Citizen participation in socio-environmental movements in Latin America

The objective of this article is to analyze the importance and the role of citizen participation in environmental public policies, from a Latin American perspective and according to the central category of social conflict. In this context, we highlight the importance of addressing the participation of one of the main actors in environmental discussions: socio-environmental movements, which question the binding nature of environmental policy and propose and advocate alternatives in order to implement development in harmony with nature. Faced with environmental issues, Latin American governments focused on implementing social, political, and institutional changes in order to include the environmental dimension into their structure and political decisions. However, in the context of a world dominated by economic rationality, our region has seen the emergence of the so-called "new" social movements, which join forces with old struggles for land and attempt to combat the destruction and spoliation of nature and the degradation of the environment, while advocating the quality of life of the population. Their struggle goes beyond the mere defense of an unspoiled nature and of the ecological, since they promote a transformative process that reflects the collective actions of society to respond to the challenges posed by the interaction between the natural and the social ecosystems in this specific historical moment. The topic discussed here makes it possible to observe two conceptions of democracy: a formal one, based on rules of procedure that grant legitimacy to the manner in which rulers are selected, and a substantive one, which seeks to guarantee a just social order in terms of citizens' effective exercise of their rights. In between, we have the idea of an environmental participative democracy that allows citizens to become actors that influence the design of environmental policies.