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Top1. Introduction: Sustainable Development Between Democracy And Governance?
How to govern sustainable development in democratic contexts? Governance has become a quite popular term, both in theory and practice. Political scientists have used and applied the concept in a wide range of projects, resulting in a vast amount of publications, but still refer to governance in different ways: discussion centers around “governance as steering”, “new and old modes of governance” and criteria, how to measure “good” governance. In other words different meanings as to what and how governance means are available. For politics, where the term governance is also increasingly in use, the most interesting question is how governance works. By what means, rules, actor constellations, institutional set-ups and procedures can a certain policy-output be achieved?
When taking a closer look at the development of international law since the Second World War, we observe a trend towards the recognition of democracy as the only legitimate form of governing. Starting with de-colonialization and further with the break-down of the communist regimes in the 1990s the right of self-determination has gained prominence and with it democracy as the only form of government truly reflecting the “consent of the governed”. But although there is a burgeoning literature on democratic mechanisms (especially participatory and discursive forms of democracy) and sustainability, ecologists have been for quite some time critical towards the possibility to achieve sustainability by democratic means. Authors like Ophuls (1977) argued that the ecological crisis could only be tackled by limiting the individual freedom of citizens and establishing a strong government (Doherty & de Geus 1996: 1). As democracy holds the risk, that the issue of sustainable development does not meet the necessary majorities, green demands seemed to require an increasing centralisation of power to overcome blunt self-interest (Ward, 2008: 387). Theoretically, it seemed easier to constrain environmentally damaging economic activities by autocratic means (Buitenzorgy, 2011: 60; Neumayer, 2002). Efficiency, equity, effectiveness, but also legitimacy are defined as key principles for environmental decision-making by Ager et al. (2003: 1096f). But although democracies may score high on the issue of legitimacy and to a certain amount on equity, it might be a poor performer regarding efficiency and effectiveness. So Saward (1993: 64) put forward the conclusion that there is a complete opposition between green imperatives and an acceptable justification of democracy. Individuals or interest groups may ignore the damage which their economic actions pose on the environment and free ride; for example business groups may opt to ignore certain behaviour as they have a strong influence in market democracies (Li & Reuveny, 2006: 938; Dryzek, 1987). Discussions on “environmental sustainability” have to take into consideration these social, economic and political practices as the attempt of changing those practices may threaten other dimensions of social development (Ekins, 1994; Meadowcraft, 1997: 172).On the other hand democracies may well be more responsive to the environmental needs of the public, as environmental groups find an arena for mobilization and democracies are more likely to comply with international environmental agreements (Kotov & Nikitina, 1995; Li & Reuveny, 2006: 937). Saward’s solution to the contradiction between democracy and green imperatives is that there has to be a move away from political mechanisms and their justification to political culture, as green principles expressed as imperatives leads to authoritarian solutions (Saward, 1993). Good democracy means not only following simply the will of the majority. As new indicator concepts for measuring democracy show, there is an understanding that politics (democracy) carries a responsibility for society and the environment (Campbell 2008: 30).