ABSTRACT

In this article, I take up the case of the build-up to Madagascar’s 2009 political crisis in order to provide a critical account of the politics of sustainable development from the ground up. Madagascar has been positioned by the international community as a HIPC, and by virtue of its geographical and ecological situation as a ‘biodiversity hotspot’. Against this backdrop, I focus on efforts by USAID, the World Bank, international investors, and local actors to facilitate land-titling reform as part of a range of measures to encourage the influx of FDI. Drawing out the ecological and the socio-political implications of these plans, which were all advanced in the spirit of ‘sustainable development’, I show that the 2009 coup d’etat was as an expression of the failures to integrate both. The case example of Madagasy experiences with ‘sustainable development’ affords us, I argue, with important lessons about the scope, premises, and political implications of dominant approaches to the ‘governance’ of the ‘development-environment constellation’.

摘要

在本文中，我以马达加斯加 2009 年政治危机的积累为例，以便从头开始对可持续发展的政治进行批判性说明。马达加斯加已被国际社会定位为重债穷国，并凭借其地理和生态状况成为“生物多样性热点”。在此背景下，我重点关注美国国际开发署、世界银行、国际投资者和当地参与者为促进土地所有权改革所做的努力，作为鼓励外国直接投资流入的一系列措施的一部分。绘制这些计划的生态和社会政治影响，这些计划都是本着“可持续发展”的精神推进的，我表明 2009 年的政变是将两者整合失败的表现。