Introduction

Many scholars have argued that democratic systems are functionally short-sighted because of the myopic preferences of voters and other influential political actors. People have cognitive biases against the future which make them more focused on their own near-term interests and less concerned about their future selves and future others. Democratic systems, it is argued, do little to check or challenge these biases. However plausible this argument might seem, it is predicated on an implausibly narrow conception of democracy, according to which existing preferences are largely unproblematically aggregated to produce collective outcomes. When democracy works that way, collective decisions are often short-sighted. In practice, however, democratic processes typically involve both shaping and registering the preferences, opinions and expectations of individuals and groups. We should therefore think more carefully about how democratic processes themselves might be used to encourage voters – and other political actors – to more seriously consider the future when making collective decisions (MacKenzie 2021b).

In this chapter, I argue that democratic leadership has at least three functions that make it useful – indeed, probably necessary – for initiating and supporting future-regarding collective actions: (1) aiding thinking; (2) forging joint commitments; and (3) mobilising action. I argue that each of these functions of democratic leadership helps us to navigate the democratic myopia problem. The catch is that we will need to make our democratic systems more future-regarding, and more deliberative, if we are going to create the conditions that are necessary for future-regarding democratic leadership to thrive.

It is surprising how little attention has been paid to the concept of future-regarding leadership among scholars of intergenerational justice, environmental politics and democratic theory. For example, Goodin's (1992) major work Green Political Theory largely ignores the topic of leadership, and leadership is not mentioned in a recent collection of essays about future-regarding political institutions (González-Ricoy and Gosseries 2016). Robin Eckersley acknowledges the importance of leadership in her book The Green State. As she explains, ‘visionary political leadership is essential for environmental capacity building (including constitutional reform) and the kind of diplomacy that leads to cooperative solutions to common problems’ (Eckersley 2004: 254).