Reshaping Environmental Governance: Democratic Innovations in Europe

Date

2024-08-30

Author

Medeıros Rıbeıro, Jose Duarte
Falanga, Roberto

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In the wake of the escalating environmental crisis, demo-cratic innovations (DIs) try to contribute to democratic de-cision-making through citizen participation. In this paper,we aim to explore whether and how Dis can help advancethe scholarly debate (and policy practice) of environmen-tal sustainability. Our findings are based on an extensivehistorical review carried out under the EU-funded project“INCITE-DEM Inclusive Citizenship in a World in Transforma-tion: Co-Designing for Democracy”. Here we focus on the345 peer-reviewed articles, supported by interviews withinternationally acknowledged scholars, that delve into therole of Dis for environmental sustainability in Europe. Ourfindings suggest an emerging connection between pro-cesses like deliberative mini-publics and the SustainableDevelopment Goal 13 (Climate Action), which is most likelybased on the role played by climate assemblies in the last few years. Although such assemblies have had some recog-nition by public bodies, questions remain open about theimpact on the policy agenda and, in particular, the politicaluptake of citizens’ recommendations.Against this backdrop, and by acknowledging the keythemes of RN12 Environment & Society, this paper exam-ines the role of DIs in setting out the conditions for pol-icy solutions to emerging environmental challenges, witha focus on Europe. We believe that the transformative na-ture of DIs can feed new research on citizen participationfor environmental policies. Yet, we also alert for risks ofover-reliance on initiatives of participation as a panacea forsolutions in the environmental field. A critical appraisal ofstrengths and limitations of DIs in environmental policy ismuch needed in the scholarly debate, and this paper canhopefully indicates new pathways for future research.

URI

https://www.europeansociology.org/publications/esa-conference-abstract-books
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118062

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Department of Sociology, Conference / Seminar