James Meadowcroft

Who is in Charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a Complex World*

This paper explores one of the major challenges associated with governance for sustainable development: managing change in a context where power is distributed across diverse societal subsystems and among many societal actors. The discussion is divided into four parts. The first examines the idea of ‘governance for sustainable development’. The second considers the diffusion of power in modern societies. The third explores the extent to which this constitutes a problem for sustainable development. The final section advances some approaches to governing for sustainable development in a radically ‘decentred’ societal context.

Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance

The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in June is an important opportunity to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development. Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of Earths sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.

Implementing Sustainable Development

1. Introduction 2. Australia: Ecological Sustainable Development in the National Interest 3. Canada: From Early Front-runner to Flagging Anchorman 4. Germany: Regulation and the Precautionary Principle 5. Japan: Law, Technology, and Aid 6. The Netherlands: Ambitious on Goals - Ambivalent on Action 7. Norway: Reluctantly Carrying the Torch 8. Sweden: Progression Despite Recession 9. The United Kingdom: Political Change and Promising Rhetoric 10. The United States: Sorry - Not Our Problem 11. The European Union: Integration, Competition, Growth and Sustainability 12. Patterns of Government Engagement 13. Concluding Perspectives

Environmental political economy, technological transitions and the state

Over the past decade environmental concerns have increasingly been integrated into the management routines of both states and corporations. This is not to suggest that global environmental problems are becoming any less acute. On the contrary: despite some real accomplishments in controlling pollution, improving resource efficiency, preventing habitat destruction and protecting public health, the overall burden humans place on the global ecosphere continues to rise. On many fronts pressures already exceed critical ecological thresholds. Patterns of greenhouse gas emission, water use, biological resource harvesting, chemical release and soil degradation appear unsustainable. And yet environmental issues are more manifest in societal discourse, and better anchored institutionally, than ever before. Since the mid 1990s there has been an impressive growth in the literature of environmental political economy. This article will reflect on some recent developments in this field. After a brief overview, the bulk of the analysis will focus on one of the more dynamic areas of contemporary scholarship – the debate over technological system change and transition management. This area is of particular interest because the transformation of existing technological systems is critical to addressing contemporary environmental problems – such as human-induced climate change – and understanding how such a transformation can be brought about constitutes an important challenge. The discussion will conclude with some general observations.

Politics and scale: some implications for environmental governance

This essay explores themes related to differences of scale and the challenge of environmental governance. It argues that scale issues are always important in politics, but that the density of physical and social scales implicated in the constitution and resolution of environmental problems is particularly notable. It discusses recent changes in governmental approaches to managing environmental burdens in the developed countries, and considers the implications of scale-complexities for the future of environmental governance.

Sustainable Development: a New(ish) Idea for a New Century?

It is an intriguing fact of late twentieth century life that just at the time when philosophers had proclaimed the final death of ‘meta-narratives’, the collapse of grand modernist dreams for re-moulding man and society and consciously shaping the human future – indeed, even the end of ‘history’ itself – international political leaders have come to identify themselves with an ambitious new project intended to act as the focus of human endeavour in the twenty-first century. This new project is ‘sustainable development’, and over the past decade international organizations, national governments, and local authorities have increasingly come to cite it as a fundamental objective of their activity.

Governing societal transitions to sustainability

Our paper addresses the inherent tension between the open-ended and uncertain process of sustainability transitions and the ambition for governing such a process. We explore this tension from two theoretical angles: the sustainability and the governance angles; by showing the implications of sustainability targets in governance processes and governance attempts. We propose transition management as a governance approach that has the potential to overcome this tension through selective participatory processes of envisioning, negotiating, learning and experimenting. Transition management includes a portfolio of tools that have a common objective to enable change in practices and structures directed towards sustainable development targets. We present the transition arena and the transition experiments as two transition management tools elaborating on their process design, expected outcomes and illustrating their application in the Dutch construction transition.

Planning for sustainable development: Insights from the literatures of political science

Over the past decade European political leaders have increasingly come to refer to ‘sustainable development’ as a legitimate focus of government activity. Starting from the premises that sustainable development is a complex and contested ideal, and that experiences with state planning in the twentieth century have been deeply ambiguous, this article reflects on the insights which political science can shed on the new social project of ‘planning for sustainable development’. The discussion centres on three relevant political science literatures – meta critiques of planning, ‘new governance’ debates, and enquiries into policy related learning. Consideration of these perspectives suggest that to the extent that it is possible for ‘planning for sustainable development’ to attain its declared objectives this will depend upon the integration of sustainable development norms into existing planning structures and modalities, the extensive development of co-operative management initiatives, and vigorous debates about alternative futures. Coordination among the inevitably disjointed and partially contradictory efforts of multiple agencies will rely upon the integrative potential of the sustainable development norm, central government initiatives, and collision, negotiation and mutual adjustment.

Developing a framework for sustainability governance in the European Union

Sustainable development represents a major governance challenge of the 21st century. If societal development trajectories are to be realigned on to more sustainable pathways major changes will be required to existing processes and practices of governance. This essay considers the nature of these changes and discusses implications for social science research.

Co-operative Management Regimes: A Way Forward?

This chapter will explore the potential which a particular pattern of interactive decision making offers for the successful management of environmental problems in industrialised democratic states. The approach involves drawing together partners from different sectors of social life to collectively define and implement solutions to specific environmental challenges. Such negotiated environmental settlements can be described as ‘co-operative management regimes’ (Lafferty and Meadowcroft, 1996), but their character might also be captured by phrases such as ‘Collaborative environmental administration’, ‘environmental co-management’, or even ‘environmental corporatism’. Here it will be argued that such initiatives offer a promising alternative to traditional regulatory strategies in dealing with some of the more intractable environmental dilemmas.