Your Cart
Article of the week: A new conceptual framework for sustainable development
Posted by Anouk Liautaud on 2008/09/27
A new conceptual framework for sustainable development
Yosef Jabareen
Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2008,10, 179–192
Abstract
A critical review of the multidisciplinary literature on sustainable devel- opment reveals a lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding sustainable development and its complexities. A critical review shows that the definitions of sustainable development are vague; there is a lack of operative definitions and disagreement over what should be sustained; the concept is unclear in terms of emotional commitment; and it ‘‘remains a confused topic’’, ‘‘fraught with con- tradictions’’. This article aims to theoretically synthesize the interdisciplinary literature on sustainable development, and then identify the results by broad categories. Therefore, this article uses conceptual analysis, which reviews multidisciplinary literature on sustainable development, which recognizes patterns and similarities within the literature, then it synthesizes the patterns to different categories and independent concepts, where each concept has distinctive meanings and represents close ideas on sustainability. The analytical process elaborates seven concepts that together assemble the theoretical framework of ‘sustainable development’ and each concept represents distinctive meanings of the theoretical framework.
Keywords: Conceptual Framework, Eco-form, Equity, Integrative Management, Global Agenda, Sustainable Development, Utopianism
Comments
This is a timely, important article. With so much confusion and misinterpretation surrounding what constitutes "sustainable" development, Jabareen provides clarity and order with his conceptual framework. This article should move the discourse and implementation of sustainable development to a more effective level.
Nice work! It looks that you are highly expert blogger. Your post is an excellent example of why I keep coming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated. That was exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you!
Add a Comment
This weblog implements rel="nofollow" in comment links, thus links in comments will not be indexed by Google, MSN, Yahoo! etc.
A great theory that help us understand sustainability and its complexity and its interdisciplinary characters.
Perma-link | Reply to this comment