Sustainable development and institutional boundaries

The boundaries between the institutional domains of state, market, and science, appear to obstruct the effective management of sustainability problems: public and private interests, as well as supply and demand of knowledge, are often not aligned in cases of sustainable development. This suggests that in order to pursue sustainability, we have to establish effective modes of transcending boundaries between institutional domains. Then again, transcending institutional boundaries might lead to other problems, because if we look at the origins of these institutional domains, it appears that they have been designed to solve certain societal problems, while allowing to hold actors accountable for their actions and decisions. Mixing up institutional domains might lead to conflicting accountability claims. Given potential accountability issues, the pursuit of sustainability should besides targeting effectiveness, also take account of issues of legitimacy. This article concludes that only in case of practices that have a local, a contextual, and a conditional character, forms of transcending institutional boundaries that are both effective and legitimate may be found.