PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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sustainability” namely economy, environment, and equity, remains the most problematic
aspect of the concept.
Chapters 3 and 4 argued that EU transport sector decision-making is dominated
by the discursive framework of ecological modernization. I defined a discursive
framework as a theoretical approach consisting of an ensemble of underlying rationales
and concepts that together form the intellectual backdrop for a set of policy responses and
actions relating to a particular topic. I further defined ecological modernization as a
modernist model of development that is relatively successful in integrating a variety of
environmental and social concerns into its framework, but that nevertheless privileges
competitiveness and economic growth over alternative development goals. Ecological
modernization thus offers a win-win perspective that is best poised to incorporate wideranging
environmental critiques into an overall, positive future vision of sustainable
development. The alternative discursive frameworks of reflexive modernization and
communicative rationality also offer comparatively optimistic outlooks, in the sense that
they also fundamentally trust in the ability of modern capitalist democracies to readjust
existing decision-making to adequately include the environmental dimension and for
stakeholders to make enlightened, rational decisions about the future. The renunciation
and the political economy frameworks are more skeptical. The renunciation perspective
is eco-centric at its core and finds that nature is insufficiently respected and protected
under capitalism. The political economy framework, by contrast, is more concerned
about the social equity dimensions of the environmental problematique. Political
economy scholars see decision-making in capitalist democracies as fundamentally