Ecological Democracy in the Anthropocene

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between democracy and environmentalism. Terms such as “green democracy”, “ecological democracy” and “environmental democracy” reflect an ambition to make environmentalism compatible with democracy. Questions on democracy are central to scholarship and practice of environmental politics in the era of the Anthropocene. Democratic values, such as representation, inclusion, participation, accountability, and transparency have traveled from national politics and emerged as central research themes in global environmental politics. Mechanisms to increase participation and accountability, such as multi-stakeholder dialogues and civil society deliberation, are becoming mainstream practices in global environmental summitry. Tensions and synergies between democracy and environmental politics are found in work by the survivalists or eco-authoritarians and on decentralization, radical participatory politics and bioregionalism. The first section of the paper traces the place of democracy in green political theory, which has debated whether a commitment to environmental protection follows a commitment to democracy. Radical environmental outcomes may not be consistent with democratic procedures of liberal democracy and processes of participatory and deliberative democracy may not yield strong sustainable outcomes. The second section discusses how democracy has been conceptualized in relationship to global environmental governance. The democratization of global environmental governance is conceptualized as increased civil society participation and NGO representation in environmental diplomacy. The past two decades of Earth summits have consolidated a model of “participatory” or “bottom up” multilateralism with civil society participation, multi-stakeholder dialogues, institutionalized representation of NGOs. The final section analyzes how practices of democratic innovations in environmental politics relate to various models of democracy – deliberative, representative, stakeholder, participatory. Work on deliberative democracy and environmental citizenship reflects reconciliation between environmental politics and democracy. In contrast, the rise of the global climate justice movement signifies radical participatory ideals of democracy.