ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates the conceptual framework of the book by explaining how we understand legitimacy, responsibility, and accountability, as well as their interlinkages. Each section first outlines how we approach the concept. It moves on to identify central conceptual distinctions and terms that provide us with a bridge to empirical studies of SDG politics in Ghana, Sweden, and Tanzania in Chapters 3–5. The conceptual framework offers an analytical structure for the book as well as conceptual tools that privilege attention to empirical observations on three central qualities of SDG politics. The sequence of the concepts creates an empirical narrative that captures SDG processes over time, during the first five years of the 2030 Agenda. While the concepts put the spotlight on different qualities of the politics of sustainable development, they are closely interwoven and taken together provide a richer account of such politics than each concept on its own.
