Negotiating discord in sustainability transformations

2024/04/25 by James Patterson, Giuseppe Feola, Rakhyun E. Kim · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Environmental Education and Sustainability #Risk Perception and Management #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.2310186121

openalex publication_date 2024/04/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Policy action for sustainability transformation faces inherent and ever-present sources of conflict, pushback, and resistance (i.e., discord). However, conceptual frameworks and policy prescriptions for sustainability transformations often reflect an undue image of accord. This involves simplified assumptions about consensus, steering, friction, discreteness, and additiveness of policy action, conferring an unrealistic view of the potential to deliberately realize transformation. Instead, negotiating discord through continuously finding partial political settlements among divided actors needs to become a key focus of policy action for sustainability transformations. Doing so can help to navigate deeply political settings through imperfect but workable steps that loosen deadlock, generate momentum for further policy action, and avoid complete derailment of transformation agendas when discord arises.

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Cited by

• The behavioral negotiation perspective can reveal how to navigate discord in sustainability transformations constructively

Discussions

• Negotiating discord through finding partial political settlements among divided actors needs to become a key focus of policy action for sustainability transformations. Doing so can help navigating pol [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]