island 2016).  He is the founding Chair and President of the Board of the Participatory Budgeting Project and helped launch one of the first PB processes in NYC working with the residents of Flatbush Brooklyn.

Menser received his PhD from CUNY, has taught at Brooklyn College since 1995, and is a member of the Professional Staff Congress union (PSC CUNY) and its Environmental Justice Committee.  His early research was in the areas of science and technology studies–he co-edited the volume Technoscience and Cyberculture (Routledge 1996)–and has published scholarly papers on the democratizing the food system, political theory and democratizing the state, and bioregionalism and urban resilience.

His current research is on participatory democracy in urban socio-ecological systems with respect to the food system; economic democracy and healthcare; resilience oriented participatory budgeting; sustained community engagement for climate justice; and participatory governance in public service delivery particularly with respect to energy and water utilities.

Public Writing

• 2020: From Defunding to Reinvestment: Why We Need to scale Participatory Budgeting
• Localizing Procurement for Wellness-based Development: opportunities and barriers to Anchor Institution Procurement from Minority and Women-owned Businesses in Central Brooklyn, a white paper by Dr. Michael Menser and Dr. Kobie Coleman for the Center for the Study of Brooklyn
• 2014: Participatory Budgeting at the Grassroots” (On the Potentials for PB at CUNY
• “The Participatory Metropolis, or, Resilience Requires Democracy” (thoughts on Participatory Democracy after Hurricane Sandy)

Selected Academic Publications

• In Press: “From City-Wide Participatory Budgeting in NYC to a Global Green New Deal: on the Power and Role of PB in a Time of System Change”; Published in Portugese by the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Federal University of Brazil, Porto Alegre. (English version available upon request)
• 2019: “Beyond Deliberation and Civic Engagement: Participatory Budgeting and a New Philosophy of Public Power,” co-authored with Alexander Kolokotronis, in The Philosophy of the City Handbook, edited by Sharon M. Meagher, Samantha Noll, Joseph S. Biehl Routledge. 438pp. 
• 2018: We Decide! Theories and Cases in Participatory Democracy. Temple University Press. 316pp.
• 2016: Co-author with Laxmi Ramasubramanian et al.  “Chapter 11: Strategies for Community Resilience Practice for the Jamaica Bay Watershed,” Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City’s Jamaica Bay, Island Press, edited by Sanderson, Eric, William Solecki, John Waldman, and Adam Parris.
• 2016: Co-authored with Laxmi Ramasubramanian et al.” Chapter 6: Neighborhood and Community Perspectives of Resilience in the Jamaica Bay Watershed.” In Sanderson et al.
• 2014: “The Bioregion and Social Difference: Learning from Young’s Metropolitan Regionalism,” Environmental Ethics.

Professional Affiliations

• Associate Professor, Philosophy, Urban Sustainability Studies (SUST), Caribbean Studies; Brooklyn College, CUNY.
• Doctoral Faculty, Earth and Environmental Science, Environmental Psychology; The Graduate Center, CUNY
• Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLU), CUNY
• Advisory Board, Center for the Study of Brooklyn (CSB), Brooklyn College, CUNY
• Associate Director of Public Engagement, Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay
• President and Chair, Board of Directors; Participatory Budgeting Project
• Member of Community Action and Advocacy Work Group for Community Care of Brooklyn
• Selected to be a Member of Participatory Budgeting Advisory Council, NYC Civic Engagement Commission. Our mission is to design the new city-wide participatory budgeting process as mandated by the charter amendment passed by referendum in November 2018.
• Member of the Philosophy of the City Research Group; I co-founded this American Philosophical Association registered group in 2016 after its very successful opening conference which was hosted by Brooklyn College in December of 2013.  I served as its founding President, then as Executive director and now as a member.