Deliberative Democracy and the Environment

Abstract

Deliberative democratic practices are especially well suited to the challenges of environmental governance, particularly under conditions associated with the Anthropocene. But this environmental promise comes with attendant perils with respect to democratic deliberation as both a form of politics generally and a strategy for environmental protection. Developing over more than a quarter-century, conceptual advancements in our understanding of deliberative democracy theory have enriched our understanding of potential contributions to environmental politics and governance, while our knowledge of what works, derived from careful empirical studies of innumerable natural experiments, has expanded as well. Yet still more research is needed to provide a full appreciation of the ultimate potential and the inherent limitations of ongoing efforts to combine deliberative democratic theory and pragmatic problem solving to address the challenges confronting environmental governance in the circumstances of the Anthropocene.