ABSTRACT

This chapter covers the politics essential to and barriers to sustainability, and discusses the nature of 'development' as the central international political issue for sustainability. It explores the dynamics of managing resources that are common to all, but can be depleted by some. The structure of political opportunity is made up of contextual conditions: the capacity and organization of nation-states, critical events that focus public attention and concern, and the arrangement of interests of different groups, including the availability of alliances. Few political analysts would say that civil society is never sovereign or autonomous, but some think that the potential for progressive organizing against maladaptive governing systems faces steep challenges. To cope with the repressive conditions, Kenyan women have a tradition of forming women's work groups who share labor, for example when another woman is sick, has given birth or is dealing with other subsistence challenges.