This chapter discusses an analysis of the current social, economic, and environmental predicaments that drive a widely shared sense of global crisis and a consequent growing desire for transformation of governance practices, thereby establishing the empirical rationale for this inquiry. During unstable times that revisiting the relationship between the individual and society becomes crucial. It provides a study of the empirical conditions that characterize the struggles for a sustainable existence, carefully considering the implications as our world becomes increasingly globalized and a capitalist market-oriented worldview becomes more pronounced. The crisis is here presented under three perspectives: the social, economic, and environmental. According to the authors, the political effects of ontological competition have led to a negative situation in all the three issues considered. What is stressed by the analysis is the fact that representative democracy has been influenced by many different interests, especially the market ones. This shift of power from the public to the private dimension needs to be produced social, economic, and environmental crises. According to Carley and Smith, to be democratically authentic participation efforts must represent a "genuine devolution of authority." The concept of participation is presented is particularly interesting. Participation cannot be repressive or it will devolve into the inauthentic practice of cooptation. According to Follett, authentic participatory practices should be the only "true democracy." I particularly appreciate the section about the environmental crises which deal firstly with climate change and secondly with the growing concern over genetic and biotechnological engineering of food, animals, and people. The scientific community agrees that the impacts of climate change have impacts on the entire globe, "from melting glaciers, sea ice and tundra, to extreme weather events and drought." Some coastal human settlements have already been inundated by rising seas. Along with the hot issue of climate change, agricultural and industrial practices also wreak havoc on biodiversity at local, regional, and global levels. Indeed, many biologists argue that a sixth mass extinction is already underway. The author underlines the complexity of these topics in this era of crisis, suggesting the potential of participation while trying to tackle them.
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