Chapter 3: Sustainability in the Arenas of Power: An Exploration Of Public Policy

Given the domain breadth of sustainability, it is no surprise that viewing the domain through the lens of political science reveals a highly varied landscape, extending from local jurisdictions to the still-emerging field of international law. The purpose of this paper is to narrow the focus somewhat and to describe ways to analyze issues of sustainability from the standpoint of political science via the sub-field of public policy. Several theories of public policy and “arenas of power” (Lowi, 2009) provide analytical frameworks for the study of public policy and those will be applied to the domain of sustainability policy within the United States and on the international stage.