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PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION<br />

Planning for a Sustainable Europe?<br />

A Case Study of EU Transport Infrastructure Policy<br />

in the Context of Eastern Enlargement<br />

by DEIKE PETERS<br />

Dissertation Director:<br />

Professor Susan S. Fainstein<br />

The study investigates the underlying rationalities of transport sector decisionmaking<br />

in Europe. The research seeks to explain discrepancies between the sustainability<br />

objectives expressed in EU Commission documents and the reality of EU-led transport<br />

sector investments. The study also shows how key defining concepts and justifications<br />

are adapted and/or modified in the specific context of EU pre-accession funding for<br />

Central Eastern Europe. The investigation is framed by six propositions which assume<br />

that sustainability remains an ill-defined concept; that ecological modernization is the<br />

dominant discourse in EU decision-making; that EU transport infrastructure investments<br />

are dominated by conflicting storylines; that decision-making is additionally complicated<br />

through varying decisional powers and challenges of multi-location politics; and that<br />

ecological modernization discourses tend to underestimate the local impacts of transport<br />

infrastructures.<br />

ii

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