Sustainable development and the North American Free Trade Agreement: A Polanyian interpretation (Karl Polanyi, Mexico)

The purpose of this dissertation is to enlist, critique, and modify Polanyi's theory of institutional change in order to reinterpret the transformation of sustainable development during the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debate and period of implementation. This dissertation uses a revised version of Polanyi's theory of institutional change to demonstrate that theories of sustainable development, rather than being isolated concepts focused on narrow environmental concerns, are instead part of a larger reaction against market society.; There are three primary investigations supporting the analysis of institutional change presented here. The first is a critique of Polanyi's theory of the double movement. The second investigation is into the origin of theories of sustainable development through the lens of this revised theory of institutional change. I argue that sustainable development is part of the countermovement—indeed, there are similarities with Polanyi's positive program—but that its timing also calls into question the finality posed by Polanyi's Great Transformation. The third investigation, which forms the bulk of the dissertation, is of NAFTA as a critical moment, to use Lawrence Goodwyn's term, in the double movement and the interpretation of sustainable development.; This dissertation argues the following points. First, there are alternatives to globalism or the neoliberal ideology underlying the current form of globalization. Globalization, like the arrival of industrialization, has both enabling and constraining elements. Second, ideas matter. Market society is held together by various commodity fictions and narratives about the automaticity of the market. Third, sustainable development, which arose in part to move outside the states versus markets debate, was integrated into this divide. For sustainable development to regain relevance it must reinvigorate its role in asking new questions not incorporated in the older discourse. Fourth, sustainable development was recast during the NAFTA debate into a concept in line with neoliberalism through the success of the narratives of free market environmentalism and the stages of environmental development. Fifth, the NAFTA moment provides evidence contradicting Polanyi's discontinuity perspective regarding transitions.