Democratizing Global Climate Governance

Climate change presents a large, complex and seemingly intractable set of problems that are unprecedented in their scope and severity. Given that climate governance is generated and experienced internationally, effective global governance is imperative; yet current modes of governance have failed to deliver. Hayley Stevenson and John Dryzek argue that effective collective action depends crucially on questions of democratic legitimacy. Spanning topics of multilateral diplomacy, networked governance, representation, accountability, protest and participation, this book charts the failures and successes of global climate governance to offer fresh proposals for a deliberative system which would enable meaningful communication, inclusion of all affected interests, accountability and effectiveness in dealing with climate change; one of the most vexing issues of our time.

Hayley Stevenson is Lecturer in International Relations and Global Environmental Politics at the University of Sheffield. She is the author of Institutionalizing Unsustainability: The Paradox of Global Climate Governance (2013). John S. Dryzek is Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and Professor of Political Science in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Australian National University. His recent books include The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society (co-edited with Richard Norgaard and David Schlosberg, 2011) and The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, 3rd edition (2013).