"Sustainability State” in the Making? Institutionalization of Sustainability in German Federal Policy Making

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

More than two decades after the Rio-conference on environment and development in 1992, sustainable development remains a big challenge. Politics and administration, especially in democratic societies, have a specific responsibility in coordinating sustainable development. In order to fulfill this role, the regulative idea of sustainability needs to be integrated into decision-making in politics and administration at all levels, from local to global. Taking this into account, we have analyzed the institutionalization of sustainability as a crosscutting and long-term challenge at the federal level in Germany. Based on a theoretical-conceptual framework deriving from democracy, bureaucracy and political steering/governance theory, we have employed qualitative methods to understand, in depth, how sustainability is integrated into political-administrative practice. In the present paper, we present key results and show that sustainability is not a routine practice at the federal level in Germany. We will conclude by giving an outlook on the structural and procedural options and argue for the need to develop a “sustainability state”.
Original languageEnglish
JournalSustainability
Volume6
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)2623-2641
Number of pages19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 05.05.2014

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Typology of public outreach for biodiversity conservation projects in Spain
  2. Women outperform men in distinguishing between authentic and nonauthentic smiles
  3. Social Games
  4. Agriculture and everyday realities on small farms – An entrepreneurial challenge to farmers between the desire for autonomy and a secure existence. Two examples from east and south-east Poland
  5. Einkommenssituation Selbständiger in der Europäischen Union
  6. Expatriate training
  7. Environmental Performance and the Quality of Corporate Environmental Reports
  8. Zuwanderer in der Stadt
  9. KoLaS
  10. Soziale Arbeit im Kampf um Anerkennung
  11. „Mountainbiken“
  12. Systemische Schulentwicklung
  13. Posturale Instabilität bei Morbus Parkinson
  14. Sustelling
  15. Moral Sensitivity
  16. Fluctuations of carabid populations inhabiting an ancient woodland (Coleoptera, Carabidae)
  17. Why does repatriate career success vary?
  18. Mechanisms promoting tree species co-existence
  19. The impact of nuclear accidents on provisioning ecosystem services
  20. Einsam an der Spitze?
  21. Multisensory Design of Retail Environments
  22. Dating of event-layers (palaeotsunamis) on the Andaman Islands (Bay of Bengal) with Pb-210 and optically stimulated luminescence
  23. Mischverhältnisse
  24. Editorial
  25. Pathische Repräsentation
  26. Unterscheidung ist noch lange keine Diskriminierung
  27. Technology and Organization in Manufacturing
  28. MOOC: Zukunft der Bildung oder Robo-Uni?
  29. The reciprocal iso-inhibition volume concept
  30. Emotional and social development in childhood
  31. Die Regulierung von Carework im Privathaushalt
  32. Ernährung als Alltagsdilemma
  33. The reform of the German Works Constitution Act
  34. Die "wahre" Organisation erkennen
  35. «Mein Kompetenzprofil» - Stärken erkennen und Selbstlernprozesse anstoßen
  36. Environmental heterogeneity drives fine-scale species assembly and functional diversity of annual plants in a semi-arid environment
  37. Biorefineries in Germany
  38. Seeing polycentrically
  39. Zur Funktion normierter Prinzipien im Umweltrecht
  40. Cartel behaviour and efficient sanctioning by criminal sentences
  41. Transformation verstehen lernen:
  42. Metageographies of coastal management
  43. Beurteilereffekte bei der Messung von Unterrichtsqualität