Socio-ecological inequality and the democratization process

Abstract

I focus my attention on what I consider are among the most significant obstacles and threats to substantive democratization and regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, which are the growing socio-ecological inequalities and injustices that have emerged in the whole region, particularly since the 1990s. I argue that the destruction of the material basis and the related conflicts and struggles flaring up as a result of increasing socio-ecological inequality and injustice in the region not only constitute and obstacle to the processes of democratic integration but also a threat to the progress and consolidation of substantive, not merely electoral democracy. Although there is a degree of convergence with ecologist arguments in the chapter, I draw my arguments from a sociology-grounded political ecology. In this perspective, I address here the socio-ecological dimension as a relatively neglected aspect in the analysis of democratization processes, and argue that this dimension constitutes a fundamental arena in the struggle for human emancipation, especially in relation to struggles for greater equality in the access to socio-ecological goods and services and in the protection from socio-environmental threats and dangers. I consider that socio-ecological problems are among the most difficult and thorny challenges facing the democratic integration processes taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean, at least when considered from the perspective of substantive, not merely electoral democracy.