Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control: a conceptual framework

  • Special Feature: Original Article
  • The politics of making and un-making (sustainable) futures
  • Published:
Sustainability Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the last three decades, sustainability has become a guiding principle for states, organizations, companies, and social movements as well as a general ideal for social change. While sustainability seems to be a rather inevitable path of development, there is no consensus over the goals and visions of the future associated with this concept. Proponents of a “Green Economy,” for instance, regard economic growth as a prerequisite for sustainable development and advocate a modernization of society, which implies moderate adjustments toward a sustainable economy within the current institutional framework. Critics of this ecological modernization approach see the imperative of economic growth as an obstacle for sustainable development and instead support a fundamental transformation of society. A third perspective tries to solve the problems of sustainable development with wide-ranging politics of control, using concepts such as “ecological state of emergency” or enforcing resilience measures for vulnerable populations while creating safe enclaves for a privileged few. These three possible ideal typical trajectories of social change—modernization, transformation, and control—are not fixed yet, but rather represent different and highly contested imaginaries of the future. These imaginaries then structure distinctive practices of sustainability in the fields of politics, the economy, civil society, and science. These practices in turn are interdependent with specific structures, such as material infrastructures or the ecological system of the earth. The proposed conceptional framework uses the theoretical concepts of imaginaries, practices, and structures to study the possible futures of sustainability, specifically modernization, transformation, and control, as well as possible interdependencies between these developments. It focuses on sustainability as a sociological category indicative for understanding socioeconomic change, the emergence of new conflicts, inequalities, hierarchies, and justification patterns that result from including sustainable criteria into different fields, institutions, and value systems. Deciphering futures of sustainability does not aim at providing prognoses or forecasts, but intents to work out an analytical concept that asks how contemporary societies change when they are guided by imaginaries of sustainability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For the older historical roots of the concept see Caradonna 2014.

  2. This refers to the program of the newly established Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Futures of Sustainability: Modernization, Transformation, Control” at Universität Hamburg which is funded by the German Research Foundation and directed by the authors of this article.

  3. The concept of the anthropocene is not uncontested because it implicitly downplays the main responsibility of the early industrialized countries for global warming and therefore is criticized to be a normative questionable and apolitical concept, see Swyngedouw and Ernstson (2018).

  4. This is the reason why most approaches that speak of “transition” or “transformation” (e.g., the German WBGU) can nevertheless be subsumed under our concept of modernization (cf. Loorbach et al. 2017).

References

  • Acosta A (2017): Rethinking the world from the perspective of Buen Vivir. www.degrowth.info

  • Adams S et al (2015) Social imaginaries in debate. Soc Imag 1(1):15–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adloff F (2018) Politik der Gabe. Für ein anderes Zusammenleben. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Adloff F, Heins VM (eds) (2015) Konvivialismus. Eine Debatte. Transcript, Bielefeld

    Google Scholar 

  • Adloff F, Leggewie C (eds) (2014) Convivialist manifesto. A declaration of interdependence. Centre for Global Cooperation Research, Duisburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Asara V et al (2015) Socially sustainable degrowth as a social–ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability. Sustain Sci 10(3):375–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bauhardt C (2011) Gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse von der Materialität aus denken. Feministische Ökonomik, Queer Ecologies und das Konzept Ressourcenpolitik. GENDER-Z Geschlecht Kult Ges 3(3):89–110

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck U (1992) Risk society. Towards a new modernity. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Beckert J (2016) Imagined futures. Fictional expectations and capitalist dynamics. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Besedovsky N (2018) Finanzialisierung von Nachhaltigkeit. In: Neckel S et al (eds) Die Gesellschaft der Nachhaltigkeit. Umrisse eines Forschungsprogramms. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp 25–40

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Boatcă M (2016) Global inequalities beyond occidentalism. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Boltanski L, Chiapello È (2007) The new spirit of capitalism. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Borup M et al (2006) The sociology of expectations in science and technology. Technol Anal Strateg Manag 18(3–4):285–298

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowker GC et al (2010) Toward information infrastructure studies. ways of knowing in a networked environment. In: Hunsinger J, Klastrup L, Allen M (eds) International handbook of internet research. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 97–117

    Google Scholar 

  • Brand U, Wissen M (2017) Imperiale Lebensweise: Zur Ausbeutung von Mensch und Natur in Zeiten des globalen Kapitalismus. Oekom, Munich

    Google Scholar 

  • Brunkhorst H (1998) Demokratischer Experimentalismus. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt

    Google Scholar 

  • Butollo F, Kalff Y (2017) Entsteht der Postkapitalismus im Kapitalismus? Eine Kritik an Masons Transformationsstrategie. PROKLA 47(2):291–308

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caillé A, Vandenberghe F (2015) Neo-classical sociology. The prospects of social theory today. Eur J Soc Theory 19(1):1–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Candeias M (2014) Szenarien grüner Transformation. In: Brie M (ed) Futuring. Perspektiven der Transformation im Kapitalismus über ihn hinaus. Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster, pp 303–329

    Google Scholar 

  • Caradonna JL (2014) Sustainability. A history. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Castoriadis C (1987) The imaginary constitution of society. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiapello È (2015) Financialisation of valuation. Hum Stud 38(1):13–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chiapello È, Godefroy G (2017) The dual function of judgment devices. Why does the plurality of market classifications matter? Hist Soc Res 42(1):152–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark N, Yusoff K (2017) Geosocial formations and the anthropocene. Theory Cult Soc 34(2–3):3–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman R (2017) A sensory sociology of the future. Affect, hope and inventive methodologies. Sociol Rev 65(3):525–543

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Commission E (2010) Europe 2020. A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. European Commission, Brüssel

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalby S (2017) Anthropocene formations. Environmental security, geopolitics and disaster. Theory Cult Soc 34(2–3):233–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis M (2007) Planet of slums. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Degens, P (2016) Anderes Geld–Anders Wirtschaften? In: Adloff, F, Kocka, J (eds.) Kapitalismus und Zivilgesellschaft, special issue of Forschungs Journal Soziale Bewegungen 29(3):98–109

  • Delanty G, Mota A (2017) Governing the anthropocene. Agency, governance, knowledge. Eur J Soc Theory 20(1):9–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dewey J (1927) The public and its problems. Swallow Press, Denver

    Google Scholar 

  • Dörre K, Lessenich S, Rosa H (2015) Sociology, capitalism, critique. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards PN (2003) Infrastructure and modernity. Force, time, and social organization in the history of sociotechnical systems. In: Misa TJ, Brey P, Feenberg A (eds) Modernity and technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 185–226

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisenstadt SN (1973) Tradition, change, and modernity. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Elder-Vass D (2017) Material parts in social structures. J Soc Ontol 3(1):89–105

    Google Scholar 

  • Escobar A (1995) Encountering development. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Escobar A (2011) Sustainability. Design for the pluriverse. Development 54(2):137–140

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feist M, Fuchs D (2014) Was heißt hier nachhaltig? In: Heires M, Nölke A (eds) Politische Ökonomie der Finanzialisierung. Springer, Wiesbaden, pp 225–240

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Folke C et al (2010) Resilience thinking. Integrating resilience, adaptivity and transformability. Ecol Soc 15(4):20 (online)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser N (2017a) Crisis of care? On the social-reproductive contradictions of contemporary capitalism. In: Bhattacharya T (ed) Social reproduction theory. Remapping class, recentering oppression. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 21–36

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser N (2017b) Progressive neoliberalism versus reactionary populism. A Hobson’s choice. In: Geiselberger H (ed) The great regression. Polity Press, Cambridge, pp 40–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens A (1984) The constitution of society. Outline of a theory of structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Green New Deal Group (2008) A green new deal. Joined-up policies to solve the triple crunch of the credit crisis, climate change and high oil prices, https://neweconomics.org

  • Groß M, Mautz R (2014) Renewable energies. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grunwald A (2010) Wider die Privatisierung der Nachhaltigkeit. Warum ökologisch korrekter Konsum die Umwelt nicht retten kann. GAIA 19(3):178–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas J (1984) The theory of communicative action. Beacon Press, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Hallegatte S et al (2011) From growth to green growth. World Bank, Washington, DC

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey D (2004) The ‘new’ imperialism Accumulation by dispossession. Soc Regist 40:63–87

    Google Scholar 

  • Huber J (2004) New technologies and environmental innovation. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich I (1973) Tools for conviviality. Harper & Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Jänicke M (2012) Megatrend Umweltinnovation: Zur ökologischen Modernisierung von Wirtschaft und Staat. Oekom, Munich

    Google Scholar 

  • Jerneck M (2017) Financialization impedes climate change mitigation: evidence from the early American solar industry. Sci Adv 3(3):e1601861

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jonas M (2017) Transition or transformation? A plea for the praxeological approach of radical socio-ecological change. In: Jonas M, Littig B (eds) Praxeological political analysis. Routledge, London, pp 116–133

    Google Scholar 

  • Jorgenson AK (2012) The sociology of ecologically unequal exchange and carbon dioxide emissions, 1960–2005. Soc Sci Res 41(2):242–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kallis G, Demaria F, D’Alisa G (eds) (2015) Degrowth. A vocabulary for a new era. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kosoy N, Corbera E (2010) Payments for ecosystem services as commodity fetishism. Ecol Econ 69(6):1228–1236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kothari A, Demaria F, Acosta A (2015) Buen Vivir, degrowth and ecological Swaraj. Alternatives to development and the green economy. Development 57(3):362–375

    Google Scholar 

  • Latouche S (2009) Farewell to growth. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Leggewie C, Welzer H (2011) Das Ende der Welt, wie wir sie kannten. Fischer, Frankfurt

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenz S, Neckel S (2019) Ethical banks between moral self-commitment and economic expansion. In: Balsiger Ph, Schiller-Merkens S (eds) The contested morality of markets. Emerald, Bingley (UK)

  • Lessenich S (2016) The externalization society: living beyond the means of others. In: Schulz MS (ed) The futures we want: global sociology and the struggles for a better world. Neopubli, Berlin, pp 66–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Littig B (2017) Good green jobs for whom? A feminist critique of the green economy. In: MacGregor S (ed) Routledge handbook of gender and environment. Routldege, London, pp 318–330

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Loorbach D, Frantzeskaki N, Avelino F (2017) Sustainability transitions research: transforming science and practice for societal change. Annu Rev Resour Environ 42:599–626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mason P (2015) PostCapitalism. A guide to our future. Allen Lane, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Mellor M (2010) The future of money from financial crisis to public resource. Pluto Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer JW (2009) World society. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mol AP, Spaargaren G, Sonnenfeld DA (2014) Ecological modernization theory: taking stock, moving forward. In: Lockie S et al (eds) Routledge international handbook of social and environmental change. Routledge, London, pp 15–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Muraca B (2014) Gut leben. Eine Gesellschaft jenseits des Wachstums. Wagenbach, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Muraca B, Döring R (2018) From (strong) sustainability to degrowth. A philosophical and historical reconstruction. In: Caradonna JL (ed) Routledge handbook of the history of sustainability. Routledge, London, pp 339–362

    Google Scholar 

  • Nachtwey O (2018) Germany’s hidden crisis. Social decline in the heart of Europe. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Neckel S (2013) “Refeudalisierung”—Systematik und Aktualität eines Begriffs der Habermas’schen Gesellschaftsanalyse. Leviathan 41(1):39–56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neckel S (2017) The sustainability society: a sociological perspective. Cult Pract Eur 2(2):46–52

    Google Scholar 

  • Neckel S et al (2018) Die Gesellschaft der Nachhaltigkeit. Umrisse eines Forschungsprogramms. Transcript, Bielefeld

    Google Scholar 

  • Nowicka M, Vertovec S (2014) Comparing convivialities: dreams and realities of living-with-differences. Eur J Cult Stud 17(4):341–356

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Sullivan TM (2015) Environmental security is homeland security. Climate disruption as the ultimate disaster risk multiplier. Risk Hazards Cris Public Policy 6(2):183–222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OECD (2011) Towards green growth. OECD Publishing, Paris

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Paech N (2012) Liberation from excess The road to a post-growth economy. Oekom, Munich

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons T (1966) Societies. Evolutionary and comparative perspectives. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs

    Google Scholar 

  • Patomäki H, Steger MB (2011) Social imaginaries and big history: towards a new planetary consciousness? Futures 42(10):1056–1063

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paulson S (2017) Degrowth: culture, power and chance. J Political Ecol 24(1):425–448

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raskin P et al (2010) The century ahead. Searching for sustainabilty. Sustainability 2(8):2626–2651

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reckwitz A (2002) Toward a theory of social practices. A development in culturalist theorizing. Eur J Soc Theory 5(2):243–263

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rifkin J (2014) The zero marginal cost society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Rockström J et al (2009) Planetary boundaries. Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecol Soc 14(2):32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan AB (2013) The transformative capacity of the commons and commoning. Ir J Sociol 21(2):90–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sassen S (2014) Expulsions. Brutality and complexity in the global economy. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schatzki TR, Knorr Cetina K, von Savigny E (2001) The practice turn in contemporary theory. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Schor JB (2010) Plenitude. The new economics of true wealth. Penguin Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Shove E (2016) Infrastructures and practices. In: Coutard O, Rutherford J (eds) Beyond the Networked City. Infrastructure reconfigurations and urban change in north and south. Routledge, London, pp 242–258

    Google Scholar 

  • Shove E (2017) Matters of practice. In: Hui A, Schatzki TR, Shove E (eds) The nexus of practices. Connections, constellations, practitioners. Routledge, London, pp 155–168

    Google Scholar 

  • Srnicek N, Williams A (2015) Inventing the future. Postcapitalism and a world without work. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Steffen W et al (2015) Planetary boundaries. Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347(6223):1259855

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Stirling A (2014) Emancipating transformations. From controlling ‘the transition’ to culturing plural radical progress. STEPS working paper 64, https://steps-centre.org

  • Schachtschneider U, Adler F (2010) Green New Deal, Suffizienz oder Ökosozialismus? Konzepte für gesellschaftliche Wege aus der Öko-Krise. Oekom, München

  • Swyngedouw E, Ernstson H (2018) Interrupting the anthropo-obScene: immuno-biopolitics and depoliticizing ontologies in the anthropocene. Theory Cult Soc 35(6):3–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor C (2004) Modern social imaginaries. Duke University Press, Durham

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • UNEP (2011) Towards a green economy—pathways to sustainable development and poverty eradication. United Nations Environmental Program, Nairobi

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Defense (2015) National security implications of climate-related risks and a changing climate. U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • van Laak D (2004) Technological infrastructure. Concepts and consequences. Icon. J Int Comm Hist Technol 10:53–64

    Google Scholar 

  • van Lente H (2012) Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations. Lessons from the sociology of expectations. Technol Anal Strateg Manag 24(8):769–782

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker J, Cooper M (2011) Genealogies of resilience. From systems ecology to the political economy of crisis adaptation. Secur Dialogue 42(2):143–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright EO (2010) Envisioning real utopias. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Zebrowski C (2015) The value of resilience. Securing life in the twenty-first century. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Research Unit. DFG-FOR 2769).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Frank Adloff & Sighard Neckel

Authors
  1. Frank Adloff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sighard Neckel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sighard Neckel.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Handled by: David Löw Beer, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Germany.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Adloff, F., Neckel, S. Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control: a conceptual framework. Sustain Sci 14, 1015–1025 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00671-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00671-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation