Sustainable Development Governance Structures in the European Union

Toward the sustainability state? Conceptualizing national sustainability institutions and their impact on policy‐making

“…By analyzing global sustainability objectives and agreements (Agenda 21 and the 2030 Agenda in particular) and preconditions of their successful implementation, drawing, inter alia, on the literature on policy integration, scholars have developed a range of governance principles that are supposed to be conducive for SD (Breuer et al, 2019; Dryzek & Pickering, 2019; Glass & Newig, 2019; Heinrichs & Laws, 2014; Jacob et al, 2013; Jänicke, 2006; Niestroy et al, 2019; OECD, 2018; Persson & Runhaar, 2018; Steurer, 2010; Wurster et al, 2015). These principles are remarkably homogeneous among the literature, which allows us to condense them into five clusters: (1) horizontal integration across policy areas and departments, (2) vertical integration of different political levels (from international to local), (3) societal integration and participation of stakeholders from various sectors, (4) monitoring, reflexivity, and knowledge integration, and (5) a distinct long‐term perspective on political decisions that counteracts the short‐term orientation of prevalent governance institutions and policies.…”

“…The implementation of these governance principles has been assumed to strengthen states' capabilities to transpose the complex challenge of sustainable development into adequate, comprehensive policies (Heinrichs & Laws, 2014; OECD, 2018). Consequently, they are also used as assessment criteria for SDG implementation mechanisms (including sustainability institutions) (Breuer et al, 2019; Niestroy et al, 2019), national sustainability strategies (Jacob et al, 2013), and as design principles for the establishment or reform of specific sustainability institutions (Göll & Thio, 2008). We thus assume that the realization of these general governance principles in the design of sustainability institutions are key building blocks for their prospective impact.…”

“…Following Fung (2006) and Newig et al (2018), we distinguish different dimensions of participation in sustainability institutions, depending on who participates, through which means of communication, and the extent to which participants are granted decision-making power. First, we consider who is represented in sustainability institutions concerning both the membership composition and other stakeholders involved (see also Niestroy, 2007). It has been argued that a diverse set of participants may improve decision-making due to the integration of different kinds of (local) knowledge and sustainabilityrelated concerns (Newig et al, 2018).…”

“…In this paper, we use the term sustainability institutions to subsume the diffuse universe of institutionalized bodies for sustainability both in the legislative and executive polity sphere. To date, individual forms of sustainability institutions have been studied, such as national councils for sustainable development (SD) (UNDESA & Li, 2012), multi-stakeholder councils (Maurer, 1999;Niestroy, 2007), parliamentary committees (Kinski & Whiteside, 2022;Koskimaa & Raunio, 2020), SDG implementation bodies (Breuer et al, 2019), or institutions for future generations (Dirth, 2016;Rose, 2018;Smith, 2020). We argue that all of these institutionalized bodies define attempts to incorporate sustainability into political decision-making at the national level.…”

“…We therefore contend that viewing them all under the label of "sustainability institutions" will facilitate (comparative) research. To date, only vague attempts have been made to provide generalizable principles or characteristics linking these different institutions as sub-types of an overarching phenomenon (Göll & Thio, 2008;Niestroy, 2007). We contribute to these efforts by introducing-in Section 2-a concept of sustainability institutions that integrates different sub-types under one common term to facilitate comparative research on a subject with increasing worldwide prevalence.…”