ED Entreprise Economie Société
Satisfying human needs in a world without Growth? A Post-Development investigation across Institutional, Philosophical and Empirical registers
by Félix GARNIER (BSE - Bordeaux sciences économiques)
The defense will take place at 15h00 - Salle de séminaire BSE ou Salle Manon Cormier Bordeaux Sciences Economiques, 16 avenue Léon Duguit, 33600 Pessac
in front of the jury composed of
- Sylvie FERRARI - Professeure des universités - Université de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Valeria SCHWANITZ - Professeure - Western Norway University of Applied Sciences - Rapporteur
- Gökçe MANAVGAT - Associate Professor - Toros Universitesi - Examinateur
- Alexandra KöVES - Associate Professor - Corvinus University of Budapest - Examinateur
- Arnaud DIEMER - Maître de conférences - Université Clermont Auvergne - CoDirecteur de these
- Julia STEINBERGER - Professeure - Université de Lausanne - Examinateur
- Eric ROUGIER - Professeur - Université de Bordeaux - Examinateur
- Tina RAMBONILAZA - Directrice de recherche - INRAE CESAER - Rapporteur
This dissertation adresses a crucial challenge in the 21st century: How do we ensure human well-being within planetary boundaries? As environmental degradation and global inequality intensify, the mainstream, growth-based model of development is facing fundamental contradictions. This research interrogates whether this model can deliver human flourishing within ecological constraint, drawing on ecological economics, critical development studies and economic philosophy. My central question is whether socio-ecological sustainability is possible and, if so, through what transformations? The three chapters of this manuscript combine econometrics, discourse analysis and normative philosophy to construct a critique of growth-centric development strategies while identifying pathways for sustainability. The first chapter examines how environmental concerns appeared and changed within the World Bank between 1973 and 2021, through lexicometric analysis and historical funding data. Despite some growth in sustainability references, these remain narrow and instrumentalized. Sustainability accounts for 1.73% of lexical occurences in the corpus, and are generally clustered with financial instruments rather than ecological limits. Environmental projects, in the Bank's own classification, averaged only 6,87% of projects, with no significant and consistent increase throughout the period, and are rarely well funded. This exemplifies a “discourse-action gap” in mainstream development rhetoric, a performative alignment that doesn't challenge growth and exploitation structures, revealing how institutions shape narratives that perpetuate, rather than resolve, environmental crises. The second chapter develops the Ubuntu-EPACE framework, an attempt at synthetizing an African relational philosophy with ecological economics. Examining the South African mining sector, this normative inquiry demonstrates the contradictions between extractive capitalism and Ubuntu ethics (umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu / A person is a person through people). The framework applies Ubuntu principles to the economy through five metabolic stages: Extraction, Production, Allocation, Consumption and Excretion (EPACE). This analysis reveals systematic violations of relational ethics at every stage. I suggest policies, including mandatory Free Prior and Informed Consent, community co-ownership, and systematic environmental restoration, that could operationalize the maxim feta kgomo o tshware motho (choose life over possessions). The third chapter examines the role of socio-ecological provisioning systems in moderating the relationship between material consumption and human needs satisfaction. Using moderation analysis and quantile regressions, this study reveals that need satisfaction depends on provisioning quality at any level of material consumption. Ten beneficial and one detrimental provisioning factors are identified. Modeling then shows that, even under optimal scenarios, achieving sufficient human needs and sustainable material use simultaneously remains an arduous task, indicating that radical economic transformations may be required. Overall, this dissertation establishes that growth-oriented development and socio-ecological sustainability are incompatible. Current structures cannot deliver well-being within planetary boundaries, and development institutions reproduce exploitative, growth-centric paradigms, despite adopting sustainability rhetoric. Traditional and Indigenous philosophies like Ubuntu could provide the foundations for alternatives beyond extractive capitalism and western-style Development, centering Global South contexts and translating insights into actionable guidance towards a new Pluriversal ideal.