Climate mobilizations and democracy: the promise of scaling community energy transitions in a deliberative system

ABSTRACT

Climate mobilizations to address the rapidly accelerating impacts of climate change are now an imperative; but can these processes be accomplished democratically? This paper shows how climate mobilizations and democracy can be mutually inclusive and explores the promise of scaling democratically produced climate mobilization actions in understudied locations in developing countries. This paper focuses on a case study of deliberation as communally practiced for expanding energy transitions in rural Thailand. Using observations, complemented by interviews and group discussions, the paper proceeds in two stages: (1) an empirical description of how such practice performed well against the ideals of deliberation: inclusive, authentic, and influential – thus underlining the compatibility between a robust democratic exercise and green outcomes; and (2) a normative proposal on how such small-scale transitions can be connected in a deliberative system thus enriching climate mobilizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological democracy
• climate mobilization
• deliberation
• energy transition
• community renewable energy
• Thailand

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at ‘Ecological Democracy: Always Greener on the Other Side?’ workshop at the University of Sydney in February 2017. I acknowledge and thank the generous people of Pa Deng for their time and participation in the study, Worajit Setthapun for suggesting the case study, and Cynthia Barakatt, Nicole Curato, Karin Bäckstrand, Jonathan Pickering, and two anonymous reviewers for their extensive and thoughtful comments on the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Laurence L. Delina conducts research at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. He is an Earth System Governance Research Fellow and an Associate at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He was a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2013 and 2015 and a Rachel Carson Fellow at LMU Munich in 2017. His most recent books include Strategies for Rapid Climate Mitigation: Wartime mobilisation as a model for action? (Routledge, 2016), Accelerating Sustainable Energy Transition(s) in Developing Countries: The challenges of climate change and sustainable development (Routledge, 2017), and Climate Actions: Transformative mechanisms for social mobilisation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Dr. Delina's research explores the governance and institutional arrangements in the politics and policy of sustainability, focusing on accelerated sustainable energy transitions and the climate action movement in the context of rapid mitigation to anthropogenic climate change.

ORCID

Laurence L. Delina http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8637-4609

Notes

1 One of the interviewees for this paper mentioned about a series of public engagement exercises on the future of solar photovoltaic installations in Thailand. ‘Energy experts’ participate in these exercises in Bangkok in 2013 and 2014. A group of academics, with support from a foreign government facilitated the exercises. No published account, both in the grey literature and peer-reviewed journals, exist about these exercises (Interview with a Bangkok-based Thai academic, 2016).

2 A 14 September 2018 search of the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences found only eight articles with the words ‘Thailand,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘environment’ in the title, keyword or abstract published in the last twenty-five years. The database Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) returned zero articles. In the ScienceDirect database, the search also yields none.

3 Note that there exists no official state statistics regarding this population.

4 This is often called ‘Moso’ in Thailand, short for ‘moderation society’ and is focused on living in self-sufficiency without natural resource overexploitation.

5 A biogas digester is a container holding a mixture of flammable gasses produced as anaerobic bacteria break down organic matter that can be used for cooking.

6 An Internal Review Board (IRB) determination from Boston University stated that this project is not human subjects research, hence IRB review is not required (Protocol No 4103X, notification provided on 29 April 2016).

7 Khun Kosol served as the network’s de facto leader. He was seen speaking about the network on television and was referred to as the ‘man behind Pa Deng’ during some of my interviews in Bangkok.

8 A management staff, which included Khun Kosol, a secretary, and a treasurer, handle administration and management of network’s finances.

9 1 USD = 35 THB.

10 Self-reported by resource persons during interviews and group discussions.

11 Members volunteered their homes for the venue, which was regularly transferred from one place to another.

12 The members at-large elect these champions for a one-year term.

13 Prioritization is important given the technology’s limited availability and its cost.

14 These two issues were also deliberated separately. Sanctions for absences and delinquencies were agreed and included fine imposition and benefit reduction (such as being listed at the bottom of the waitlist and reduced access to the network’s micro-credit facility).

15 Although there was evidence of younger network members, particularly and remarkably women, being enrolled in some leadership roles, there could never be a guarantee that the Pa Deng innovation could be sustained in the longer term.