Deliberative democracy and sustainability: Barriers and opportunity to their interaction

Deliberative Democracy and Sustainability: barriers and opportunity to their interaction.

The interaction between environmental problems and democracy has been a relevant research issue in the last decades, particularly regarding international, national or local environmental conflicts (Lafferty et al., 1996:1), and specifically how contemporary democracies and its institutions are facing the severe environmental crisis. Within that context, special attention is been paid to the role of both public participation and deliberation processes (Maldonado, 2004) and also to how the environmental crisis is making an impact on the processes, structures, and sense of democracy.

In the transition to sustainable societies (O´Riordan, 1996), the concept of ‘ecological democratization’ synthesizes at least two goals: to achieve democratic values without sacrificing ecological ones, and on the other hand to develop economic values without sacrificing democratic ones (Dryzek, 1996).

Hence, democracy and sustainability share both political aims in addition to socially desirable goals (Dobson, 2002). This opens a reflexive space about the necesity of social change and, specifically, the need of deeper democratization processes in a deliberative way. This paper will identify and discuss some of the key barriers and opportunities in the interaction of democracy and the sustainability challenge (Lafferty et al., 1996:4).

References:

Dobson, A. (1996), “Environment sustainability: An analysis and a typology”, en Environmental Politics, 5(3): 401-428.

Dryzek, J. (1996), “Strategies of ecological democratization”, en W.M. Lafferty y J. Meadowcroft, eds., Democracy and the environment: problems and prospects, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Dryzek, J. (2002), Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lafferty, W.M. y Meadowcroft, J., eds. (1996), Democracy and the environment: problems and prospects, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

O’Riordan, T. (1996), “Democracy and the sustainability transition”, en W.M. Lafferty y J. Meadowcroft, eds., Democracy and the environment: problems and prospects, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.