Deliberation and the Promise of a Deeply Democratic Sustainability Transition

Abstract

Ecological economics arose as a normative transdiscipline aiming to generate knowledge and tools to help transition the economy toward a scale which is sustainable within the bounds of the earth system. Yet it remains unclear in practice how to legitimize its explicitly normative agenda. One potential means for legitimation can be found in deliberative social and political theory. We review how deliberative theory has informed ecological economics, pointing to three uses: first, to support valuation of non-market goods and services; second, to inform environmental decision-making more broadly; third, to ground alternative theories of development and wellbeing. We argue that deliberation has been used as problem-solving theory, but that its more radical implications have rarely been embraced. Embracing a deliberative foundation for ecological economics raises questions about the compatibility of deeply democratic practice and the normative discourses arguing for a sustainability transition. We highlight three potential mechanisms by which deliberation may contribute to a sustainability transition: preference formation; normative evaluation; and legitimation. We explore each in turn, demonstrating the theoretical possibility that deliberation may be conducive in and of itself to a sustainability transition. We point to a series of challenges facing the “scaling up” of deliberative systems that demand further empirical and theoretical work. These challenges constitute a research agenda for a deeply democratic sustainability transition and can inform the future development of ecological economics and other normative, critical transdisciplines.

From the Anthropocene to Mutual Thriving: An Agenda for Higher Education in the Ecozoic

“…Spash [129,130] and others [131,132] have called for an ontological foundation to be established, with healthy debates over deep and shallow ecological economics. We agree with assertions that the field must be more firmly based on the understanding of the biophysical [133][134][135] and social [136,137] embeddedness of human economic activity.…”

Comparing Environmental Advisory Councils: How They Work and Why it Matters

“…The second scenario would point to the existence of particular characteristics of the environmental conflict leading to long standing differences that would not tend to vanish. For example, these would point to conflict as a reality most often present in environmental debates [3,27,28]. The creation in 1994 of the State Environmental Advisory Council in Spain was one instance clearly motivated by the desire of the public authorities to reduce the conflict and, thus, put an end to the blocking of some important environmental plans [27].…”

A critically modern ecological economics for the Anthropocene

“…Modernity challenged the pre-modern, where legitimacy was secured through appeals to an external source of validity such as religion or unquestioned cultural traditions passed on from generation to generation (Habermas, 1990). In modernity, legitimacy and validity are secured through the application of reason, a capacity deemed inherent to all humans, as well as democratic deliberation (Wironen et al, 2019). Modernity thus breaks with particular traditions that some view as oppressive and stifling, embracing instead a universalistic discourse.…”

“…An alternative for ecological economics is to build on critically modern social and political theory, preserving some of the important social and political advances of the Enlightenment while attempting to correct for the oppressive tendencies and growth fetishism incompatible with a finite, culturally diverse planet (Wironen et al, 2019). A triumph of the Enlightenment was the establishment of concepts such as universal rights and values.…”

“…Critically modern theory—in particular, deliberative democratic social and political theory—offers a potential platform on which ecological economics can build in its effort to spur praxis that responds to the challenge of the Anthropocene. In Wironen et al (2019), we outline a research agenda for deliberative ecological economics, with priority areas including work on preference formation, normative evaluation, and policy legitimation. Deliberative approaches establish social and political legitimacy through communication with the contention that humans have, for all our history as a species, used language and speech to establish intersubjective truths to guide collective action (Baber and Bartlett, 2005).…”