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Black and white photo of Thomas Hickmann. Photo.

Thomas Hickmann

Associate Professor | Associate Senior Lecturer

Black and white photo of Thomas Hickmann. Photo.

Democratising Sustainability Transformations : Assessing the Transformative Potential of Democratic Practices in Environmental Governance

Author

  • Jonathan Pickering
  • Thomas Hickmann
  • Karin Bäckstrand
  • Agni Kalfagianni
  • Michael Bloomfield
  • Ayşem Mert
  • Hedda Ransan-Cooper
  • Alex Y. Lo

Summary, in English

Many democracies find it difficult to act swiftly on problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. This is reflected in long-standing debates in research and policy about whether democratic practices are capable of fostering timely, large-scale transformations towards sustainability. Drawing on an integrative review of scholarly literature from 2011 to early 2021 on sustainability transformations and the democracy-environment nexus, this article synthesises existing research on prospects and pitfalls for democratising sustainability transformations. We advance a new typology for understanding various combinations of democratic/authoritarian practices and of transformations towards/away from sustainability. We then explore the role of democratic practices in accelerating or obstructing five key dimensions of sustainability transformations: institutional, social, economic, technological, and epistemic. Across all dimensions we find substantial evidence that democratic practices can foster transformations towards sustainability, and we conclude by outlining a set of associated policy recommendations.

Department/s

  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Publication/Series

Earth System Governance

Volume

11

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

Keywords

  • Earth system governance
  • Ecological democracy
  • Environmental democracy
  • Environmental governance
  • Sustainability transformations
  • Transformative governance

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2589-8116