Decentralized decision-making by those directly impacted is intrinsic to democracy.

Evidence

Rather than staying trapped, my students get further if we approach decision-making by asking not just who makes decisions but also where the decisions are made. I try to help students to differentiate between decentralized decision-making and centralized decision-making. Decentralized decision-making means that decisions are made by all those directly impacted. As decision-making rights are surrendered to representatives, decision-making moves toward a centralized and thus more authoritarian mode, and democracy is compromised. Think about a decision-making continuum with democracy or decentralized decision-making at one end and dictatorship or highly centralized forms of decision-making at the other. No matter the political framework, centralized forms of decision-making are faulty and by their very nature undemocratic. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 339

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames decentralized versus centralized decision-making along a democracy-dictatorship continuum — usable curriculum content for distinguishing procedural from substantive democracy.
• XREF: Pairs with the earlier ch.5 claim that broad inclusion in decisions improves outcomes; also resonates with eco-justice pedagogy’s local-community emphasis from the four-course polyad. — connects to: Citizenship as uncritical law-obedience is ethically indefensible when states harm communities. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 268; Human fallibility justifies democratic decision-making over imposed certainty — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 379; Broad inclusion in decisions improves outcomes and fairness — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 330 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• True democracy requires that every citizen can potentially govern #expands (0.75)
• Participation without control over parameters is not democracy but its evisceration #contradicts (0.70) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 247