The interface between local citizen-led action and representative democracy is right at the cutting edge of sustainable development.
There has already been a lot of work on community empowerment in relation to existing processes of local government (this is ‘inside-out’ thinking; mostly motivated by the need to reinvigorate existing processes of representative democracy).
‘Outside-in’ thinking would mean working with community groups that focus on sustainable development issues. It would mean a bottom-up process of thinking about how community organising could help democracy to work for sustainable development.
There are also wider questions about how community groups self-organise on issues related to sustainable development in the public sphere, and what happens when they choose not to engage with local government or to develop alternative approaches.
In the…
Category: Blog, democratisation
Tags: community empowerment, consultation, direct democracy, duty to involve, Infrastructure Planning Commission, local government, Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, Regional Development Authorities, representative democracy, Sustainable Communities Act, Transition Towns
Sustainable development, and party politics in the UK, are both fond advocates of localism and decentralism. In the case of the UK Conservatives, party leader David Cameron promises no less than the most “radical decentralisation” seen in a century if his party is elected. There is something of an environmental zeitgeist in this language too. One of the most visible meta-signals in the aftermath of the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit was disaffection with national and international level government solutions on the part of environmentalist civil society groups, and a corresponding emphasis on the importance of local activism and bottom-up solutions to the challenges of climate change.
Community-based activism on issues such as energy and food seems never to have been so vibrant as it now is in the…
Democracy finds it difficult to deliver robust and clear choices about whether to pursue ‘net’ sustainable development at local or at national level. The UK government’s promotion of ‘eco-towns’ is a case in point.
Opposition to eco-towns is far more significant in sustainable development policy terms than simple nimbyism (‘not in my back yard’ thinking on the part of local people). It reflects different views on how to operationalise sustainable development – and who should have responsibility for what.
My recent visit to one community included in the shortlisted eco-town proposal near St Austell, Cornwall, illustrates this.
The idea of ‘eco-towns’ was adopted by the UK Government in 2007. They are described by the department of Communities and Local Government as “new towns which…
