Since a more substantial recognition of environmental degradation in the 1960s, the scholarly community has looked at democracy with mixed feelings. Some assert that democracy is devastating for the environmental performance, some claim the opposite, while others suggest that certain democratic models are more successful than others in paving the way for sustainability. Both political theorists and empirical scholars add fuel to this debate, and neither has settled the argument yet. In this paper we make use of recently collected data from the Varieties of Democracy project on different conceptions of democracy and address both these literatures. We empirically test whether different features of democracies, i.e., liberal in its thinner understanding, social-liberal, and deliberative, are more or less beneficial for environmental commitments. We investigate which of these features make democracies more prone to produce environmental policy outputs – adopt climate laws, deliver on them, develop stringent environmental policies, and incorporate sustainability into economic policies. We find that democracies with stronger deliberative features adopt more, but not necessarily stricter or more effective, environmental policies. Instead, democracies with stronger social-liberal features adopt both stricter and more effective policies.

自从 1960 年代对环境退化有了更实质性的认识以来，学术界对民主的看法是复杂的。一些人断言民主对环境绩效具有破坏性，一些人则相反，而另一些人则认为某些民主模式在为可持续发展铺平道路方面比其他模式更成功。政治理论家和实证学者都为这场争论增添了动力，但双方都还没有解决这个争论。在本文中，我们利用最近从“民主多样性”项目中收集到的关于不同民主概念的数据，并对这两种文献进行了讨论。我们从经验上检验民主国家的不同特征，即理解较薄的自由主义、社会自由主义和审议性，是否或多或少有利于环境承诺。我们调查了这些特征中的哪些特征使民主国家更容易产生环境政策产出——采用气候法，实施它们，制定严格的环境政策，并将可持续性纳入经济政策。我们发现，具有更强审议特征的民主国家采用更多但不一定更严格或更有效的环境政策。相反，具有更强社会自由主义特征的民主国家会采取更严格和更有效的政策。环境政策。相反，具有更强社会自由主义特征的民主国家会采取更严格和更有效的政策。环境政策。相反，具有更强社会自由主义特征的民主国家会采取更严格和更有效的政策。