Climate change is an intergenerational issue but policy decisions in democracies tend to be short-termed. As a consequence, there is a high risk that democracies will infringe upon the interests of future generations. This provides good reason to consider institutional reform in democracy. Institutional reform can take many different forms and most often concerns legislative bodies. This paper focuses on proposals to represent future generations. These proposals seem to be most legitimate and promising to grant future generations their interests because they allow taking these interests into account most directly by using common democratic procedures. However, the paper argues that models suggesting reserving some seats for members in parliament to represent future generations are wanting. They are wanting because viewed through a normative-democratic lens they are neither legitimate nor are they promising regarding the transparency needed to assess representative’s performance.
The paper divides in three sections: By using Rehfeld’s general theory of political representation section 1 develops two conditions for political representation in democracy to be legitimate. First, the citizen body selecting representatives must be co-extensive with the citizen body accepting and making accountable representatives. Second, all members of the citizen body selecting representatives must have equal opportunities to get selected and accepted as representatives. These two conditions provide the main framework to assess critically the few existing models suggesting how to represent future generations in legislative bodies.
Section 2 shows why representation of future generations is not legitimate by developing two main arguments. First, since future generations do not yet exist the citizen body selecting representatives of future generations is not co-extensive to the citizen body which should accept these representatives as legitimate. There is a significant gap of accountability. Second, in order to secure that representatives of future generations in fact represent future generation’s interests most proposals argue for mechanisms to select specific citizens showing appropriate interest in sustainability. This leads to unequal opportunities among citizens. These considerations suggest exploring alternative modes of representation to secure more sustainable policy-making.
Section 3 will shortly discuss two alternative models, namely to reserve seats in legislative bodies for representatives elected to the purpose to represent the currently living’s interests in sustainable development and an additional legislative body created for the same purpose. The paper argues that both these approaches can be deemed legitimate because they fulfil the two conditions for legitimate representation suggested.
However, since according to both these proposals it is the currently living deciding what sustainable policy should be, they both come at high costs. Only those visions of sustainable development will be represented that the currently living endorse. Furthermore, it is only the latter more radical proposal which grants appropriate transparency to assess representative’s performance regarding their task to secure more sustainable policy-making. As both these critical arguments also apply to proposals of how to represent future generations the paper concludes rather sceptical.
