Desarrollo sustentable y democracia

Abstract

Development is a process unavoidably conditioned by the political environment. That is why it becomes important to analyze the role that political factors play in achieving the new paradigm of sustainable development.

It has now become a sort of pivotal hypothesis, that enjoying full freedom through democracy is what may help to generate favorables conditions for a sustainable development. Such pivotal hypothesis is based on the premise that modern liberal democracy is the preferred system of government and social coexistence and the one that enables the society be the owner of its own fate. However, we should acknowledge that some democracies are better or worse.

Now, multiple questions needing a reply are gearing around this hypothesis. Some of the hypothesis analyzed in this essay include: do liberal democracies offer a set of conditions required to get us closer to sustainable development? Could it be possible to reach sustainable development through a market economy? Is the paradigm of continuous economic growth getting us further away from sustainable development? Is it possible to fight poverty without economic growth? Is globalization favorable or unfavorable to sustainable development? Is it possible to carry out the technological revamp that demands a sustainable development? Last but not least, to what extent the prevailing international context may be a factor that helps sustainable development?

Four conditions, thought to be a priority to step up the level of democracy and reach sustainable development, are discussed. First, the strengthening of democratic institutions. Second, decentralization. Third, growth of the civil society and fourth, a better education.

Sustainable development is conceived as a deep change process aimed at increasing the welfare of the population, within a context of social fairness, scientific and technological progress and a new ethics in the man's relations with nature. Political elites and civil society are the fundamental players of such process.