PLANNING, DEMOCRACY AND THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Over the past decade sustainable development has increasingly been ado pted as an objective of government policy, and ''planning for sustaina ble development'' is now a real-world activity of officials and minist ries. A survey of conceptual issues, of three environmental economists ' proposals to achieve sustainability, and of initial practical experi ence in the industrialised countries suggest that planning for environ mentally sustainable development involves an ambitious attempt to reco ncile environmental and development objectives. It is argued that to t he extent that this proves possible it will be a radically disjointed process involving interaction of many agencies and actors. At the hear t of the challenge of planning for sustainable development is an issue of institutional design to which political science, despite the hesit ancy it has so far displayed to engage with the issue, could yet make a meaningful contribution.