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. Green democrats highlight the many ways in which the modern environmental movement and green political parties have enriched liberal democracy. The primary goal of green democrats has been to defend and/or develop a range of supplementary rights, norms, laws, administrative procedures, institutions, and practices of political participation, deliberation, representation, and accountability that would enable more systematic consideration of long-range, transboundary, ecological concerns. Green democrats have defended “mini-publics,” such as citizen juries, consensus conferences, and deliberative polls, as one means of institutionalizing deliberative democracy. Meanwhile, green democrats welcome the rise of new grassroots democratic initiatives that seek to create new and more ecologically responsible material practices in collective, embodied, and prefigurative ways.
