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Arabica Robusta

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Can democracy save the planet? | openDemocracy

a Consultation on Democracy and Sustainability was held at the Science Museum in London on 18 March 2008. It was convened by the Environment Foundation, the 21st Century Trust and SustainAbility, and supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The questions addressed included: can a world of 9-10 billion people vote its way to a sustainable future - or are new forms of leadership (even forms of authoritarian rule) going to be necessary? Are the rising global powers (China, India and Brazil among them) best placed to move towards more sustainable forms of development? Democracy has a central role to play in any discussion of the future of the planet. But democracy is in trouble in many parts of the world, and must - if it is to deliver, remain relevant and meet people's needs and aspirations - mutate and evolve (see Larry Diamond, "The Democratic Rollback", Foreign Affairs [March-April 2008]).

Tags: democracy development international opendemocracy sustainable on 05-05-2008 -Cached -About Shared by:Arabica Robusta

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The questions addressed included: can a world of 9-10 billion people
vote its way to a sustainable future - or are new forms of leadership (even
forms of authoritarian rule) going to be necessary? Are the rising global
powers (China, India and Brazil among them) best placed to move towards more
sustainable forms of development?
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008
What of the link between democracy and
sustainable development? Most respondents held that voter pressure meant that
democracy was of benefit to sustainable development. Yet consultation with
a more specialised group of experts found that only 28% believed that
capitalism (often paired with democracy in its liberal variant) aided
sustainable development, against 36% who said that capitalism inhibited it.
Overall, Doug Miller saw in the figures an activation of people's survival
instinct: as the planet "speaks" through extreme weather events, citizens are
starting to listen.
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008
Many of the issues the roundtable addressed had been
highlighted in a keynote paper commissioned ahead of the meeting from Ian
Christie. This made four basic propositions about democracy, ecologically
sustainable development, and environmental/sustainability campaign
organisations (SD-NGOs). He argued that together, these phenomena offer a
paradox about the relationship between democracy, civil society and
sustainability; and that resolving it is now an urgent and complex task - for
the west, for newly industrialised democracies, and for emergent democratic civil
society in the global south.
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008
Democracy poses huge problems
for sustainable development. In the advanced liberal capitalist states, democracy
is tightly coupled to the promise of economic growth, ever-rising consumption
and individual freedom. Democracy in such states now entrenches the interests
of the affluent majority and well-funded lobbies in the political system (a
point analysed by, among others, JK Galbraith and Mancur Olson).
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008
Environmental/sustainability
campaign organisations (SD-NGOs) are a massive success for civil society
worldwide. Without them, we would not have anything like the progress we have
seen in the past half-century in protecting the environment, cutting pollution,
raising resource efficiency, highlighting linked issues of environmental and
social injustice, and saving wildlife and habitats from destruction. Without
them, the discourse and practice of sustainable development would not have
become established in governments worldwide, and huge issues such as climate
disruption would not have been acknowledged or tackled sufficiently by
governments and businesses.
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008
SD-NGOs are a massive failure by their own
standards. For nearly fifty years they have campaigned and educated citizens
and governments and businesses worldwide; yet ecological damage continues on a
vast scale, environmental injustices abound, and dangerous climate disruption
seems to be unavoidable. SD-NGOs have achieved limited gains in specific areas
of policy but have failed to mobilise and energise citizens on a large enough
scale to put real pressure on politicians and businesses in the west and
beyond. Moreover, they lack clear answers to challenges to their own legitimacy
and accountability, and have sometimes spoken as though they were representative
voices of "civil society", when in fact they constitute a small and highly
unrepresentative section of it in many countries.
posted by Arabica Robusta on 05-05-2008

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