Deliberative democracy and the climate crisis Willis, Rebecca; Curato, Nicole; Smith, Graham
Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Climate change,
March/April 2022, 2022-03-00, 20220301, Volume:
13, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT
No democratic state has yet implemented a climate plan strong enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This has led some to argue that democracy cannot cope with a challenge of this ...magnitude. In this article, we take stock of the claim that a more deliberative democratic system can strengthen our ability to respond effectively to the climate crisis. The most visible development in this direction is the recent citizens’ assemblies on climate change in Ireland, France, and the UK. We begin our analysis of the promise of deliberative democracy with a recognition of the difficulties that democracies face in tackling climate change, including short‐termism; the ways in which scientific and expert evidence are used; the influence of powerful political interests; and the relationship between people and the politicians that represent them. We then introduce the theoretical tradition of deliberative democracy and examine how it might ameliorate the challenges democracies face in responding to the climate crisis. We evaluate the contribution of deliberative mini‐publics, such as citizens’ assemblies and juries, and look beyond these formal processes to examine how deliberation can be embedded in political and social systems around the world. We conclude that deliberation‐based reforms to democratic systems, including but not limited to deliberative mini‐publics, are a necessary and potentially transformative ingredient in climate action.
This article is categorized under:
Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication
Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions
Democracy identifies the general processes causing democratization and de-democratization at a national level across the world over the last few hundred years. It singles out integration of trust ...networks into public politics, insulation of public politics from categorical inequality, and suppression of autonomous coercive power centres as crucial processes. Through analytic narratives and comparisons of multiple regimes, mostly since World War II, this book makes the case for recasting current theories of democracy, democratization and de-democratization.
Democracy identifies the general processes causing democratization and de-democratization at a national level across the world over the last few hundred years. It singles out integration of trust ...networks into public politics, insulation of public politics from categorical inequality, and suppression of autonomous coercive power centres as crucial processes. Through analytic narratives and comparisons of multiple regimes, mostly since World War II, this book makes the case for recasting current theories of democracy, democratization and de-democratization.
The article attempts to answer whether, and if so, to what extent, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union (the so-called Brexit) impacted ...the British model of democracy. The starting point for the analysis is the famous classification of Arend Lijphart, who distinguished two main models of democracy – Westminster and consensus – identifying the United Kingdom as a prime example of the first of them. Using the method of institutional and legal analysis and the historical method, the author tries to prove the thesis that Brexit has shaken the foundations of the majoritarian democracy in the United Kingdom. However, the transformations of this model are not a new phenomenon, as they are part of the trend of changes occurring in this country, at least since the end of the 1990s. The article also proves the thesis that the serious political and systemic tensions to which Brexit – for very different reasons – led can be treated as temporary, as there is little indication that these tensions would permanently undermine the foundations of the Westminster model of democracy in the United Kingdom.
The characteristics of participatory institutions can be articulated in three main dimensions: input, process and output. The common assumption is that a dependency relationship exists, with process ...serving as a mediator between input and output. This paper puts the model to a rare empirical test drawing on a unique dataset of 70 Spanish advisory councils. Through a combination of exploratory factor and path analyses, we analyse the dimensionality of input, process and output and investigate the direct and indirect impact of inputs on process and outputs. Our analysis provides evidence that input factors have a direct impact on the output factor transparency, but their impact on effects on policy and participant satisfaction is mediated by the process factor deliberation. Further, the capacity of the public administration to steer the advisory council (wardship) mediates negatively the impact of input variables on transparency. The analysis provides a nuanced account of how different input and process design characteristics of participatory institutions have profound direct and indirect effects on their outputs.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This collection of short essays on texts in the history of ...democracy shows the diversity of ideas that contributed to the making of our present democratic moment. The selection of texts goes beyond the standard, Western-centric canonical history of democracy, with its beginnings in ancient Athens and its climax in the French and American revolutions, recovering some of the significant body of democratic and anti-democratic thought in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. It includes discussions of well-known philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, but also of a variety of thinkers much less well known in English as writers on democracy: Al Farabi, Bolívar, Gandhi, Radishchev, Lenin, Sun Yat-sen, and many others. The essays thus de-center our understanding of the moments where the idea of democracy was articulated, rejected, and appropriated. Spanning antiquity to the present and global in scope, with contributions by key scholars of democracy from around the world, Democratic Moments is the ideal text for all students wishing to expand their understanding of the ways in which this contested concept has been understood.
A significant part of the Western literature on democracy assumes that political participation leads to citizens being more committed to democratic values. However, we do not know to what extent this ...is true in young democracies with an authoritarian tradition. Hence, this article aims to examine whether politically engaged Brazilians are more democratic. To do so, we analyzed whether there is any association between political participation, support for democracy, and democracy relativization through multivariate regression models. Our database comprises a representative sample of 2417 interviews with the electorate of São Paulo in 2019. The results show a statistically significant association between unconventional political participation and support for democracy. General political participation is associated with non-relativization of democracy only, showing a limited relationship between support for democracy and participation. Other variables, such as political interest, political knowledge, and interpersonal trust, are also associated with higher support for democracy.
Democratic decision-making processes are frequently under attack. In particular, digitalisation is seen as a threat to democracy by many. Conversely, the author sees opportunities for democracy and ...advocates using digital instruments. Digital instruments such as co-voting (in representative democracies) or assessment voting (in direct democracies) could improve democratic procedures and strengthen the bond between voters and democracy. JEL Classification: D72, C83, H10 Demokratische Entscheidungsprozesse werden zurzeit vielfach angegriffen. Insbesondere in der Digitalisierung sehen viele eine Gefahr fur die Demokratie. Der Autor sieht hingegen Chancen fur die Demokratie und pladiert dafur, digitale Instrumente auszuprobieren. Digitale Instrumente wie Co-Voting (in reprasentativen Demokratien) bzw. Assessment Voting (in direkten Demokratien) konnten demokratische Verfahren verbessern und das Band zwischen Stimmburgern und Demokratie starken.
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