DEMOCRACY AS A POLITICAL PRECONDITION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION

The serious threats to the environment have lately emerged as an issue of fundamental international importance. This article argues that pro tecting the environment is at heart a management question and that a d emocratic regime is a precondition for good management. Democracy faci litates protection of the environment both indirectly and directly. It protects the environment indirectly by discouraging war (democracies seldom go to war against other democracies), hindering the development of famine, and creating the conditions that slow population growth. B y creating a zone in which such acute crises are held at bay, democrat ic government makes management of the environment possible. More direc tly, governments must have the awareness, the knowledge, and the will to react to environmental problems. Democracy is most likely to promot e all three, with the free flow of information being the single most c ritical element. The record of democratic governments with respect to protecting the environment is mixed as yet but it remains difficult to imagine how more authoritarian forms of government could better meet the challenge.