Citizens’ voice as a device for political choice

Abstract

We describe a theoretical model aiming to discuss the welfare implications of different institutional architectures, varying from complete centralised political choices to different degrees of subnational political autonomy, for the management of territorially located environmental resources like forest or ecological sensitive areas. By voting citizens express preferences regarding the desired political decision level. This issue is expressively important in the environment context since despite the increasing awareness of environmental questions, environmental degradation remains. Sustainability requires environmental governance which is only feasible if citizens are engaged and mobilised for it, which is ensured when their preferences are considered. The subnational political autonomy proposed in the model can assume two forms: the implementation of isolated communities or definition of a region. A trade-off between costsharing of environmental protection and the loss that result from sharing it with individuals holding different preferences is widely pondered. This model allows us to conclude that in the absence of inter-community compensatory transfers and in the presence of a unanimity voting system, citizens’ voice, stability and efficiency conditions are only guaranteed when citizens are completely segregated into homogenous communities or when there is a centralised political regime.