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The Politics of Sustainable Development: Emergent Arenas and Challenges for Political Science

Meadowcroft, J. (1999). The politics of sustainable development: Emergent arenas and challenges for political science. International Political Science Review, 20(2).

This article analyzes three developments toward sustainable development in industrialized nations in the late 1990’s with a focus the United Nation’s work with sustainable development and environmental policy initiatives. These developments/activities studied represent national efforts, rather than local or state efforts, to engage with sustainable development. Studying these developments help further the understanding of the lengths at which sustainable development and environmental policy has become more of a priority for political actors and changed patterns of institutional behavior.

The three developments/activities studied are; the preparation and creation of national environmental policy, the growth of multi-party environmental governance, and any emergence of Sustainable Cities and/or other related initiatives. Meadowcroft (1999) states that there are other important indicators political scientists need to study in order to identify emerging attention paid to sustainable development in different nations such as “green taxation,” but breaking it done into the three in the article simply allows for identification of progress and impact.

Studying national environmental policy plans provide insight into the debate about social and economic planning practices and the ability for a government to actually change the direction of their development. Studying any emergence into multi-party environmental governance allows for a more thorough understanding of intergovernmental relations, public private partnerships, and aspects of pluralism that develop around large issue such as environmental policy. Recognizing any moves toward implementing Sustainable Cities or Agenda 21, a 1997 United Nations General Assembly sustainable development initiative, provides insights into which countries have committed to sustainable development and at what pace.

When this article was written in 1999 it found that environmental policy and sustainable development was breaking into the forefront of political focus. Meadowcraft (1999) finds that in many countries, i.e. Netherlands and Great Britain, environmental agencies and organizations were becoming more powerful and emerging as important political actors. The article also finds that sustainable development work had become more institutionalized in daily government activity and that corporations were taking environmental and sustainable development politics more seriously. These indications mark the start of the modern focus on sustainable development. Meadowcraft (1999) uses these findings to call for the field of political science to move environmental policy and sustainable development more central to the field of study given its increased salience.

Though this article is fifteen years old it provides insight into the state of environmental policy and sustainable development at the beginning of its move into the mainstream of political focus. This article also provides a simple framework for assessing nation state progress toward sustainable development and gives the reader the opportunity to assess the progress nations and organizations have made over the last fifteen years with sustainable development initiatives.