Abstract
Democracy and participation have always been part of both the environmental movement and environmental political theory. This chapter explores the basic concepts involved in the call for environmental democracy, in particular citizen participation, environmental deliberation, ecological citizenship, the role of nonhuman life, and the politics of environmental expertise. The chapter presents two dominant conceptions of environmental democracy, one that seeks to democratically transform existing political-economic systems through environmental regulation and the greening of economic and political institutions. The other is based on a belief that this approach ultimately supports a politics of unsustainability. These theorists turn to civil society and a call for more insurgent forms of environmental democracy that challenge capitalist democracy.
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Notes
- 1.
The discussion elaborates on ideas and arguments developed in Climate Crisis and the Democratic Prospect (Fischer 2017).
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Fischer, F. (2018). Environmental Democracy: Participation, Deliberation and Citizenship. In: Boström, M., Davidson, D. (eds) Environment and Society. Palgrave Studies in Environmental Sociology and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76415-3_12
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