Sustainable Development: Reform or Revolution?
| Probably no proponent of sustainable development would dissent from any of the five principles identified in Session 3 (although some might suggest additional principles), but the nature and degree of support will vary. Different actors will attribute different meanings to each principle; for example, several fundamentally different definitions of the principle of equity have been applied to climate change negotiations. The relative importance attributed to each principle will also differ. The five principles are central to the discourse initiated by Brundtland, which is driven by a firm commitment to the development ethos, but this message has not been taken up with equal enthusiasm by all supporters of sustainable development. A Northern government may be more concerned about addressing domestic environmental problems than alleviating global poverty and social injustices, so it might emphasise planning, integration and the precautionary principle rather than equity. How far each principle is turned from rhetoric into reality will also depend on which version of sustainable development is in play. Consequently, assertions such as 'sustainable development requires X, Y or Z' need to be carefully considered because a weaker version may not require the same degree of change as a stronger version. For example, stronger forms of sustainable development demand that citizen involvement be encouraged wherever possible by the extension of participatory democracy, whereas weaker versions might be content with formal structures of representative democracy and greater consultation. Nor should the enormity of the barriers confronting the successful implementation of sustainable development be underestimated. The structural and institutional factors underpinning the traditional paradigm pose problems for all five principles. Not least, the demand for greater equity goes to the very heart of the capitalist system which underpins the structural power of business interests. The clarion call for greater democracy focuses on the first dimension of power by seeking more democracy where decisions are observable, yet the wider use of democratic mechanisms alone may have little impact if business is still able to exercise structural second-dimension power. Attempts to apply the precautionary principle more extensively are likely to encounter strong commercial and developmental pressures to allow new products such as GM crops, or to proceed with a project such as a new dam. The quest for greater integration and strategic planning will be obstructed by the institutional segmentation of the administrative system.  | |
| Thinking Point | | | How radical is sustainable development? | | |
Yet the potential radicalism of the sustainable development discourse also should not be underestimated. Sustainable development may accept the underlying capitalist system, but if the five principles were implemented as part of a strategy of very strong, or even strong, sustainability then the outcome would be a very different form of capitalism from that which exists today. Even an incremental process of weak sustainability might eventually gather sufficient momentum to generate extensive change. The great strength of sustainable development is that the compromises it makes with the current political and economic system may produce a more feasible programme of change than that outlined by deep ecologists. Sustainable development is driven by practical politics. It is regarded as the antidote to the romantic visions of a green utopia popular among ecocentrics, and it is preferable to 1970s-style pessimistic survivalist predictions that the catalyst for change would be a planetary eco-crisis. The proponents of sustainable development recognise that a wide and diverse range of interests need to be won over for lasting change to take place. By looking to reconcile the environment versus development dichotomy, sustainable development confronts the practical issues of agency that ecocentric ideologies tend to avoid or ignore. Sustainable development may be incrementalist, accommodationist and reformist, but (in the right hands) it can still be radical. |
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