In person icon The Polity of Sustainability (Part I): The Environmental State and the Sustainability State: Structures, Limits, and Critical Perspectives

Abstract

Since the landmark Rio Summit in 1992, which has seen the launch of an ambitious global environmental, climate and sustainable development agenda, states across the globe have been reshaping their institutions to embed the principles of sustainability into the core of governance. From national strategies to advisory councils and parliamentary committees, from coordination and participation mechanisms to ombudspersons and framework laws, and innovative participation mechanisms, the institutional landscape of sustainability has expanded continuously. Such bodies, norms and procedures aim to integrate sustainability into decision-making at all governance levels, reflecting the calls of Agenda 21 and later the 2030 Agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These institutional innovations probe the state's evolving role in steering societies toward sustainability, and sparked academic debates on the environmental state, green state, sustainability or sustainable state, and eco-social state (e.g., Bornemann, Christen, and Burger 2024; Duit, Feindt, and Meadowcroft 2016; Eckersly 2004; Hausknost and Hammond 2020; Heinrichs and Laws 2014; Koch and Fritz 2014; Mathis et al. 2023). Yet, critical questions remain. What are the theoretical and practical implications of the state’s responsibility for the sustainability transformation? Why, how, and to what end do public actors institutionalize sustainability? Do these institutional innovations translate into effective sustainability governance and transformative policies? Are there effects beyond rhetorical and symbolic changes, which are reflected in the breadth of state structures? These questions are explored in two consecutive panels. Part I focuses on conceptual issues and empirical evidence on the national level of the environmental and the sustainability state. Part II takes a deep dive into specific institutional innovations within the universe of polity for sustainability in parliament and government. This panel (part I) maps the US environmental state and the German sustainability state and assesses their respective reach. Moreover, it provides a critical, decolonial perspective on sustainability and climate transitions as put forward in the concepts of the environmental state and the sustainability state.

Title	Details
Mapping the Environmental State of the USA	View Paper Details
Structures and Limits of the Emerging German Sustainability State	View Paper Details
Decolonising the Environmental State: National Sustainable Transitions and the Question of Coloniality	View Paper Details