Copyright (c) 2008 Jackson Kern
The subtle difference between social development and socio-political sustainability is pure fundamental to the achievement of sustainable development. As the recent economic development if the results are announced unsustainable, so the social enrichment go hand in hand with a concerted effort to ensure their viability.
Open contested political spaces provide the only means of this endarenas you are contested. These three phenomena threaten the sustainability of our socio-political process, demanding specialized care.
1. The more insidious danger of all is the prevailing political apathy. If the general population can not be convinced that his destiny is sufficient to participate actively in the game, then the hope is surely lost. The causes of the apathy of many, the simplest is clearly inward looking people are more concerned with personal enrichment, social, or who believe that the benefits of social participation is not commensurate with the time and resources invested. This phenomenon can be compared with game theory and the concepts of political science of the “tragedy of the commons.” A case involving the political apathy is blind faith in social institutions and policies. But we must remember the accession of Sartre, who is loyal to a political and social set, and never stops to oppose it. “There is no contradiction in believing that the social and political processes of a nation are the best ever conceived by mankind, and is growing every day to challenge them. In fact, this is the very essence of democracy.
2. The existence of different social inertia of apathy. Human beings are creatures of habit. Although awareness and recognition of specific problems, which may be resistant spectrum to respond robustly through political mechanisms, if doing so involves a break with long-standing cultural tradition. In a 2006 survey, eighty-five percent of Americans expressed their belief that global warming is “probably happening,” while half said that the issue of global warming is “extremely important” to them. However, the spread of single-occupant vehicles on U.S. roads remain intact.
3. When the general public is involved and committed, this often can lead to problems of inefficiency and social policy. This problem can be especially serious in countries that are large in population and geography. The failure to reach consensus can sometimes lead to paralysis. Under an autocratic setting, the government may make changes in socio-political institutions at a speed that sometimes enviable. But this, of course, is advisory, political and social dimension of sustainability is guaranteed in the long term if it reflects the collective will. A different kind of political and social inefficiency occurs when there are obstacles to consensus, but when the channels to initiate change (particularly the judiciary) are forced, twisted or overload.
political apathy and social inertia can only be fought during the daily efforts to inform, arouse and provoke. Fortunately, political and social inefficiency can be addressed more methodically. Governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations and nonprofit organizations to change and influence the state of our social and natural environment every day. Actors who try to bridge the gap between these entities and the general public and facilitate their interaction, aided by the extraordinary participation of new technologies have a significant role to play in the future sustainability of social-political.
The evocation of these challenges would be complete without an examination of the dynamic interactions generate political and social domain with other elements of sustainable development. Economics is the science of resource allocation, the study in ways that meet human needs and requirements. There is no more fundamental human need is food. In a telling example of the interdependence of sustainable development of the three components, increase in global food prices now constitute a serious threat to the sustainability of socio-political world. Just turn to the recent social unrest and political instability in Haiti, Egypt and the Philippines, to be sure. The increase in prices due to uncertainty about the sustainability of agricultural processes. To be precise, some are very explicitly mentioned in the West’s efforts to fund and promote production of biofuels as an inflationary factor leader (but growing middle class in India and China appear to be responsible for some other upward pressures on prices) . And all this as the viability of biofuels is part of a pervasive control.
These socio-political challenges of sustainability remain inextricably linked to the future of sustainability as a business.
Posts Tagged ‘Socialpolitical’
Three Challenges Defining Social-political Sustainability
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Tags: Challenges, Defining, Socialpolitical, Sustainability, Three
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Social-political Sustainability: the Human Element
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009Copyright (c) 2008 Jackson Kern
It is commonly accepted that the project of sustainable development is conceptually composed of three constituent parts. These parts are (1) environmental sustainability, (2) economic sustainability, and (3) social-political sustainability. The United Nations 2005 World Summit refers to the “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of sustainable development as environmental protection, economic development and social development. The interdependency of the first two is evident; it is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time to satisfy the needs and wants of burgeoning populations within the binding constraints imposed by our physical environment. But what is this great hoopla about social development and sustainability of politics, and what exactly is its place?
If environmental protection is concerned with the preservation of our natural environment and resources, and economic sustainability is concerned with seeking durable growth solutions therein, then the social-political sphere can be thought of as representative of the more purely human element in the equation. Social development and social-political sustainability are intimately related concepts but they are not in fact entirely interchangeable. It is important that we understand their symbiotic relationship and its implications for the broader sustainability project.
Social development is a concept that is familiar to most of us in its many and varying forms. Within any given society there are opportunities to improve and enrich each of its composite parts in many ways. Of sometimes greater importance is the need to harmonize relations amongst these various and sometimes opposing elements. Those actively engaged in the process of social development include agents acting within its institutions to effect change via established channels. Of more notice, however, are often those who act from the outside, those who reject the society’s institutions as inadequate, and who advocate wholesale social and political change as the only true path to social enrichment and development.
It is in this transformational role that we begin to touch on the realm of social-political sustainability. Within any given social context, social development can be pursued with the simple granting of budgets. Financial and human resources are utilized to strengthen and enrich societies by improving educational opportunities, by embracing the marginalized and the forgotten, by making improvements to healthcare and hygienic conditions and by endearing knowledge of financial and entrepreneurial activities to name just a few. Here, the distinguishing feature of social development is that it is executed within the institutional mechanisms and constraints prevailing in that given entity.
Social-political sustainability too is very much concerned with physical and material standing of peoples, but further than this it is concerned with the state of their civil society. Social-political sustainability is differentiated from pure social development in that its sphere is expanded beyond the employment of simply monetary means. Social-political development entails not only the engagement of institutional mechanisms, but also their modification and advancement. Social-political sustainability thus seeks pathways to durable social enrichment and development via the vibrancy and health of a society’s political processes. At its core, there ultimately is little more than an absolute faith in the functioning of liberal democracy. Despite the frequent changing of the guard and the potential for policy discontinuity this entails, it is believed that representative republican government bolstered by mass public awareness and participation provides the best model of a sustainable body politic.
In addition to social policy, environmental and economic policies are clearly dictated in the political realm as well. It is in the creed of the sustainability project to hold that healthy political bodies which are truly representative of the collective will can show us the path forward. Recognition of the strain to our natural environment that unrestrained industrialization and consumption have brought depends upon it.
The French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville long ago warned Americans that their political structure (and indeed that of all democracies) could fall hostage to a “tyranny of the majority”. To illustrate the weight of these words, consider a scenario in which a pluralistic political majority were unwilling to adopt legislation which combatively addresses climate change issues, while the autocratic but highly environmentalist ruler of another nation prosecuted an aggressive climate change agenda with gusto. In the face of peril, such a situation would revive human moral and ethical dilemmas of the highest order.
Faith in democracy and the ideologies it espouses transcends the purely political arena. In a free and wealthy society, those in the pursuit of scientific truth battle only scientific obstacles. If the danger is real, the truth will be brought to bear. But even in the face of incontrovertible truth, can the titanic inertia of human complacency and comfort be overcome and conquered?
Many scientific and economic authorities now believe that emissions caps are insufficient in the battle against climate change. They call for a massive mobilization of public funds for investment in research with the goal of discovering new low-carbon-emissions technologies, and this on the scale of the Manhattan Project that delivered the first atomic bombs.
We will be watching. This, folks, is nothing less than a test of social-political sustainability in action.
Tags: Element, Human, Socialpolitical, Sustainability
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