When is participation in climate futures transformative? New evaluation criteria from the perspective of radical democratic theory

This is an application for PANEL 1. We would like to submit the paper to the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. Co-authors: Fabian Pfeiffer (Universität Wien), Johannes Rupp (Institut for Ecological Economy Research in Berlin) Abstract: Cities and local authorities rely on the collaboration of private actors in adapting growing cities to climate change. In 2020, the Institute for Ecological Economy Research used future visioning processes in the city of Munich to involve private actors in climate adaptation processes. The participatory processes featured coloured drawings of two alternative futures presented as street view images for three districts in Munich. The aim of these processes was to counter increasing urban heat with more urban green and to stimulate a larger debate about alternative futures that goes beyond it. We evaluate the quality of the three visioning processes conducted in different districts of the city from the perspective of five strands of democratic theory. Doing so, we introduce a matrix that can be used to design and evaluate participatory processes according to different goals and requirements, stemming from the different theoretical perspectives on democracy. We expand the range of criteria beyond expertocratic, liberal and (Habermasian) deliberative democracy to criteria like performativity and mobilisation, which go back to radical democracy. We argue that criteria of radical democracy are crucial if we want to assess the capacity of a visioning process to deliver transformative change. We show that the three future visioning processes in Munich led to competent results, which challenged the status quo, and mobilised politically like-minded people for more urban green. The weaknesses were that the spectrum of participants was too homogeneous and that there was no commitment by the local authority to implement the envisioned futures. Based on our results we demonstrate the importance of using criteria of radical democracy like performativity and mobilisation for future evaluation studies.