ABSTRACT
Economic development and environmental issues go to the heart of most governments’ domestic policies, sharpening the dilemmas of sovereignty versus intervention and global governance demands versus the limited capacity of international and national government institutions. Views about economic development are grounded in three contending schools of thought in political economy: economic liberalism, mercantilism, and Marxism and dependency. Since the United Nations's (UN) founding, and especially since the influx of newly independent states in the 1960s, the attention to economic issues and the number of entities within the UN system engaged in economic development activities have steadily grown. The global conferences of the 1990s have underscored the connections between peace, development, human rights, trade, population growth, environmental sustainability, women’s roles in society, poverty alleviation, and good governance. In considering issues of economic development and environmental sustainability, the chapter looks at the competing ideas that have shaped policies on development.
