Guest Post: How to build a new eco-social contract
Guest post by Andrew Norton*
Brighton and Hove has had both a Climate Assembly and a Youth Assembly. In this contribution, Andrew Norton reflects on the future of deliberative democracy. Can any of these ideas be useful in Brighton and Hove? Add your comments below.
The interaction of complex geopolitical threats has led to the emergence of a “polycrisis,” a chaotic and unstable set of emergencies that feed off and amplify each other. Great power conflict, declining multilateralism, rising energy and food prices, forced displacement, and sovereign debt are accelerating – and being accelerated by – the current and longer-term risk trends of climate, biodiversity loss and rising inequality.
Policies and technologies to address these complex intertwining challenges exist. But despite their well-documented benefits, they also will be disruptive, involve difficult trade-offs between up-front costs and long-term pay-offs, and are sure to be contested by powerful beneficiaries of the status quo. Securing sustained public support for such policies is the political challenge of our lifetimes.
A social contract provides a framework for action. Social contracts emerge from claims for recognition, rights, freedoms, and security, and govern – often implicitly – the relations between the many and varied groups that make up society. An eco-social contract is needed for the challenges of the 21st Century. It will need to operate at multiple scales, be inclusive of all communities, support rapid and sustained change, promote intergenerational justice, be open to the agency of nature, and seek to guarantee security and wellbeing for all in times of change.
But how will democratic polities move to enact – and finance – such transformative agendas and sustain them in the face of disagreement and debate, both good faith and otherwise? Transformative policy requires deep and enduring popular support. To deliver this, our existing political practices and institutions are insufficient. Indeed, they are already beginning to break down in the face of current challenges. Strengthening our existing governance structures will require a range of new democratic, deliberative, and mandate-building mechanisms.
Options include citizen’s assemblies, just transition approaches to economic and social change, participatory budgeting, and citizen dialogues.
Citizen Assemblies cover a wide range of issues and can be applied to address broad societal challenges such as economic reform, biodiversity loss, and climate change at multiple levels. While current application is limited in global scope, they are becoming key mechanisms for people to co-determine policies. They are also suited to extended periods of deliberation. Broad social movement support exists for both peoples and citizen assemblies.
Participatory Budgeting enjoys uptake globally and plays a critical role in the devolution of decision-making by enabling people to influence the allocation of public resources so that it advances economic reform. By supporting priority setting in budget allocations, people can ensure that their values, visions and plans for new economic models e.g. that create green and decent work and uphold human and nature's rights for instance, are reflected in what is being financed.
Just Transition Processes employ context-specific mechanisms, such as dialogue structures, community forums and focus groups, to produce negotiated agreements that integrate people's visions in economic strategies, investments and plans. They have expanded beyond trade union-led engagement on agreements that protect the rights of impacted workers and affected communities in clean energy transitions to broader societal engagement e.g. on gender-just transitions.
Citizen Dialogues have been applied globally with countless examples of citizen-led policy dialogues leading to progressive policy changes. They have been used to address complex policy questions and lead to detailed policy recommendations and proposals, making them suitable for deliberations on economic reform. Often an iterative process, citizen dialogues have kept people connected to policymakers by partnering with broader movements to monitor policy outcomes post-deliberation.
Climate Advisory Councils and Commissions while a recent democratic innovation will become a critical conduit for holding governments to account for climate commitments. They are integrating people's visions and needs in climate policy, and supporting citizen engagement in climate - a central pillar of the Paris Agreement. And they can evolve into a critical conduit for engaging with citizens and political assemblies on the economic reforms needed to meet net zero and low carbon goals
The appropriate deliberative approach will depend on context, and will need to assess questions of scale, administrative resources, popular mandate, and scope. It will also need to judge how best to engage different groups within society.
Navigating this space will require flexibility, sensitivity, and insight: all attributes more easily achieved together than alone.
Andrew Norton is a former Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development. He lives in Brighton.
This piece is based on a report for the Green Economy Coalition by Andrew Norton and Oliver Greenfield: ‘Eco-Social Contracts for the Polycrisis: Participatory mechanisms, Green Deals and a new architecture for just economic transformation’.
Image: Shutterstock
Perspective pieces are the responsibility of the authors, and do not commit Climate:Change in any way. Guest posts are published to explore issues or stimulate debate. Comments are welcome.