CARBON CREDITS FOR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - lumes

2. Theoretical FrameworkThe theoretical starting point as a framework for critical understanding of thephenomena (Silvermann, 1999) for this study originates from the aim to identify theprinciples of sustainability that the GHGs emissions market mechanisms draw upon.The initial assumption employed for this purpose is that the climate change regimecan be best approximated by looking at it through the prism of the sustainabilitydiscourse, which represents a strong will of integrating economic, social, institutionaland environmental aspects of development (Dryzek, 1997). The study is based on theidea that it is possible to understand some common comprehension and underlyingvalue commitments within the discourse through studying how various actors at playinterpret it and what are the dominant narratives that manifested around the issue ofsustainable development on the ground.Since 1997 when Dryzek labeled sustainability ‘as a major game when itcomes to environmental affairs’, (Dryzek, 1997) it has become even a more broadlyaccepted way to frame issues related to the environment. Yet it can be also arguedthat sustainable development became an ideology for the 21 st century as a policydiscourse as well as development practice. Climate change regime is no exception.Definitions of sustainability and sustainable development abound. However,they tend to be abstract and thus open to diverging interpretations. Indeedsustainability nowadays is regarded as an overarching concept integrating multipledimensions and has been extended to indicate a dynamic process entailing associatedprogresses, among others, in the social, economic, institutional and environmentalspheres. Since the notion of sustainable development emerged in the 1980s as adesirable guiding principle for the world community, it has in many cases become a‘buzzword largely devoid of content’ as Esty notes (cited Elliot. 2004). The presentstudy acknowledges that the aims and meanings of the sustainable developmentconcept in the frame of climate change regime continue to be rather vague and broad.Regardless of all operationalized definitions of sustainability, there is still a room forconceptual division between the stronger and the weaker meaning of it.In this thesis, I will explore the conceptualization of sustainability by adoptingdiscourse analysis as a theoretical framework. As Phillips and Jorgensen (2002) vividdescription shows ‘discourse analysis is not to be used as a method of analysisdetached from its theoretical and methodological foundation, it is not just a methodfor data analysis, but a theoretical and methodological whole.’ Thus, I shall turn nextto explain how it is understood in the context of the current study. In line withDryzek’s (1997) interpretation I understand discourses as ‘a shared way ofapprehending the world’, ‘embedded in language’, and ‘specific ensembles of ideas,concepts and categorization that are produced, reproduced and transformed in aparticular set of practices’ as defined by Hajer (cited Bäckstrand and Lövbrand,2006).11