Eco-democracy: emergence and challenges

Ideas of a more environmentally thoughtful form of democracy started as a more cautious critique of liberal democracy and its institutions. More recently, the label ecological democracy has tended to be understood as built on a more radical form of critique that also questions and re-examines liberal democratic institutions (Eckersley, Reference Eckersley2020). The first and older form with its roots in green politics and sustainable development, tends to focus on tinkering with the democratic system as it currently exists while increasing the knowledge and awareness of the human membership such that they become more thoughtful and active “eco-citizens.” The main focus relating to how environmental ideals, sustainability, and the framework of democracy can be reconciled to respond to the ecological crises without undermining democracy itself (Lundmark, Reference Lundmark1998; Pickering et al, Reference Pickering, Bäckstrand and Schlosberg2020; Schlosberg et al, Reference Schlosberg, Bäckstrand and Pickering2019). The assumption of this form of eco-democracy is that these eco-literate humans will democratically advocate for, and at the same time change their behaviours in, ways that support and sustain the natural world, while living an ecologically aware modern lifestyle. Here, Goodin’s (Reference Goodin1992) quadrium on how to guarantee that democratic procedures will advocate a substantive ecological outcome is important. As it advocates for a way to make citizens more socially aware without manipulating them to a particular end. The hope is that citizens as they become “educated” will do the “right thing” as determined, presumably, by enlightened educators and some form of invisible set of axiological truths. Intriguingly, Lundmark (Reference Lundmark1998) suggests that as citizens become more ecologically aware there is a blurring of the assumed sharp divide between societal ideals and democratic decision-making which potentially leaves space for more expansive change going forward.

As the reader can tell, to preserve democratic integrity these first eco-democratic conversations leaned in the direction of a deliberative form of democracy where the membership, still just some humans at this point, is listening carefully to each other and thoughtfully reaching shared decisions that allow as many humans as possible to live well (Lepori, Reference Lepori2019). The idea underneath this being that once the membership had the information about the environmental challenges they would, as a majority, come to ecologically “good” decisions. Yet, as environmental educators might recognise, this did not happen and, at this point, the “educate up and all deliberate” model may be too slow to respond well anyway. In fact, as we now know, it can be easily hijacked and slowed to a snail’s (though we wonder if snails would be better advocates for change at this point) pace by special interest groups with deep pockets. Later, the focus of this deliberative, tinker with, democracy strand expanded as it sought to include different interpretations and changing forms of meaning-making, normative reflections, and engagement with larger questions of culture itself (Hammond, Reference Hammond2019). This move also then expanded the discussion to include the importance of everyday life, ordinary people, and undoing a narrow understanding that environmental democracy was about buying more sustainable products or voting in favour of a more embodied ecological citizenship. However, some still find this form underwhelming in terms of its ability to effectuate change and respond to the ecological and social problematics of democracy itself (Gough, Reference Gough, Stevenson, Brody, Dillon and Wals2012; Stevenson, Reference Stevenson2007).

As such, a different slightly more recent form of eco-democracy has been growing in parallel. This form sees the above challenges and responds first by rooting itself in more critical discussions and then by being willing to seek a more radical, substantive change in democracy itself (Eckersley, Reference Eckersley2020). This democracy would seek to undo the ecological injustice of modernity’s anthropocentrism while at the same time actively responding to the social injustices that are baked into the current version. Given its roots in eco-feminism, earth democracy, and deep ecology it is unsurprising that this form sees itself as being eco-centric with citizenship being expanded beyond humans. Which in turn advocates that all beings of the more-than-human are seen as having intrinsic value, moral consideration, and, in its more radical forms, the rights of citizenship (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2012; Kopnina et al., Reference Kopnina, Spannring, Hawke, Robertson, Thomasberger, Maloney, Morini, Lynn, Muhammad, Santiago-Ávila, Begovic and Baranowski2021). As Peters (Reference Peters2017) suggests, this form of ecological democracy is more expansively participatory and education contributes to the transformation of civil society not just by offering facts and information but by facilitating, even advocating for, the locally based coming together of these eco-citizens (Hammond, Reference Hammond2019).

At this point, it is likely easier to think of eco-democracy as operating on a continuum. At one end, with its sustainable development roots, eco-democracy maintains the status quo — anthropocentrism, enlightened capitalism, lightly deliberative liberal democracy — while adding awareness of, and thoughtfulness towards, the environment. This form of deliberative eco-democracy has long influenced environmental education both theoretically and practically (Lawrence & Knapp,Reference Lawrence and Knapp1997; Östman, Reference Östman2010; Houser, Reference Houser2009; Öhman and Louise, Reference Öhman and Louise2021) and has deep connections to Dewey´s ideas of democracy and education (Dewey, Reference Dewey1997; Englund, Reference Englund2016; Samuelsson, Reference Samuelsson2018). At this end of the continuum, humans are the only citizens of, participants in these deliberations but it is hoped that through a better understanding of the science and a growing relationship with the natural world — both facilitated by environmental education — they will act, and vote, in more eco-lightened ways. This could include seeking to limit the rapaciousness of the destruction of the natural world and actively encouraging the well-being of future generations of humans. Critiques of this end of the continuum are quite varied and often substantive. At the operational level, there is concern about the speed at which this kind of democracy can operate (Lundmark, Reference Lundmark1998; Pickering et al., Reference Pickering, Bäckstrand and Schlosberg2020) particularly if the discussion is dominated by those who have vested interests in not changing the way things currently exist. Underneath this there is a concern that to advocate for the environment in such a way that it becomes a central platform for democratic change might be undermining the very fabric of democracy itself. For how does a particular platform gain this kind of priority without silencing voices that exist within the sought-for inclusive plurality?

Beyond these operational critiques are some of a more fundamental nature. What masquerades as democracy right now does not actually involve all human voices with myriad groups (i.e. women, BIPOC,Footnote ¹ LGBTQIA2S+,Footnote ² children, the elderly) and particular communities being left unheard and that beyond this the whole practice is deeply anthropocentric and human-elitist. In response to some of these challenges Kopnina and Cherniak (Reference Kopnina and Cherniak2016) wonder why it should it be any harder to include more-than-humans as citizens, both theoretically and normatively, than following similar tracks that have been laid down in overcoming historical gender gaps for example? Historically, as the reader might note there have been changes in who counts as “citizen” and included in the demos so might this extension not be able to include the more-than-human. As such, Kopnina et al (Reference Kopnina, Spannring, Hawke, Robertson, Thomasberger, Maloney, Morini, Lynn, Muhammad, Santiago-Ávila, Begovic and Baranowski2021) are moving down the continuum, away from the anthropocentric end, when they suggest that both pragmatically and ethically more-than-human needs must exceed their utilitarian value and that that involves changing the anthropocentric paradigm.

Somewhere in the middle of the continuum the priorities shift as the above critiques are taken seriously and the focus moves from just humans to all beings — ecocentrism —, from particular voices in deliberation to all voices in active participation — plurality and multicentrism — and from living sustainably together to mutually beneficial flourishing (Kimmerer, Reference Kimmerer2013; Blenkinsop, et al., Reference Blenkinsop, Derby and Morse2019). And though there seems to be a consensus in this half of the continuum about acknowledging ecocentric/multicentric values it is quite unclear as to how they should be enacted. As such the ecocentric/multicentric half of the continuum captures and changes some of the challenges in the debate. Critiques of democratic processes being too slow to handle the significant crises are quieted a bit as the idea of democracy itself is undone and debated with a view to creating a framework that includes the more-than-human from the get-go rather than seeking to add them as “persons” in a human generated framework. And yet, at the same time, there is still debate about the dangers of a more seemingly imposed, authoritarian, and potentially prescriptive environmentally friendly direction that could be ruining any form of democracy at all. For Pickering et al. (Reference Pickering, Bäckstrand and Schlosberg2020), this is the nexus between environmental democracy and eco-democracy, and it points directly at the more abstract pluralism and normativity of the anthropocentric side of the continuum and the more grounded (Coulthard, Reference Coulthard2014; Simpson, Reference Simpson2014, Reference Simpson2017), local, and inclusive (Kopnina, Reference Kopnina2012) forms that ecocentric commitments require. This part of the continuum also raises challenges between the rights and powers of the local vs the global, who counts as a citizen and what their civic, social, or political rights might be. Such discussions also involve and embrace how agency and action competence plays out, what consent is and how it can be offered, how these diverse voices are heard, what restrictions are made when the agency of one member/species impedes another’s, and how all these eco-democratic rights and responsibilities are understood, learned, highlighted and monitored.

At the ecocentric/multicentric end of the continuum there is a desire to radically rethink and transform democracy. This would include overcoming boundaries between ecology and democracy. For many, at this end of the continuum, the focus shifts to commons-based everyday life. This would also include re-examining materialist assumptions about the natural world, normative reflections about the human/more-than-human relationship, epistemological givens concerning meaning, and the culture out of which these ideas and education itself arises (Hammond, Reference Hammond2019). This is a form of democracy that removes the focus on demos (people) and replaces it with ousia (beings) as those active members, citizens, involved in cracy (governing). This move then has implications for how this ousiacracy plays out. Or, for those who worry about these Greek etymologies perhaps this would become a form of democracy that rests in kinship and understands each member as having a ki-ness (Kimmerer, Reference Kimmerer2013). With ‘ki’ used for each individual earth-being (Kimmerer, Reference Kimmerer2013) and with its plural from “kin” the result becomes kincracy for an eco-democracy considering not only everyday-life-democracy but also its more expansive political and practical governance angles. For if all beings have intrinsic value, agency, their own becomings (self-realisation), and are worthy of moral consideration then questions of voice (having one and being heard), consent (the right to consultation, engagement, and the room, possibility, and space to say no), self-determination (self-becoming/realisation and active participating both as individuals and as/in groups and communities), and kindness (the support of the membership to not be unduly restricted in an everyday-life-democracy) are clearly challenging.

For many theorists this has tended to suggest an “inclusive pluralism” (Kopnina & Cherniak, Reference Kopnina and Cherniak2016) which educationally makes itself manifest in examples drawn from Indigenous traditions, from bioregionalist work such as the Council for all Beings (Seed et al, Reference Seed, Macy, Fleming and Naess2007), and in the arguments of earth democracy, deep ecology, and eco-feminism. As the reader can discern the critiques of this end of the continuum are myriad and varied as well with the imaginative limits of human modernity being primary amongst them. What does hearing Mouse’s voice sound like? How does Cedar give consent? How does any being know how Wolf self-determines?Footnote ³ And, how does Human limit their freedoms and exercise their responsibilities as good eco-citizens in light of the frame of kin, kindness, towards the mutual flourishing of all? Philosophically there are significant critiques as well but for the purposes of this paper we are going to suggest that in fact these are the kinds of questions that an imaginatively engaged environmental education can perhaps begin to respond to, or even position themselves within. Questions that concern themselves with a re-imagining and re-wilding of education and democracy. But first, we should turn our attention to eco-democracy and its presence in environmental education.

The soils of environmental education: tiny seedlings for an eco-democracy

At first glance it might appear that democracy and eco-democracy are somewhat peripheral to environmental education in both research and practice but as we dug into the ideas undergirding the more eco-centric end of the eco-democracy continuum and the critiques of democracy as enacted in environmental education (Hart & White, Reference Hart and White2024; Hart, Reference Hart2024) it became apparent that there have long been eco-democratic seedlings growing in the soil of environmental education. Eco-democratic themes of kinship, voice, de-centred learning (particularly a decentring of the human teacher), agency of the more-than-human, local-to-global action, active participation, questioning of current power relations exist and have long existed, in the theories and practices of environmental education (Gough, Reference Gough2024). They have also long been part of the assumptive fabric of many practitioners whether named explicitly or not. These themes are in fact quite common though not often gathered together under the frame of eco-democracy. Below, we will examine five of the more apparent and significant themes — change, uncertainty, voice and consent, participation and self-determination, and intrinsic value/rights/agency of the beings of the more-than-human world. These themes will be examined in both eco-democratic and environmental educational contexts. To do the latter, we will extend the discussion by using the touchstones of wild pedagogies to both support the argument and to grow the conversation. The goal then from all this work is to offer out five ‘seedlings’ of eco-democracy whilst giving them light and some room to grow.

The first important eco-democratic seedling in environmental education, revolves around the concept of change. In democratic processes, the idea of leaving space for change and always being able to adapt to new problem situations is central (Petersson, Reference Petersson1999). As Martusewicz et al. (Reference Martusewicz, Edmundson and Lupinacci2020) describe, the world is always changing, differences are prerequisites for life, and humans are fallible. Here we notice a pushback against the modernist sense of both control and stability which has long been an important critique by those interested in eco-democracy and wild pedagogies as it seeks an openness to a diversity of narratives, embraces the unknown and the uncertain, pushes against easy assumptions of progress, and understands the present as always unfinished. Peters and González-Gaudiano (Reference Peters, González-Gaudiano, González-Gaudiano and Peters2008) take a very similar position suggesting that in environmental education

In action, this suggests a recognition of the importance of supporting and engaging with difference and leaving space, as wild pedagogies suggests, for the unexpected and spontaneous while also recognising that it is unlikely to ever have absolute answers regarding how to live well together. Here environmental educators can hear deep resonances to practices of community building — community as diverse, fluid, contextual, and ever-changing — and to an understanding that learning involves making mistakes, taking risks, and developing the skills of problem-solving.

This brings us to the second seedling, uncertainty and the active presence of the more-than-human world and its myriad denizens. Politically, seeking to be more inclusive, and just in that inclusion, of the more-than-human world has led theorists to point in the direction of a more radical, grassroots, pluralism which has also appeared, theoretically and practically, in environmental education (Rudsberg & Öhman, Reference Rudsberg and Öhman2010). Pedagogically, this move towards active inclusion and pluralism has appeared in Wild Pedagogies, for example, in the touchstones nature as co-teacher and the building of human alliances (Jickling et al. Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018), in questions around eco-social-cultural change (Fettes & Blenkinsop, Reference Fettes and Blenkinsop2023), and in the active listening to, acknowledging and seeking to understand all voices. Here again we hear reverberations of an overlap as both ecocentric eco-democracy and environmental education, back to the days of Orr’s “all education is environmental” (Orr, Reference Orr1994. p 12), see all acts, pedagogical and practical, as being inexorably political and value-laden. As such, environmental education is never free from politics and power relations which specifically is acknowledged concerning pluralism and reflexivity as possibilities (Wals, Reference Wals2010) but also underlining democratisation at all levels (Huckle, Reference Huckle2014). This in turn suggests that accepting an ecocentric/multicentric worldview that includes recognising more-than-human beings as citizens will entail an important shift, disruption even, in power, control, and the status quo (Jickling & Blenkinsop, Reference Jickling and Blenkinsop2020). Here uncertainty becomes pivotal as it is helpful as a starting position when one seeks to rethink, reimagine, how normativity might be understood and enacted, the implications arising when the intrinsic rights of more-than-humans are acknowledged, and the prioritising of values in an eco-democracy. And, in parallel to environmental education, a sense that learning and community creating is never complete. As such, uncertainty challenges us to understand eco-democracy as a living, unfinished, project. And, that we must find ways to be comfortable with that.

A third seedling involves an ethical commitment to process and a clear desire to not lose the threads of democracy in moves that might be overly manipulative and indoctrinating (e.g. Van Poeck et al, Reference Van Poeck, Goeminne and Vandenabeele2016; Van Peck and Östman, Reference Van Poeck and Östman2018; Jickling, Reference Jickling1994). We can also hear quiet threads of response to the voices critiquing pluralistic approaches for being too slow for the urgency of crisis (Tryggvason et al, 2023). Part of the overlap between environmental education and eco-democracy involves commitments to “do the work” which will, as Wild Pedagogies suggests, take time and practice (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018). These practices involve staunch support of the process and include commitments to diverse participation, being heard, and making active space such that consent can be freely offered or withheld, without repercussions, by all members involved. Here there is a sense that forcing members to become more environmentally aware and eco-politically active is to undermine the very nature of the imagined community in spite of the dire realities. Laessoe (Reference Læssoe2010) argues for a historical and sociocultural approach to participation in order to best handle work with dilemmas, dissensus and deliberative communication. And although environmental education rarely names imagined futures as being ‘eco-democratic’ it is hard not to see how that might in fact be what many are pointing towards. In this seedling there is also a sense of the importance of developing the abilities of the members in as many as aspects of being human, citizens, members of the more-than-human as possible. Both allowing the individual to expand their particular ranges of being but also because of an understanding that as situations change, roles and competencies may change as well and that flourishing communities have expansive resiliences and the diversest possible range of competencies. Where this might be described in the environmental education literature are in advocacy of action competence (Morgensen & Schnack, 2010) for environmental educators it is often just good skill building in, across, and for community (Van Poeck & Vandenabeele, Reference Van Poeck and Vandenabeele2012). This also takes us to the next seedling.

A fourth seedling growing in the overlap between environmental education and eco-democracy is a vision of participation and self-determination. Here Peters (Reference Peters2017) argues that ecological democracy builds on principles such as freedom to participate in “local society” and a growing awareness of humans’ embeddedness with more-than-humans. Lotz-Sisitska (Reference Lotz-Sisitka2008) points towards the connections between the local and global in environmental education such that not only are individuals learning how to, and leaning into, self-determination but they are also actively engaging in local groups that are doing the same. Also, Payne (Reference Payne2010) mentions tensions between global abstract politics and individual moral behaviour. In fact, what we get is a layering of self-determination such that individuals, groups, and communities are able to exercise this (think, for example a transgender individual advocating for LGBTQ2S+ rights while also having their unique voice heard and understood within the community itself). Wild pedagogies names this in the touchstones building human alliances and socio-cultural change (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018). Intriguingly, what begins to happen in this layering process is a dissolving of the assumed ontology of self towards a more relational way of being. Alongside this is a sense that as individuals and groups develop their voices and the skills of organising, building alliances, and living together they are better able to affect change at the larger national and global scales and thereby pushing back on the institutionalised and eco-socially problematic structures that currently exist. In wild pedagogies we find the conversation about wildness and self-willed (Jickling et al., Reference Jickling, Blenkinsop, Timmerman and Sitka-Sage2018)) helpful as educators trying to enliven this seedling.

The fifth seedling of eco-democracy already growing in the soil of environmental education has to do with respect for, and recognition of, the intrinsic agency and rights of the myriad denizens that make up the more-than-human world. For decades deep ecology has influenced environmental education in this direction and for those on the eco-centric end of the eco-democracy spectrum this question of nature’s agency, including the ability to self-determine, and rights, thus having the right to be heard and to consent is one of the key considerations and a kind of border that divides the continuum in two. At the centre and the more enlightened anthropocentric end, proxy representation is celebrated, and as Lundmark (Reference Lundmark1998) argues, through science and experience humans might better understand other species and uncover what they want. However, for Naess (Reference Naess1986) and other deep ecologists, this is not enough. Even if humans can partly understand and feel compassion for more-than-humans without an acknowledgement of intrinsic rights it is easy for humans to still try to ‘master’ and manipulate nature even from this position of thoughtful ‘awareness.’ In the end there is a paternalism to the assumed position of caring for the more-than-human without having its voice present that is worrisome to the eco-centric and justice-oriented end of the continuum. For ultimately the assumption remains amongst certain cultural frames that humans know better what the other wants and needs than they might, whether they be Tree, Salmon, or Iguana. Ignoring, in this case, millions of years of quite successful eco-system functioning and flourishing — natural self-governance and self-determination in action as it were. Now, while details of the process of representation need ongoing adjustment and some hard imagining, the overall purpose of eco-democracy would be to recognise the entitlement rights of more-than-humans to exercise their forms of agency, to be heard as voices in eco-membership, and to flourish in their own ways — Bear being able to be Bear as Bear wishes. At a certain point this seedling makes clear that there is a need for some kind of governance frame. For it is unlikely, even with the best of intentions and deep commitments to change and kindness that this change to an eco-democracy will be seamlessly enacted. Therefore, we also suggest keeping in mind a democratic government perspective with help of two premises that Petersson (Reference Petersson1999) highlights. One, the need for some form of stabilising force/s that align with the premises and aims of the eco-democracy itself but that can hold and sustain the project at the same time. It should be noted that these are unlikely to be narrowly focused on forms of instrumental control. And, two, tools that help evaluate the governance and collective processes for all. For Wild Pedagogies this connects back to seedlings related change and uncertainty, the touchstone complexity, the unknown, and spontaneity, and the shared aim of striving towards mutual beneficial flourishing.

Echoing this discussion environmental educators like Kopnina et al. (Reference Kopnina, Spannring, Hawke, Robertson, Thomasberger, Maloney, Morini, Lynn, Muhammad, Santiago-Ávila, Begovic and Baranowski2021) have suggested that both pragmatically and ethically the more-than-human needs to exceed their utilitarian value, as defined by the modern human, and thus changes are required to the anthropocentric paradigm or, in the language of this paper, a shift is needed towards the ecocentric/multicentric end of the continuum of eco-democracy. Kopnina et al. (Reference Kopnina, Spannring, Hawke, Robertson, Thomasberger, Maloney, Morini, Lynn, Muhammad, Santiago-Ávila, Begovic and Baranowski2021) further suggest that we look towards human examples where values have changed and new institutions have emerged that secure a wider and different range of rights and protect individuals and groups, previously marginalised, from discrimination. This reminds us that historically active engagement in the democratic process has been restricted by and to the centre often citing the margins inabilities or limitations concerning their ‘abilities’ to fully participate. Of course, there will be challenges as human citizens are educated to better understand more-than-human rights and how those might be compared, contrasted, and included in the larger rights discussion of an eco-democracy. Here we see environmental education playing an important role supporting the expansion and acceptance of concepts such as intrinsic value and agential rights (see: nature as co-teacher), building the relationships needed to emphasise local participation, grassroots communities — the celebration of collective self-organisation (Lepori, Reference Lepori2019) — and larger questions of cultural change (Hammond, Reference Hammond2019). And having this occur through developing the criticality to recognise and respond to human elitism, paternalism, and anthropocentrism while at the same time offering opportunities for learners to ‘try on’ and play with living in an eco-democracy and allowing the space for the very ideas around what it means to be human and to live in community to flex and change. We see this as both imaginative and re-imaginative work that invites, listens to, and learns together with the voices of the natural world and myriad different cultures all over the globe.

So, at this point, we want to pivot the conversation and spend some time exploring the work that might be done in environmental education, if we were to make eco-democracy a more explicit component, and goal, thereof.Footnote ⁴ What might environmental education look like if we take these seedlings seriously? How might environmental education best step into this work while recognising that the kinds of changes being advocated for are substantial and require pedagogical commitments that are themselves in line with eco-democratic ways? In order to do this, we want to offer a set of four eco-democratic commitments culled, thematically, both from the seedlings and historical discussions above, but also, in a nod to Kopnina et al’s suggestion, from other justice-seeking conversations.Footnote ⁵ We also think that by gathering the above discussions into a more concretisable group we are helping that very tricky work of translating between theory and practice. Thus, we end with proposing voice, consent, self-determination and kindness as four eco-democratic commitments for environmental education.

Eco-democratic commitments: Wilding education

In this section, we will spend a little time exploring the commitments and what educationFootnote ⁶ might become when situated in and responsible to and for an eco-democracy. Ultimately this is about imagining an education committed to being part of the eco-social-cultural change that an eco-democracy demands. An education that sees the importance of its role at the centre of cultural change but one that is criticality reflective enough to recognise the importance of creating something not known yet. The hope is that in walking through each of the four commitments, it becomes clearer how educators might consider and work with them. But before we turn in that direction we remind the reader that in our definition of an eco-democracy, all members, human and more-than, have rights, agency, gifts to offer particularly in reference to the project of changing, understanding, and reshaping the worlds of which we are all a part. This is a view of eco-democracy that is not limited to everyday life but also acknowledges the political dimensions, both as larger theory and with regard to practicalities of governance and is aiming towards a more mutually beneficial flourishing world. By way of conclusion we now turn to the four commitments and ask the reader to consider reading each as a kind of speculative fiction, a research method that thinks towards a possible, though not yet, other than real world (Brown, Reference Brown2017). What might a human educator positioned in an eco-democratic frame do? The hope is that in doing the work of imagining and potentially attempting we push things towards eco-democracy for if we change ourselves as educators then the world (e.g. our students, our communities, our assumptions) changes in response.