The objective of the project, financed under the European Community 7th Framework Programme, is to provide the EU with conceptual and methodological tools to operationalise sustainable development as a policy paradigm in the face of key global challenges. It involves collaboration between LSE and leading academic institutions from France (IDDRI, Sciences Po) and Germany (Free University Berlin).
Broadening the utilitarian, state-centred, and market failure approaches often mobilised to analyse global governance problems, we develop a reflexive framework within which current narratives of sustainable development are examined to identify the necessary elements of a sustainability transition (e.g. the role of sovereignty and democracy, distributive justice, risk management and environmental security). In this approach, the policy making process itself will be scrutinised and integrated as a key determinant of intended policy outcomes.
This reflexive framework will be employed to address the interlinked global governance challenge of climate change and the bottom billion. It will be informed by a Europe-wide opinion survey and deliberative workshops, ascertaining whether sustainable development can become part of a new social contract between EU citizens and their representative institutions.
The project's main outputs are threefold: firstly, identifying methodological tools to gauge citizens' heterogeneous preferences across a range of sustainable development issues; secondly, developing conceptual tools to better understand how sustainable development can inform EU policy making processes; and, thirdly, proposing building blocks for a renewed dialogue on global governance for sustainability within and beyond the EU.
For further information, please visit the project's homepage
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