Social inequalities, poverty and sustainable development. New questions linked to models of knowledge that serve as the basis for political action.

Abstract

In order to discuss policies for confronting poverty while taking into account integration demands posed by the problematics of sustainable development, we must dispose of a precise type of knowledge that enables us to carry out a descriptive diagnosis of the social inequalities and specific interactions that involve a variety of social groups and the bio-physical and constructed environment – in time and space.. Do we truly dispose of the knowledge we need to carry out such a project? Do we know how to produce it? How to bring it up-to-date? Converging observations have shown us that at present, valid knowledge on this interaction is scarce. Furthermore, access to existing knowledge is generally very problematic and possesses scant practical applicability. Thus, political decision-makers who consider this knowledge necessary must generally face a wide range of difficulties. A number of clues that indicate a way beyond these limitations have been discovered and can provide a better articulation of scientific knowledge political decision-making. Through observations, interviews and bibliographic research, it has become possible to distinguish between four ideal-types of ways of understanding these relationships: expertise, “evidence-based decision”, normative approaches and participatory approaches centered around the ideal of co-production of knowledge. Each one of these ideal types corresponds to a specific way of approacing the relations between the production of scientific knowledge and processes of public decision-making, which refer us back to a well-defined corpus of contributions available in the technical literature on this issue. Each one of these approaches maintains specific relations with empirical reality and results in challenges that we subject here to critical evaluation. Keywords: Inqualities, poverty, sustainable development, political action.