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!