For decades now, collusion between governments and corporations as well as the short-termism of 4 year election cycles are some of the causes that have prevented politicians from taking bold action to tackle the climate crisis and act in the best interests of people today as well as those of future generations. We are currently living in an age of political myopia and social polarisation, with nationalism and inequality on the rise and consumerism as the driver of our wellbeing and happiness. Crackdowns on democracies and shrinking civil spaces are increasing across the globe. The 2021 Freedom in the World report records the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, with the countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began in 2006. Civil rights and freedom of speech are under attack and environmental defenders increasingly at risk in many parts of the world.

Cultivating a sense of belonging and promoting alternative visions of living that integrate long term thinking and emphasise what we have in common, rather than maintaining short termism and focussing on what separates us, is possibly the defining challenge of our present times. Our future as a civilization might depend of how we come together, collaborate on a grand and small scale to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, how we cultivate shared democratic values, how we talk and listen to each other, how we give and take from society or put in and take out from the planet, and how we respect diversity and understand rights and responsibilities including those of future generations. At the core of all this, public participation and some of the most ancient indigenous practices can enable us to become active citizens and reimagine democracies rooted in long term thinking, community led decision making, cooperation and solidarity. Becoming an active citizen is key to tackling many of the economic, political, social and even psychological problems humanity is facing today. It is a way to beat apathy and the mindless corporate-driven consumerism that promotes instant gratification, materialistic values and is linked to lower life satisfaction, particularly in the Western world, but also more recently in emerging economies. Becoming an active citizen entails doing 'things' to improve the lives of others and future generations, not only changing one's lifestyle and volunteering but also by questioning the way things are done or taking action in order to make a difference. It is also about practising democracy in the sense of political engagement and democratic participation at all levels, local, national and global.

The good news is that radically new ways of doing democracy are being activated through experiments in popular assemblies, participatory budgets, citizens forums, distributed networks, co-production, co-operatives, as well as civil disobedience and direct action that call attention to injustices.

Using cities as a starting point to spark participatory democracy

Cities are leading the way on climate action and becoming more politically powerful. Cities have the flexibility and adaptability to become resilient and responsive to long term problems. They are also the starting point for the ongoing transformation of democracy, where most of the exploring, testing and promoting of democratic innovations and experiments are happening and sparking public participation. The Intergenerational Solidarity Index shows that the more decentralised a government is in its decision making, the better it performs in terms of long term public policy.

Participatory democracy seems to be present in cities in the form of participatory budgets, town hall meetings or citizen assemblies.

• • Participatory budgets are a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making, in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. PB started in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, as an anti-poverty measure that helped reduce child mortality by nearly 20%. Participatory Budgeting implies more inclusive and transparent forms of governance and redirecting spending priorities to where it is most needed, improving citizens’ quality of life, creating better institutions and enabling citizens to take action on issues such as climate change.

  • Citizen assemblies are composed of ordinary citizens, not elected politicians, who are invited to discuss an issue and make recommendations about policy. They are a form of participatory-deliberative democracy with a focus on consensus-building and are potentially pivotal to encouraging comprehensive civic participation. They promote values of affiliation and universalism and are a way to share and learn from each other's experiences. A citizen’s assembly on climate justice could empower citizens to take the lead in the climate emergency. Politicians will follow. The result could be a call on national governments, regional and global institutions to create and be led by citizens’ assemblies to address the climate emergency.

These forms of democracy can elevate the figure of the active citizen who:

• • can transform cities, putting the right for access to water and sanitation, housing, transport, food, green spaces and nature at the centre and scaling up climate ambition at the regional and national level.

  • engage with the needs of the community and create citizen-led ground-up solutions where the commons thrive and “social infrastructure” fills the void created by a lack of physical infrastructure.

Calling for Planetary and/ or Intergenerational justice and equity that:

• • Prompts a mindset shift from short-termism to legacy and cathedral thinking as well as the adoption of long term thinking when taking decisions over investments, practices and policies that will affect current and generations to come.

  • Advocates for intergenerational rights that seek a fair balance between meeting the needs of current and future generations or planetary rights that provide legal personhood to non-human entities such as rivers and forests.

  • Seeks ways to represent the interests of future generations in our institutions so costs and benefits of long term decisions are factored in.

Exploring, experimenting and supporting alternatives to ownership and business models that:

• • challenge the extractive and exploitative neoliberalism model at the workplace, embrace democratic ownership of business and promote small, not-for-profit cooperatives, including platform cooperatives .

  • strengthen the relocalisation of the economy so that local & regional communities can become “prosumers” e.g have control over the means of production, distribution, exchange and markets, and provide for all basic needs. Dependence on private property and global trade is minimized, without falling into the trap of xenophobic closure of boundaries to “outsiders”. Larger trade and exchange, if and where necessary, is built on – and safeguards – this local self-reliance. Nature, natural resources and other important elements that feed into the economy, are governed as the commons. Non-monetized relationships of caring and sharing regain their central importance and indicators are predominantly qualitative, focusing on basic needs and wellbeing.

Sparking new narratives and positive stories that:

• • Amplify Indigenous people’s practices and narratives of agency and true democracy such as the seventh generation principle that calls for intergenerational justice and equity and collective responsibility.

  • Enhance community power within and across society.

  • Enable us to re-imagine our democracy with community-led decision-making at the centre.

  • Move us towards the democratisation of ownership.

  • Encourage people to become active citizens taking both individual and collective action which becomes the role model for our society.

People understand what becoming an active citizen means vs just being apathetic consumers, going beyond leveraging their consumer power and engaging themselves in decision making, shaping policies and legislation and collectively checking on corporate and political power. Communities, relationships, connections and experiences take priority over things and reward systems are built that mirror these behaviours as socially desirable. Acknowledging and adopting some of the practices of Indigenous communities that encourage a legacy mindset and long term thinking and that live up to a more inclusive and real democracy based on the values of affiliation, universalism, respect and dignity, human rights, the rights of nature, equality and equity, among others.

Case studies:

There are communities around the world that have already shown how indigenous practices and participatory democracy can empower their citizens to build agency and take action, and make the government more responsive to public needs and deliver more equitable outcomes .

Initiatives by Indigenous communities
Indigenous communities have inspired a growing movement with their seventh-generation thinking e.g Earth Guardians, a global youth organisation that aims to project our planet and its people for the next seven generations, or Future Design in Japan, a political movement that works to incorporate the interests of future generations into policy making.

They have also challenged the political hierarchies inherent to liberal democracy to achieve greater power distribution for people and communities;

• • Abahlali baseMjondolo, a movement campaigning for South Africa's notorious shack developments, has been labelled 'neurotically democratic' – but its leader prefers to call it 'living communism'

  • Several rural communities in India have asserted various degrees of autonomous political and economic governance, insisting that even as they respect the Indian Asia Pacific Perspectives Kothari Constitution, in their regions they want to be the primary decision-makers, which according to them is the true meaning of democracy. Villages in Gadchiroli region of Maharashtra, and in Adivasi areas of Jharkhand, have made these assertions in the face of threats by mining, dams, and other “development” projects.

  • The Kurds in the region straddling Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, are attempting to devise a society based on eco-feminist, direct democracy principles, in the midst of a militarized, conflict-ridden region.

Citizens/ community lead initiatives

• • In Brazil, the Porto Alegre municipal government introduced participatory budgeting back in 1989 in order to improve their citizens’ quality of life and health while aiming for democratization and decentralization.

  • In Spain, Decide Madrid is a technology platform that has registered over 200k citizens who take part in participatory budgeting process allocating over 100 million euro of city funds annually and that lead to a new and more sustainable mobility model among other successes.

  • Open streets in Cape Town aim to tackle mobility challenges in such a city. Bike Bus involves groups of commuters cycling together in and out of the city at pre scheduled times and along predetermined routes, as a way to safely navigate roads dominated by cars and unsafe neighbourhoods. In addition to addressing safety concerns, this initiative provides a viable economic alternative for residents living on the outer fringes of the city, while promoting a just and climate-conscious future.

Rights - based campaigns

• • Urgenda case, won based on the rights of living Dutch citizens to a safe climate in the future.

Use this moment of disruption to:

SHIFT MINDSETS
Create a new normal, change cultural practices and promote values and norms that reward sustainable lifestyles and decision making and penalise destructive behaviour.

FROM: Short-term thinking
TO: Cathedral thinking/ Legacy mindset/ Intergenerational rights/ Seventh Generation principle.

FROM: Materialism, consumerism, extractivism and individualism
TO: Collective responsibility. Social involvement and active citizenship. Community and mutual aid values as a way to become more resilient.

FROM: Apathetic mindset of “my contribution is irrelevant”
TO: A more active participation in being part of the solution and on what it means to live a healthy, wealthy and happy life within the environmental boundaries. “We as neighbours” and “We as citizens”.

FROM: Only the free market and extractive models can spark happiness by creating economic growth.
TO: The economy must work within the environmental limits of the planet.

FROM: Having more stuff makes me happy.
TO: Self-worth is linked to our relationships and experiences, not buying more stuff.

FROM: Nationalism
TO: Global and national cooperation and solidarity, interconnectedness and reciprocity

FROM: Populism
TO: Universalism as in accepting others in an inclusive manner, with democratic engagement, respect and dignity, human rights, the rights of nature, equality and equity, among others.

FROM: Capitalism and democracy can not be set apart.
TO: Alternatives driven by and for citizens that put people, the environment and human relationships at the core of the economy make our democracies stronger.

SHIFT POWER
1. Call for legal mechanisms to guarantee the rights and wellbeing of future generations and ensure intergenerational equity. Calling for earth and children’s rights is a milestone to get there.

2. Unsettle power dynamics and force the political and economic elites to change to eventually redistribute power from the few to the many. By building and sustaining people and community power over decisions the balance of power can be shifted. When the community takes action, it becomes more resilient, therefore more independent and sufficient. Community power is about investing in and developing the deep relationships and trust necessary to move the work forward, listening to each other’s experiences, allowing the people closest to the issues to name what they need in order to thrive, and continually showing up for each other, because people’s lives depend on it. A good example of this is the democratisation of energy which can have deep political implications and shift power. As ownership and distribution become local, communities start to feel their sense of agency and want other issues to be decided locally.

3. Support new models of participatory democratic governance led by and for communities traditionally left out of decision-making spaces as:

• • Indigenous and grassroots practices, experience and interactions based on pluralism, a legacy mindset, ecological wisdom and resilience, where humans are one with nature, and which are based on social wellbeing and justice, with democracies that distribute the decision making power evenly, and where people own the means of production and distribution.

  • Participatory democracy and bottom-up, grassroots-based decision making and budgeting e.g. citizens assemblies and participatory budgets are a central element of political decision-making that limit the influence of big money and engage citizens directly in the fight against inequality and the climate emergency. Binding, expert supported, representative and transparent Citizens Assemblies on climate and ecological justice are one of the core demands of the Extinction Rebellion movement.

  • P2P politics, city of the commons and municipal coalitions that are very commoning oriented and enhance participatory and democratic processes e.g European Commons Assembly, a pan-European network of commoners engaged in political action, or the Citizens Assemblies on Climate and Ecological Justice in Ireland and in progress in the UK.

SPARK STRUCTURAL CHANGE and CREATE ENVIRONMENTAL BOUNDARIES

• • Promote new business models
    Promote new business models similar to Cooperatives, that democratize the workplace and distribute ownership, power and wealth equally among those who create the value, in many cases helping to provide full employment for the unemployed and marginalized. In some cases there is direct action activism with housing, land, business, and factory occupations.

  • Demand community-centered approach
    Demand a community-centered approach where public spaces are used for arts, culture and activities which bring us together instead of being sold to corporations, and public investment in infrastructure that brings communities together such as cultural and sports centres, theatres, and community centres.