ABSTRACT

The idea of green democracy was developed by environmental political theorists in the 1990s out of a critique of the ecological failings of liberal democracy in the wake of the exponential growth in ecological problems in the post-World War II period. Whereas the “limits-to-growth” debate of the early 1970s (see Carrying capacities paradigm) had generated calls for an eco-authoritarian state as the only means of preventing ecological overshoot and collapse, advocates of green (or ecological) democracy argue that more, rather than less, democracy is needed to tackle the ecological crisis. Green democrats also highlight the many ways in which the modern environmental movement and green political parties have enriched liberal democracy.