Democracy and environmental inequality

This chapter explains how undemocratic decision-making processes produce social and environmental harm and social and environmental inequality in the United States and around the world. We begin with a brief theoretical discussion. We then present two case studies. In the first, we examine how undemocratic pipeline approval and construction processes in Minnesota have produced environmental inequality in Minnesota and around the world. We then explain how, using undemocratic organizational mechanisms, the U.S. has pushed two globally undemocratic organizations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to promote socially and environmentally harmful policies around the world, in the process producing great social and environmental inequalities within and among nations.