Sustainability

At the centre of this book is the historical evolution of the concept of "sustainability" and its presently observable social manifestations. From here, we will be able to inquire into the societal consequences of sustainability already visible. Finally, we will be able to provide the social sciences with additional conceptual instruments and orientation to produce reflexivity about possible future policy options.

Andre Reichel is a Senior Researcher at the European Centre for Sustainability Research at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen Germany. He holds a master’s degree in Management and a doctoral degree in Economics and Social Sciences from the Universitat Stuttgart. His main research interest is on degrowth (decroissance in French, Postwachstum in German) with a special emphasis on the firm level (e.g. company size, business model, legal form). His theoretical background is social systems theory (Niklas Luhmann) and its extensions towards studies on the next society (Dirk Baecker).

Thomas Pfister is a Senior Researcher at the European Centre for Sustainability Research at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. He holds a master’s degree in Political Science, Sociology, modern history from Ludwig Maximilian’s University Munich (GER) and a PhD in Political Science from Queen’s University Belfast (UK). His main research interests are in citizenship renegotiations of welfare, equality, and democracy in the context of European integration as well as in the relationship between science, society, and politics.

Nico Stehr is "Karl Mannheim Professor for Cultural Studies" at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany and Founding Director of the European Center for Sustainability Research. He received a PhD in sociology from the University of Oregon in 1970. Between 1967 and 2000, he taught at American and Canadian universities. His last appointment in Canada was that of fellow in the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Study at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. During the academic year 2002–2003 he was Paul Lazarsfeld Professor (a visiting appointment) at the University of Vienna. He is Senior Research Fellow of the Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, a fellow of the Fellow the Center for Advanved Study of the Humanities, Essen, Germany, a former editor of the Canadian Journal of Sociology (until 2006) and a Fellow of the Royal Society (Canada). His research interests center on the transformation of modern societies into knowledge societies and associated developments in different social institutions of modern society (e.g. science, politics, and the economy).