Sustainable governance : reclaiming the political sphere ; reflections on sustainability, globalisation and democracy ; which globalisation is sustainable?

This paper deals with what we consider to be key negative elements of current globalisation processes, and examines critically the dominance of the concept of global governance as a mode of control. This draws attention fi rstly to the fact that globalisation has an intentionally political orientation. Secondly, we are interested in approaches which can counteract the defi cits with respect to democracy and the environment which are associated with globalisation. This is not a directly action-oriented approach, but a conceptional analysis. Drawing on the work of the Study Commission of the German Bundestag "Globalisation of the World Economy" (2002), we outline the concept of global governance and point out democratic weaknesses. Following this, we present approaches which, with their specifi c localisation of civil society and a different concept of the political, seem suited to do justice to the political dimensions and the problems of globalisation processes.