Sustainable development and the need of cooperation
Sverker C. Jagers
Department of Political Science
Gothenburg University
Content
• Sustainable development
• Challenges
• Focus on the theory of social dilemma
• How to overcome/manage social dilemmas?
• Back to where we started (if we are lucky…)
Sustainable development
• Historical review
Sustainable development
Stockholm 1972
The Brundtland report 1987
Rio
1992
Agenda 21
1992- 2002
Johannesburg 2002
Environ-ment?
The Brundtland commission motto
”Meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED 1987:87)
Sustainable development according to Brundtland
• Three components– Social development– Economic development– Ecological sustainability
The relationship between the three components
Social dev.
Economic dev. Ecological sust.
Social development
• Poverty
• Social development also in rich countries
Economic development
• Development not ”growth”
• The traditional view
• ”More with less”
Ecological sustainability
• Ecological frames
• Robustness of eosystems (”resilience”, socio-ecological systems)
• Ecological footprints
The content
Present conditions
Example CO2USA Sweden China Ethiopia
Try it, you will like it!
http://www.mec.ca/Apps/ecoCalc/ecoCalc.jsp
How to reach sustainable development?
• Technology (and transfer)
• Aid
• Organizational shifts
• Behavioural changes (to be continued!)
Challenges (examples)
• Generational – how to properly consider the needs of future generations?
• Border-crossing – How to realise a global project like sust.dev.? (the anarchy of international politics)
• National – justice, redistribution of welfare, organisational improvements
• Responsibility. Who has the responsibility and why?
REMEDIAL RESPONSIBILITY
No Yes
CAUSAL RESPONSIBILITY
No (a) (b)
Yes (c) (d)
Responsibility
Challenges (examples)
• Generational – how to properly consider the needs of future generations?
• Border-crossing – How to realise a global project like sust.dev.? (the anarchy of international politics)
• National – justice, redistriblution of welfare, organisational improvements
• Responsibility. Who has the responsibility and why?• Behavioural changes – Why do people damage the
environment when they know this will eventually strike back on themselves?
Easter Island
Easter Island
?
A social dilemma
(1) “The payoff for each individual to act in self-interest (called defecting) is higher than the payoff for acting in the interest of the collective (called co-operating) regardless of what others do, but:
(2) all individuals receive a lower payoff if all defect than if all cooperate.” Dawes, R. M. (1980)
Various social dilemmas
• Resource dilemmas
• Public goods dilemmas
• “Washing room dilemmas”
How to overcome/avoid a SD?
The Leviatha
• Strong state• Regulations• Different policy
measures
www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/images/udla/hobes2.jpg
Private property
• You care more about things you own
• ITQ• Carbon trading
www.bedford.k12.va.us/.../John%20Locke.jpg
Is that all that there is?
Ellinor Ostrom
• Nobel prize winner in 2009
• Common Pool resources
• Neither Stalin nor Milton Friedman
• A third way: cooperation!!!
Cooperation
• Several conditions are required– A delimited resource (a bay, a lake, a bridge)– The users take the initiative– Minimal presence of government/external
authorities– Mutual surveillance– TRUST!!!!!!– Hitherto mainly local examples
What is trust?
• An attitude towards others (a belief in others’ competence and reliability)
• A mental process: a dealing with risks (to dare to hand over one’s destiny to someone else)
Trust, two important aspects
• Between indidviduals– “If I do not think that others…..”– “If only me……”
• Trust in “institutions” (political system, rules, authorities)– Intentions– Competence– Procedures– History of play
What create trust?
• Many schools• A shared worldview, norms, values (not the
least sense of justice)• Competence• “History of play”• “Tying the grabbing hand” (the procedures)• Participation• Transparency
It takes way much longer time to create trust than to ruin it!!!
Back to where we started• We are today facing a number of enormous – global – social dilemmas.• Sustainable development is a political attempt to cope with the ill-effects of these
dilemmas.• To realise sustainable development requires cooperation• For this cooperation to come about, trust is needed, both between individuals
and institutions.• At present, there are many factors effecting the level of trust most negatively:
– Corruption– Low-quality institutions– Governments’ and institutions’ poor history of play– Uneven power relations– Unevenly distributed ill-effects– Etc,etc
• Clearly, without cooperation, there will neither be any sustainable development, nor any management of these social dilemmas and thus a more or less uncertain future for most of us!
Thank you!
Top Related