Green Social Innovations and New Forms of Civic Engagement

Abstract

Beyond the known forms of civic engagement, a diverse set of practices gain importance that try to advance social-ecological change by means of lifestyle politics or within green social innovations. This panel aims at bringing together research on phenomena like community supported agriculture, transition movement, degrowth, energy cooperatives, urban gardens, repair cafes, but also cultures of sustainable consumption. These forms of creative participation are usually related to green policies, goals of social movements like a fundamental change of agriculture and energy supply. They meet the rising demand of citizens for cooperative opportunities to contribute to political changes offline as well as online . So far research has focused on understanding how these green social innovations can go from niche to mainstream and how they can be institutionalized as a stable part of public life. Furthermore, few insights exists about their integration within participatory governance, larger protest campaigns (e.g. against genetically modified food) of social movements or cultural spheres on the net. A typical question which this panel needs to address is whether these forms of engagement can still be seen as a meaningful form of democratic participation.