Toward a Methodological Critique of Sustainable Development

Widespread recognition ofthe actual and potential adverse effects ofenvironmental degradation on socioeconomic development has led to the introduction of sustainable development (SD) as an alternative model of international development. Recently, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, the Brundtland Commission) developed a formulation for achieving SD.I Because of its political success, this formulation of SD has been the most influential version of the concept to date. This political success is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to realize the objectives of SD. A further requirement is that the formulation must be able to meet the metatheoretical criteria that determine the ability of a framework to effectively guide research and ultimately the development of policies to achieve a given set of objectives. These metatheoretical criteria include rigorous and analytical definitions of the objectives and the concepts or constructs used to meet them. Meeting this criterion would also ensure the internal and external consistency of SD by making it easier to integrate the already completed empirical work on SD with extant knowledge on development. This paper employs such metatheoretical criteria to examine the conceptual framework of SD. Using this approach, the paper determines that the inadequacies of SD with respect to these criteria severely restrict its capacity to engender research and policy that can achieve SD. The paper concludes by advancing recommendations for overcoming some of these drawbacks.