The need for a structural transformation of socially, politically and ecologically unsustainable modern societies is widely debated. For several decades, emancipatory social movements have pursued the deepening of democratic structures and the achievement of ecological goals as two equally important aspects of their emancipatory project. Indeed, the belief that these two dimensions are inherently connected to each other and that any societal transformation towards sustainability can only be a democratic transformation has become one of the orthodoxies of eco-political debates. Accordingly, good environmental governance and the legitimate environmental state have mostly been conceptualised as democratic governance and a democratic state.
This paper explores whether this belief in democracy may in fact be part of the glass ceiling that obstructs structural change. Following a brief account of various narratives of democratic transition, it first develops the argument that in contemporary consumer societies social attitudes towards democracy have become highly ambivalent, and that modern societies are, structurally, increasingly unsuitable for democracy. It then argues that the emancipatory project itself has given rise to notions of identity and self-realisation which are inherently unsustainable – and under conditions of the post-growth society highly problematic. In this scenario, what remains of democracy may be, rather than furthering the structural transformation towards sustainability, a tool for organizing and legitimating sustained unsustainability.
The paper aims to make a conceptual and theoretical contribution to understanding the glass ceiling to achieving a sustainability transformation. It abstains form making suggestions as to how the glass ceiling might be overcome. But it is driven by the belief that understanding the legitimation crisis of democracy and exposing the implausibility of the prevailing narratives of a democratic transformation may be an important step at least towards disrupting the current politics of sustained unsustainability.
