LIST OF PANELS

The climate crisis and the search for environmental sustainability constitute the primary challenge of our century.  Despite all of the rhetoric about the need to deal with the coming crisis, the actions to mitigate the crisis thus far have fallen far short of those which needed to put humanity on a sustainable course. Most of the efforts have focused on attempts to find scientific technological market-oriented solutions, typically known as “technical fixes.” This has largely taken place at the expense of democratic environmental policymaking and citizen involvement, despite the fact that from early on the sustainability literature and key documents have presented broad citizens participation as an essential component for the successful pursuit of sustainable development goals.

Underlying this reluctance to involve ordinary citizens, however, is the belief, often more latent than manifest, that the citizenry is not up to the task. Citizens are seen to be not intelligent and informed enough to be trusted with the challenge. This panel aims to explore real-world practices that can illustrate how citizens can help to put us on a path to sustainability. 

This panel calls for papers that draw lessons from a wide range of deliberative participatory projects, both inside and outside governance processes that serve to demonstrate the importance of empowering citizens towards a democratically just and sustainable transition.