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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The concepts of “sustainable development” and “ecological modernization” are todays’ main discourses of action
on the global environmental crisis. However, the quest of priorities interpretation within concepts is raised: there
is a path dependence of the hegemonic worldview of techno-economic progress that was supposed to be overcome.
The objective of this text is to analyse how this dependence influenced the evolution of such concepts and their
operational proposals. Methodologically, the research is based on a literature review on discourses of these
concepts. A typology of “strong” and “weak” discourses highlights the possibilities of “business as usual” in its
operational interpretation as well as the ways to overcome it. The results show that the confrontation between them
lead to a conceptual evolution of sustainable development and ecological modernization that merges into a
common agenda: the governance of ambivalence between economic and social progress and environmental
frontiers. The text concludes by proposing the existence of a discursive game between “survival” and “tranquillity”.
This highlights an essential tension between environmental mitigation and institutional change that has
accompanied the political agenda in the past 50 years. The resulting reflexive governance as a choice implies a
broad participation in decision-making processes so that environmental trade-offs are collectively discussed, and
responsibilities are shared. Notwithstanding, the article claims that this essential tension further implies
questioning if governance may not also be a new discourse of appeasement and political unaccountability.
Description
Keywords
sustainable development, ecological modernization, “strong” and “weak” approaches, discursive boundaries