Nachhaltige Entwicklung und globale Ungleichheit

This critical social research study elaborates the underlying power configurations and forms of knowledge in the UN development agenda. Processes of empowerment can already be recognised in the UN’s re-course to the concept of the state and the group formations based on it. Alternative forms of knowledge experienced exclusion early in the negotiation process. In the end, it was only a privileged few who searched for a vision of the future of mankind by means of common methods. Using a survey of those involved, this study identifies four fundamental contradictions that resulted in the perpetuation of the status quo. It also reveals a need for transformative approaches at the level of the United Nations and beyond intergovernmental institutions at the level of global society.