Sustainable development: Is it achievable within the existing international political economy context?

The past few years have not been particularly auspicious in environmental terms; there is increasing evidence of a fairly widespread environmental crisis, increasing the pressure to rethink many of the concepts related to environment and development. Among the important concepts that need to be revisited and further explored is 'sustainable development'. This paper examines the roots of the sustainable development concept and argues that within the current international political economic system it would be nearly impossible to adopt development strategies that are conducive to truly sustainable development. Four hypotheses about international political economic structures and their relationship to sustainable development are examined. The analysis builds on the linkages between historical processes, international political economic structures, international institutions and the development process posited by globalist theories. The paper concludes that profound changes in economic, political and social structure would be necessary to foster sustainable development. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.