The politics of sustainability:
The politics of sustainability:
democracy and the limits of policy action
In Chapter Two, Stuart Wilks-Heeg poses the question of whether democracy can deliver sustainability if the achievement of sustainability requires sacrifices that individuals will be required to impose uponthemselves via the ballot box. The chapter argues that there may well be a fundamental tension between representative democracy and policy agendas associated with the reduction of carbon emissions, especially when the latter are interpreted as involving significant individual sacrifice and reduced personal consumption. In the light of this tension, the chapter argues that there are two ways forward for the politics of sustainability. Politicians must either find a means of bringing about a ‘smart’ redesign of society, in which carbon emissions can be curbed without significant personal sacrifice, or they must seek to secure the ‘informed consent’ of citizens to fundamental shifts in their behaviour and lifestyles through a significantly more participatory model of democracy.
Keywords: democracy, green democracy, sustainability, politics, green authoritarianism, ecology
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