Image: Kate Raworth and Christian Guthier/The Lancet Planetary Health. CC BY 4.0.
The article “Can Cities Use the Doughnut Model to Hack Liberal Democracy?” published by Olivia Lazard in Carnegie Europe in February 2022, explores some of the challenges of creating sustainable economic systems. The Doughnut Model developed by Kate Raworth has been applied in many cities as a method to tackle the climate crisis. As centers of economic activity and democratic institutions, cities can lead the systemic change needed to support sustainable development.
Olivia Lezard explains: “The Doughnut methodology provides space to deconstruct climate action into social and economic agency—making it more palpable and accessible to citizens. The more this happens, the harder it will be for politicians to hide behind the argument that citizens aren’t mobilized by climate agendas. Citizens across the world have made it clear that they want to see more political and social action on climate change, but no political party so far has managed to connect the fundamental dots between redesigning socioeconomic systems, democratic resilience, and climate-responsive policies in line with today’s ecological emergencies. The Doughnut model may well help to hack democratic transformation on the climate front at long last..”
Doughnut Economics is a concept that proposes a method for amplifying social and economic agency as well as citizens’ engagement. Adopting this concept of planetary boundaries is at the heart of sustainable development and long-term thinking.
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- The full paper can be accessed via the Carnegie Europe website.
