Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Refining Green Political Economy: From Ecological Modernisation to Economic Security and Sufficiency

Refining Green Political Economy: From Ecological Modernisation to Economic Security and Sufficiency Abstract Perhaps the most problematic dimension of the ‘triple bottom line’ understanding of sustainable development has been the ‘economic’ dimension. Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin or frame sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or an attempt to make peace with ‘business as usual’ approaches. This article suggests that ‘ecological modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’ within the UK, and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from the UK Government. We take the view that the discourse of ‘ecological modernisation’ has provided discursive terrain for both pragmatic policy makers and a range of views on sustainable development, from weak to strong. In particular, the article suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’ and ‘sufficiency’ can be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevant path to outlining a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Analyse & Kritik de Gruyter

Refining Green Political Economy: From Ecological Modernisation to Economic Security and Sufficiency

Analyse & Kritik , Volume 28 (2) – Nov 1, 2006

Loading next page...
 
/lp/de-gruyter/refining-green-political-economy-from-ecological-modernisation-to-4ZAwsje07F

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the
ISSN
0171-5860
eISSN
2365-9858
DOI
10.1515/auk-2006-0208
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Perhaps the most problematic dimension of the ‘triple bottom line’ understanding of sustainable development has been the ‘economic’ dimension. Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin or frame sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or an attempt to make peace with ‘business as usual’ approaches. This article suggests that ‘ecological modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’ within the UK, and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from the UK Government. We take the view that the discourse of ‘ecological modernisation’ has provided discursive terrain for both pragmatic policy makers and a range of views on sustainable development, from weak to strong. In particular, the article suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’ and ‘sufficiency’ can be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevant path to outlining a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development.

Journal

Analyse & Kritikde Gruyter

Published: Nov 1, 2006

References