Karl Bruckmeier: Economics and Sustainability. Social-Ecological Perspectives

Abstract

The book by Karl Bruckmeier, a professor of economics, entitled "Economics and Sustainability: Social-Ecological Perspectives" published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020, demonstrates the importance of economic knowledge for a broader discourse of environmental sustainability, broadening the subject matter of environmental policy. The book provides the reader with an overview of economic perspectives on sustainability. It establishes a social-ecological framework and an economic framework. Through the three temporal spectra, it integrates the past, the present and the future into the said framework, covering economics, ecology and other interdisciplinary studies and research necessary to ensure sustainability. The book "Economics and Sustainability: Social-Ecological Perspectives" offers a broad base of the knowledge of the social, economic, political, cultural and ecological transformation processes necessary to achieve sustainability. The necessity of carrying out the collective actions of the entire society and formal institutions in the form of global governance, which above all requires a knowledge of modern society and how it interacts with nature, is also pointed out in the book. The book is primarily intended for researchers in the field of sustainability and economics, students in master's studies and PhD students, as well as experts in sustainable management. Karl Bruckmeier is a professor at the Department of Sociology of National Research University – The Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. Before this position, he was a professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where he taught human ecology. The book is organised into three parts with 10 chapters. The core chapters of the first part of the book entitled "The Sustainability Process: Context and Scope" are "The Policy Context of the Sustainability Discourse" (Chapter One), "The Historical Context: Sustainability in Modern Society" (Chapter Two), and "The Knowledge Context of the Sustainability Discourse" (Chapter Three). In this part of the book, the author introduces various themes by which he shapes the base of the knowledge needed to understand the concept of sustainability and creates the platform of economic, ecological and interdisciplinary research. The policy context of sustainability addressing its political and historical context is given in this part of the book. The second part of the book entitled "Economic and Ecological Knowledge in the Sustainability Process" is structured into the following chapters: "Economics Outright: Management of Natural Resources" (Chapter Four), "Environmental Economics: Orthodox Perspectives" (Chapter Five), "Ecological Economics: Critical Perspectives" (Chapter Six), and "Conflict, Relapse and Failure in the Sustainability Process: Neglected Problems" (Chapter Seven). This part is dedicated to the presentation of an overview of the core economic subject matter important for sustainable development, such as natural resource management, environmental economics and ecological economics, as well as the topics covering crises, conflicts and disasters, which are considered to be impediments to sustainability.