Deepening democracy for the governance toward just transitions in agri-food systems

Julia Tschersich, Kristiaan P.W. Kok*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the relation between democracy and justice in governing agri-food transitions. We argue that a deeper understanding of democracy is needed to foster just transitions. First, we present a multi-dimensional understanding of justice in transitions and relate it to scholarship on democratizing transitions. Then, we argue that three paradigm shifts are required to overcome current unsustainable dynamics: (1) from expert toward pluralist understandings of knowledge; (2) from economic materialism toward post-growth strategies; and (3) from anthropocentrism toward reconnecting human-nature relationships. We explicate what these paradigm shifts entail for democratizing transitions from distributive, procedural, recognition and restorative justice perspectives. Finally, we highlight six challenges to institutionalizing deep democratic governance. These entail balancing tensions between: multiple justice dimensions, democracy and urgency, top-down and bottom-up directionalities, local and global scales, realism and idealism, and roles of incumbent scientific systems. This requires thoroughly rethinking transition studies’ normative and democratic ambitions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)358-374
Number of pages17
JournalEnvironmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
Volume43
Early online date6 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The contribution by Julia Tschersich draws on insights elaborated as part of the research project “Right Seeds? Commons-Based Rights on Seeds and Seed Varieties for a Social-Ecological Transformation of Plant Cultivation”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) under grant [01UU1602A] within the framework of the “Research for Sustainable Development” (FONA). In FONA, RightSeeds falls within the funding priority “SÖF-Social-Ecological Research” within the funding area “Junior Research Groups in Social-Ecological Research”.

Funding Information:
The contribution by Julia Tschersich draws on insights elaborated as part of the research project “Right Seeds? Commons-Based Rights on Seeds and Seed Varieties for a Social-Ecological Transformation of Plant Cultivation”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) under grant [01UU1602A] within the framework of the “Research for Sustainable Development” (FONA). In FONA, RightSeeds falls within the funding priority “SÖF-Social-Ecological Research” within the funding area “Junior Research Groups in Social-Ecological Research”. We would like to thank Minna Kaljonen for providing valuable feedback on the paper, as well as the participants of the workshop on ‘Just food system transition’, held in preparation of this special issue, for their constructive comments on an early version of the manuscript. We thank the guest editors Minna Kaljonen, Teea Kortetmäki and Theresa Tribaldos for their valuable support and guidance. We are also very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their high-quality feedback and suggestions.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022

Keywords

  • Agri-food systems
  • Democracy
  • Governance
  • Just transition
  • Justice
  • Sustainability

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