This article explores conceptual issues pertaining to the role of moral motivation in political explanation. Employing data drawn from long interviews with political activists from across the spectrum of American politics, I criticize both rational actor models and so-called "dual" motivational theories, that focus on altruism as the primary moral motive in politics, in contrast to the narrow focus on a certain conception of self-interest. Against both of these approaches, I offer an identity-construction approach to moral motives in politics. This model focuses on the complex interweaving of self and moral motives, and in particular focuses on the concerns political activists have for what kind of person they are and whatkind of life they are living. These types of concerns are both moral and self-regarding, and therefore defy the dichotomy between self-and other-regarding at the heart of both rational actor and "dual" motivation accounts of moral motives.

Taking recent scholarship on democratic practices in environmental decision making as a starting point, this article examines the politics of two Superfund sites. The article explores the potential of technical assistance grants to encourage citizen participation and democratic processes in regulatory implementation. The article argues that although such grants can facilitate citizen participation in technically complex decisions, the degree of democracy present depends greatly on the willingness of the legally empowered decision-making agency to allow citizen groups to influence the process. The article also suggests the counterintuitive possibility that effective citizen participation may be more likely at large, technically complex Superfund sites and stresses the need to maintain avenues of citizen influence that operate outside of the normal regulatory public participation mechanisms.