Governance for Sustainable Development—the Challenge of Adapting Form to Function

Extract

Governance for Sustainable Development—the Challenge of Adapting Form to Function, William M. Lafferty, ed., Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004, pp. xvii, 377.

What distinguishes sustainable development as a governance challenge? William Lafferty characterizes it as a normative long-term challenge that has been formulated “outside-in,” i.e., sustainable development has been developed and decided upon on an international level, and therefore first needs to be communicated “at home.” It is a transformative challenge in that it requires the decoupling of economic and social development from further damage to natural life-support systems; and as the problems with the use and protection of natural life-support systems do not fall neatly within the border of states, there is a need for co-operation on the regional and global levels. Finally, Lafferty speaks of a task “confronted by holistic interactions, interdependencies and unpredictable results” (20).