TY - JOUR
T1 - Reconciling Ecological and Democratic Values
T2 - Recent Perspectives on Ecological Democracy
AU - Schlosberg, David
AU - Bäckstrand, Karin
AU - Pickering, Jonathan
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was partially supported under the Australian Research Council's Laureate Fellowship funding scheme (project number FL140100154).
PY - 2019/2
Y1 - 2019/2
N2 - The idea of ecological democracy is a promising one, a combination of two sets of appealing core normative values – environmental concern and engagement on the one hand, and democratic legitimacy and procedure on the other. Yet, these two sets of values are quite different, and not so easily reconciled. Theorists of ecological democracy have long struggled with this dual (and dueling) set of promises, and have always had to address the obvious potential for conflict between them. As Goodin (1992: 160) clearly laid out, long ago, ‘to advocate democracy is to advocate procedure, to advocate environmentalism is to advocate substantive outcomes: what guarantee can we have that the former procedures will yield the latter outcome?’ There is no guarantee that democracies will necessarily bring about ecological and sustainable ends, and more authoritative processes of attaining those ends could undermine democratic ideals and legitimacy.
AB - The idea of ecological democracy is a promising one, a combination of two sets of appealing core normative values – environmental concern and engagement on the one hand, and democratic legitimacy and procedure on the other. Yet, these two sets of values are quite different, and not so easily reconciled. Theorists of ecological democracy have long struggled with this dual (and dueling) set of promises, and have always had to address the obvious potential for conflict between them. As Goodin (1992: 160) clearly laid out, long ago, ‘to advocate democracy is to advocate procedure, to advocate environmentalism is to advocate substantive outcomes: what guarantee can we have that the former procedures will yield the latter outcome?’ There is no guarantee that democracies will necessarily bring about ecological and sustainable ends, and more authoritative processes of attaining those ends could undermine democratic ideals and legitimacy.
KW - Ecological democracy
KW - Deliberative democracy
KW - Environmental democracy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066233055&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3197/096327119x15445433913541
DO - 10.3197/096327119x15445433913541
M3 - Editorial
SN - 0963-2719
VL - 28
SP - 1
EP - 8
JO - Environmental Values
JF - Environmental Values
IS - 1
ER -