Towards Environmental Democracy

The environment is already wrecked and polluted and suffers from bad management by former and present governments and generations, consequently a theoretical possible solution to achieve the common interest could be found in a radical change of political and legal structures of power as well as in a widespread alteration in the behavior of environmental citizens. Hence, every governmental decision should consider and value all possible impacts on the environment, and in this process of assessment it should include individuals in a function to exercise control over the act of the government, therefore contributing to decisionmaking. Thus, from a theoretical point of view, this thesis suggests the possible transformation of the actual political and legal structures into an environmental democracy, where the environmental values become fundamental for decision-making in all matters which could have negative impacts on the environment presently and in the future. The objective of this thesis is therefore to analyze the concept of environmental democracy, its elements. This includes form, space and actors, and whether environmental democracy exists merely as a theoretical construction or whether it can also be found in practice