Sustainable development - an integrative paradigm?

Policy makers across the globe, and especially within the transatlantic arena, are faced with an enormous challenge – the sustainability challenge. Building upon the growing presence of sustainability as a topic in natural science and ecological movements, this volume reports the results of the first of two transatlantic symposia sponsored and organized by the ASKO EUROPA STIFTUNG and Texas A& M University in 2008 – 2009 addressing the topic from political and economic perspectives constraining and influencing sustainable development. The eight principal papers contained within this volume, representing several academic disciplines and employing a variety of methodological and ontological approaches, consider what decision makers mean by “sustainable development”, whether there are national, Euro-pean, and American paradigms directing strategies of dealing with sustainable development, and, what is the political and economic reality of sustainability? To address these general issues, the papers herein explore at least one of four specific questions: (1) Is there a common European and American economic and political perspective to sustainable development? (2) Is there a consistent set of policies and stakeholders shaping sustainable development in Europe and the United States? (3) What are the political and economic consequences of sus-tainable development in Europe and the United States? How do these differ; how are they similar? And, (4) what consequences to the transatlantic relationship follow from the Euro-pean and American political and economic approaches to sustainable development? With contributions by: …