The democratic road to sustainability: an environmental critique of liberal democracy

Ecologists have long been critical with liberal democracy. This critique is not directed at the concept of democracy but at a particular type of it: representative liberal democracy. Many ecological thinkers consider that liberal democracy and the liberal democratic state are not well-equipped to deal with current environmental problems. What is more, they argue, liberal democracy and the liberal state cannot offer a solution because they are part of the problem. The “deliberative turn” in democratic theory could represent a way out of the shortcomings of liberal democracy. Several arguments have been put forward to claim for an alliance between ecologism and political deliberation; to name but a few, that people’s pro-environmental preferences are more likely to emerge in a communicative setting, and that decisions reached after collective deliberation will be more democratic, legitimate and ecologically sustainable than those resulting from liberal representative processes. Yet there is no guarantee that communicative mechanisms will lead to the desired sustainability results, partly because there is no consensus on what these results should be in the first place. However, even if deliberative democracy may not necessarily improve the sustainability of outcomes, at least some of the limitations of liberal democracy shall be addressed. This paper focuses on those theories conceiving ecological democracy as a solution to some of the problems that liberal democracy poses to sustainability. These ecological interpretations and critiques of liberal democracy suggest a reform of the liberal democratic state. In this context, the concept of the “green state” will be discussed as the institutional form needed to implement an ecological democracy. Particular attention will be paid to analyze whether ecological democracy is substantially different from liberal democracy or whether it is a reform of liberal democracy along green lines.