Participatory Democracy and Sustainability. Deliberative Democratic Innovation and Its Acceptance by Citizens and German Local Councilors

Political participation and sustainability seem to be closely intertwined. In the last few decades it can be shown that the topic of sustainability and ecological interest groups play an important role in citizen engagement, political participation, and democratic innovations at the local level. Usi...

Author: Kersting, Norbert
Division/Institute:FB 06: Erziehungswissenschaft und Sozialwissenschaften
Document types:Article
Media types:Text
Publication date:2021
Date of publication on miami:14.12.2022
Modification date:14.12.2022
Edition statement:[Electronic ed.]
Source:Sustainability 13 (2021) 13, 7214, 1-12
Subjects:participation; digitalization; local government; innovation; deliberation; sustainability
DDC Subject:320: Politikwissenschaft
License:CC BY 4.0
Language:Englisch
Funding:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF document
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-81089707068
Other Identifiers:DOI: 10.17879/31099531835
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-81089707068
Related records:
Digital documents:10.3390_su13137214.pdf

Political participation and sustainability seem to be closely intertwined. In the last few decades it can be shown that the topic of sustainability and ecological interest groups play an important role in citizen engagement, political participation, and democratic innovations at the local level. Using a participatory rhombus model of participatory democracy, different forms of participation and democratic innovations in the representative sphere, in direct democracy, in demonstrative participatory space, and finally in deliberative participatory instruments are important in the decision-making for sustainability policies. Here the paper tries to close the gap in empirical data on the perceptions of citizens and councilors on these participatory instruments. Citizens believe strongly in the importance of elections and referendums, but they extend their political repertoire and start protesting and demanding more deliberative democracy. Councilors positively perceive democratic innovations, and the councilors of the Green Party in particular strongly support new participatory instruments. However, citizens and councilors do not support all instruments in the same way.