Library

Scientific paper • 2012

What economic democracy for degrowth? Some comments on the contribution of socialist models and Cuban agroecology

By: Sébastien Boillat, Julien-François Gerber, Fernando R. Funes-Monzote

Abstract: While degrowth is about reducing energy and material flows in the economy while sustaining basic human needs, capitalism fosters the opposite trend. How then is degrowth to be implemented on a large scale? In line with different critical intellectual traditions, we argue that degrowth is unlikely to occur within an economy based on capital accumulation and free market of assets. Our...

Scientific paper • 2012

How to rebuild democracy, re-thinking degrowth

By: Onofrio Romano

Abstract: Can the degrowth project contribute to rediscovering the meaning of democracy? Can the establishment of a real democracy lead to building a degrowth society? And last, has the project of a “democratic degrowth” a real chance to succeed, from a political point of view? If not, how should degrowth be re-thought to foster democracy? These are the questions entertained in this opinion...

Scientific paper • 2012

Variants of de-growth and deliberative democracy: A Habermasian proposal.

By: Konrad Ott

Abstract: This article intends to determine the relationship between variants of degrowth strategies and prospects for further democratization. In a first step, four variants of degrowth policies are distinguished. In a second step, a Habermasian approach to deliberative democracy will be outlined which will be enriched by some proposals for environmental democracy. Finally, a position on...

Scientific paper • 2012

Economic democracy: A path for the future?

By: Nadia Johanisovaa, Stephan Wolf

Abstract: As opposed to political democracy and its attempts at power control in the public sector, the concentration of economic power, and its antidote, the concept of economic democracy, has received much less attention. In the paper, we first offer a definition of economic democracy as a “a system of checks and balances on economic power and support for the right of citizens to actively...

Scientific paper • 2012

Democracies with a future: Degrowth and the democratic tradition

By: Marco Deriu

Abstract: The interrogation of a possible connection between degrowth and democracy inspires some questions of political epistemology. Is degrowth a socio-economic project which can be simply proposed as an “issue” and a “goal” in the democratic representative system, without discussing forms and processes of the political institutions themselves? Is the degrowth perspective fully compatible...

Scientific paper • 2012

Growth and democracy: Trade-offs and paradoxes

By: Mauro Bonaiut

Abstract: The present paper attempts to reveal the relationships between some long-run systemic processes (on the economic, ecological, social and symbolic levels) and the theme of democracy. Starting from the distinction between democracy and autonomy, the paper focusses on its main issue: the trade-off between growth and autonomy. Continual growth can be produced, and indeed has been produced...

Scientific paper • 2012

Another Governance: Kicking Democracy’s Growth Habit

By: Bruce Jennings

From the text: So conceived, governance is a process that involves many institutions — in the economy, civil society, and religious and cultural organizations — in addition to the government legally defined. Governance is even more ubiquitous than the entity, also not identical with the government, called the state. Questions about the form that governance in a degrowth society should take are...

Misc • 2012

Re-politicising society, re-socialising politics with Degrowth

By: Vincent Liegey

What political strategy for a democratic and serene transition towards sustainable and desirable societies of Degrowth. This text presents the complementarity of the diversity of levels, approaches and strategies for the Degrowth movement. > In French

Interview • 2012

A Future for Education

By: Extraenvironmentalist, Michael M'Gonigle

[ Michael M'Gonigle // A Future for Education ] from Extraenvironmentalist on Vimeo. Interview with Michael M'Gonigle made during the International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas in Montreal 2012. Michael M'Gonigle is talking about education, also university education and how it is economised. He is criticising that university is like a training ground for professionals while it should...

Scientific paper • 2012

Growth and democracy: Trade-offs and paradoxes

By: Mauro Bonaiuti

Abstract: The present paper attempts to reveal the relationships between some long-run systemic processes (on the economic, ecological, social and symbolic levels) and the theme of democracy. Starting from the distinction between democracy and autonomy, the paper focusses on its main issue: the trade-off between growth and autonomy. Continual growth can be produced, and indeed has been produced...

Scientific paper • 2012

The City of Commons

By: Delia Del Gaudio

No abstract available Contribution to the 3rd International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Venice in 2012.

Report • 2012

The Future of European Democracy

By: Claudio Franzius, Ulrich K. Preuß

The EU debt crisis has clearly shown that the monetary union cannot be upheld without coordinated fiscal and economic policies. But many citizens are under the impression that their voices, and those of their national parliaments, are being sidelined in favour of ever-greater centralisation – and that, in the process, democracy is being eroded. Thus the debt crisis may easily trigger a crisis...

Scientific paper • 2012

The Geography of Energy Transitions. The emergence of local contexts as main actors of a sustainable turn

By: Luigi Gaudio

Abstract: Since the 1973’s oil crisis everyone on the planet was well aware of the economic development’s dependence from fossil fuels supply and their producers. Nowadays, just like then, an economic and energy crisis has once again highlighted this unsolved dependence. Dealing with such a complex dynamic implies a substantial shift in every country’s societal structure aspects: economic,...

Scientific paper • 2012

Grabbing of natural resources and environmental justice: breaking the circle

By: Annalisa Stagni, Mani Tese

Abstract: The consumption pattern in the north requires an intensive exploitation of natural resources in the south of the world, making some countries totally depending from the sale of their natural resources. The global north needs to stop consumption without limits of our environment and people must be aware that these limits exist, due to the finiteness of our world. Our lifestyles have a...

Scientific paper • 2012

From economism to autonomy: a value reading of the "Greek crisis"

By: Panos Petridis

Abstract: The density of events over the last years, together with the continuous scaremongering from the dominant political and media circles, has put the Greek society into an informal “economic state of exception”. Austerity measures and neoliberal policies such as large scale privatisations, under the name of “reform” or “modernisation” are presented as a painful but necessary evil and a...

Presentation • 2011

Wirtschaftsdemokratie als Fortschritt

By: Alex Demirovic

Vortrag von Alex Demirovic und Wolfgang Uellenberg-van-Dawen bei der Veranstaltung "Wohlstand ohne Wachstum?" des DGB 2011 in Berlin.

Scientific paper • 2011

Arbeit in der Postwachstumsökonomie - Wir senken das Bruttosozialprodukt

By: Alexis J. Passadakis

Herausgeber: Der Green New Deal wird weder die ökologische Krise bewältigen noch Arbeits losigkeit aus der Welt schaffen. Im Gegensatz dazu versuchen Konzepte für eine solidarische Postwachstumsökonomie beiden Herausforderungen gerecht zu werden.

Scientific paper • 2010

The experience of rurban squats in Collserola, Barcelona: what kind of degrowth?

By: Claudio Cattaneo, Marc Gavalda

Rurban squatting, Collserola, Degrowth, Transition in society, Do It Yourself, Alternative economic systems

Misc • 2010

Das Grand Hotel Europa vor dem Verfall

By: Michael Müller

Aus dem Text: Der Traum immerwährender Prosperität ist vorbei. Ökologische Selbstzerstörung und eine erodierte Demokratie sind das Desiderat der Hoffnung auf Freiheit und Fortschritt aus der Zeit der Aufklärung. Die Fixierung auf Wachstum treibt Europa immer weiter in eine tiefe Krise. Zeitschrift - politische ökologie 121/122 - 2010 - Nach dem Wachstum

Misc • 2010

Ausweg Ökodiktatur? - Wie unsere Demokratie an der Umweltkrise scheitert

By: Bernhard Pötter

Die Demokratie ist eine Erfolgsgeschichte, die vor allem in den Industriestaaten Frieden und Wohlstand sichert. Doch die Ökobilanz unseres politischen Systems ist verheerend. Trotz vollmundiger Schwüre zur „nachhaltigen Entwicklung“ ist kein überzeugendes Rezept gegen den Klimawandel und andere globale Umweltkrisen in Sicht. Hilft also nur noch die Öko-Diktatur? Nein, meint der renommierte...