Who is in Charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a Complex World*

This paper explores one of the major challenges associated with governance for sustainable development: managing change in a context where power is distributed across diverse societal subsystems and among many societal actors. The discussion is divided into four parts. The first examines the idea of ‘governance for sustainable development’. The second considers the diffusion of power in modern societies. The third explores the extent to which this constitutes a problem for sustainable development. The final section advances some approaches to governing for sustainable development in a radically ‘decentred’ societal context.

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