Some Observations on States, World Orders, and the Politics of Sustainability

Abstract

This article is intended to initiate a dialogue on strategies for understanding the roles of states in relation to sustainability. The contributions and shortcomings of the two most influential and provocative approaches-nomothetic theories of states stressing the tendencies of capitalist states to exacerbate environmental destruction and embedded autonomy! state-society synergy theories of the conditions under which state-civil society partnerships can lead to sustainability innovations-are discussed. It is suggested that neither of these traditions can satisfactorily address the central contradictions of states and sustainability-that states are simultaneously a foundational force underlying environmental destruction and the principal agent of sustainability reforms. It is suggested that this contradiction can best be addressed through a modified world-order perspective based on global regimes of development and accumulation. The limits of state policy making and sustainability are currently being defined by the attempt to construct a neoliberal-globalization order and its attendant international policy regimes. The author concludes with some speculative thoughts about the role that market-oriented environmental tax institutions could play in the evolving world order.