From “Sustainable Development” to a Governmentalization of Change? Translations and Implications of an Institutional Concern in France and the European Union

Abstract

The objective of “sustainable development” has institutional implications that deserve to be better understood. It conveys a transformative ambition that has gradually contributed to equating change with a collective purpose ideally adopted and accompanied by the relevant institutions. Focusing on the activities of government that have begun to carry out this goal, this article analyzes how rationalities, devices, and procedural arrangements merge, making change management a renewed stake in the institutional sphere. In order to understand its logics and directions, this study gives an account of this process in the initiatives of French public authorities and European Union institutions. Considering this new interpretation of “change,” it reviews the range of both programmatic and instrumental by-products that take the form of documents presented as “strategies” and the procedural bases that begin to provide support. By capturing how institutional protagonists and their potential partners have taken into consideration the issues linked with sustainable development, this article shows how this renewed form of change management contributes to an evolution in the work of public institutions and the devices they use. What is at stake is a collective relationship to change. The institutional takeover of this issue is carried out in such a way that it also induces a process of governmentalization of change.