THEORY
conversely, may enhance the speed with which evidence of environmental
damage is communicated to decision-makers. By forcing the institutions of
civil society to respond to popular demands, participatory democracy is more
likely to produce, if not morally perfect outcomes, then at least morally bet-
terones (ibid.: 128). Of course, a participatory democratic decision may still
give greater priority to material well-being than to environmental protec-
tion, perhaps by allowing a factory to release high levels of pollutants in
order to protect jobs in the local community. Nevertheless, by virtue of the
improved responsiveness gained from drawing on a wider circle of interests,
knowledge and skills, there is, on balance, a strong, if not overwhelming,
instrumental case for saying that participatory democracy makes ecological
outcomes more likely.
Asecond green argument for participatory democracy is that it will create
the conditions for the development of greater individual autonomy. In lib-
eral democracy, material inequalities, bureaucratic hierarchies and divisions
of labour in work and home deny the majority of citizens the opportunity
toshape their own lives; they are unable to become self-determining agents.
If democratic structures and opportunities to participate were prevalent in
all walks of life – at work, at school, in neighbourhood assemblies – then
people should learn to participate simply by participating (Pateman 1970 :
42–3). This involvement should nurture a ‘democratic personality’, which
shows greater respect for, and more responsibility towards, fellow citizens
(Gould 1988 ). Discursive democracy, by encouraging citizen involvement and
deliberation, enables preferences to be altered and encourages behaviour
that conforms to publicly agreed norms. Replacing the self-contained indi-
vidual of liberal democracy whose identity is only occasionally expressed
in the public sphere (notably by voting), the individual in a participatory
democracy is more likely to be a public-spirited citizen keen to promote
collective activities and community identity. At this point, greens give the
arguments for participatory democracy an ecological twist by suggesting
that this radical conception of democratic citizenship can also nurture ‘an
ecological citizenship capable of developing and giving expression to col-
lective ecological concerns’ (Plumwood 1996 :158). At the very least, active
citizen participation will educate individuals about environmental issues
because they will have access to more information and the opportunity to
exchange knowledge and views with fellow citizens. Further, once the shift
from ‘self-regarding’ individual to ‘other-regarding’ citizen has been made,
it is a much smaller step to extend that public concern to foreigners, future
generations and non-human nature (Eckersley 1996 ;Barry1999a). In short,
participatory democracy can help nurture an ecological consciousness.
If so, this second argument substantially strengthens the first claim that
participatory democracy improves institutional responsiveness: whereas bet-
ter responsiveness is concerned with theaggregationof preferences, greater
autonomy should also produce atransformationof preferences (Elster, quoted
in Barry1999a: 226). Indeed, it is the aggregation of preferences that (in