In the context of eroding democratic institutions and increasing discontent within communities and structurally weak regions, the EU – in collaboration with national and local governments – seeks to bring its policies closer to citizens. Citizens are increasingly involved in place-based approaches to reducing disparities and developing innovative interventions for sustainability transitions. Place-based approaches recognise that transitions have political, economic, and social consequences with a clear territorial dimension. By involving citizens in building these approaches, the EU-led governance arrangements seek to increase citizens’ ownership of policies and rebuild their trust in democratic institutions.
A place-based perspective requires policymakers to support justice in the move towards a more sustainable future. However, embedding this perspective in the deliberative governance of sustainability transitions is challenging. In particular, the participation of vulnerable societal groups in the co-creation of place-based policies for sustainability transitions faces many barriers. Although transitions have consistently significant impacts within regions reliant on energy-intensive industries, these groups experience transitions differently. Phasing-out industries usually have older, low-skilled, and male-dominated workforces. In these diminishing sectors, women are often over-represented in supportive roles, such as lower-paid service work and unpaid care work. Young people are often directly affected by transition policies, as economic restructuring is regularly accompanied by high youth unemployment in regions. Despite being disproportionally affected, these groups are often the least politically engaged. Motivational and practical barriers hinder their involvement. Many aspects of just sustainability transition policy measures, such as their technocratic priorities and top-down set-up, also deter participation.
For just sustainability transition measures to succeed, they must tailor solutions to the unique characteristics of each region and mobilise commitment from vulnerable communities that are least engaged but most affected by transitional challenges. Otherwise, they risk the perception of creating ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, eroding trust in governance, increasing resistance to change, and exacerbating polarisation and social unrest. Against this background, the DUST project seeks to improve our understanding of how place-based approaches to just sustainability transitions can be democratised to maximise citizen participation and increase trust in democratic governance.
Objectives
1 – DUST will develop a novel assessment frameworkto analyse the scale, scope, and form of citizen participation in deliberative and representative forms of democratic decision-making. Applied to multiple case studies, it will allow us to compare participation under key place-based policy interventions at EU, national, and sub-national levels.
2 – Case study research will be undertaken to investigate the factors that have enhanced or hindered citizen participation as part of democratic life. Quantitative and in-depth qualitative research will provide a deep understanding of how multi-level, place-based policy interventions are responding to the concerns of least-engaged communities vulnerable to sustainability transitions, and how these communities perceive policymaking.
3 – Participatory experiments will be conducted to test the potential of a hybrid format that applies innovative design-led territorial and digital tools for citizen participation in just sustainability transitions. The results will show how these novel instruments can empower communities by enhancing their ability to envision regional structural change, build capacity through consensus formation in an inclusive decision environment, and position themselves more strategically and forcefully in democratic life at scale.
4 – The project will build on these insights to deliver a set of policy recommendations and methodological guidance for civil society organisations, the EU, national and subnational governments, and academia to support the delivery of place-based policies for just sustainability transitions that enhance citizen participation and trust in democratic governance, especially among least-engaged communities.
