Australian Indigenous environment policy as a deliberative system

ABSTRACT

Despite increased understanding of Indigenous environmental values, governments still fail to respectfully incorporate these values into environmental policy. Deliberative democratic theory can help to better understand this problem. First, by recognising Indigenous democracy as a distinct deliberative system and drawing attention to this ‘invisible’ democratic contribution to the larger democratic system. Second, the resistance of Indigenous environment policy to openly address Indigenous environmental values, can be understood as weakness in transmission between Indigenous peoples and the settler state. Third, Indigenous deliberative forums linked to the state may help overcome some of these barriers in environment policy. Deliberative democracy draws attention to environmental relations between Indigenous peoples and the state not simply as Indigenous policy making but as democracy making.

尽管人们对原住民的环境价值观有了更多的理解，政府却仍无法将这些价值观纳入其环境政策。商议民主的理论有助于理解这一问题。首先，要承认原住民的民主是一种独特的协商系统，要关注这一“看不见的”民主对更大民主制度的贡献。其次，抵触原住民的环境政策，不能公开面对原著民的环境价值观，这是原住民与定居者政府之间沟通的弱点。再次，与州相关的原住民协商论坛或许有助于克服环境政策上的一些障碍。协商民主聚焦原住民与政府的关系，并不仅仅涉及原住民政策的制定，也涉及民主的形成。

KEYWORDS:

• Deliberative democracy
• transmission
• Indigenous environment policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roger Davis

Roger Davis is a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. His research uses deliberative democracy frameworks to develop new insights into the relationship between indigenous peoples and the state.