Rhetoric or reality? Responding to the challenge of sustainable development and new governance patterns in Ireland

The book explores how implementation strategies engage sub-national, regional and local actors in the promotion of sustainable development. Following the obligations incurred at the Rio Earth Summit and the related UNCED process, European states began to produce sustainable development strategies in the 1990s. Implementation efforts are increasingly using 'new' governance arrangements, including: use of public/private partnerships; new policy tools; policy transfer and benchmarking; policy networks and involvement of stakeholder groups; and institutional capacity enhancement. The editors, whom are leading experts on the subject, explore the nature, extent and characteristics of the new governance arrangements that have been put in place to implement sustainable development strategies and initiatives at the sub-national levels. They also examine the approaches that sub-national governments adopted towards the mobilization of 'stakeholders' in these initiatives and what type of non-governmental actors have become involved. In "Pursuit of Sustainable Development" will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, development, geography, planning and social policy