13Why Should the Public Participate in Environmental Decision-Making? 2014 22 1 Why Should the Public Participate in Environmental Decision-Making? Theoretical Arguments for Public Participation

In modern societies dealing with environmental issues has become a part of everyday life. Making decisions on waste- or water-related issues is part of the public discourse in Hungary as well. The Hungarian literature on public participation dis-cusses different participatory tools applied in particular policy fields. Public participation seems to have greater significance in environmental decisions than any other kind of democratic de-cision making processes. These experiences raise the question of ‘why should the public participate in making environmental decisions? ’ In this paper we are looking for the answers to this question analysing the literature on public participation and ex-ploring the relevant theoretical approaches. Arguments based on democracy theories, communication theory, sustainability, environmental democracy, risk research and behavioural eco-nomics will be summarized. The paper presents an analysis of how these different theoretical approaches treat public partici-pation in environmental decision making and what arguments they present for its justification. Keywords public participation · democracy theories · environmental decision-making · sustainabilit