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This article has two purposes: to provide a minimalist background and contextualizationof sociology's engagement with sustainable development and to comment briefly onthe five articles appearing in this special issue on sustainable development. The article outlinestwo key research streams in sociology which were relatively distinct: developmental andenvironmental studies. The article suggests that these streams became linked in part with theemergence of the concept of sustainability development, which, however, was a political-administrativeconstruction, not a scientific one. Among the sociological theories addressing sustainabledevelopment, the article focuses critical attention on ecological modernization, whichprovides a backdrop to four of the articles in this special issue. After commenting on each ofthe contributions, the article concludes that sociological research such as presented in the fivepapers is to be encouraged and expanded. Particularly important is the application and developmentof normative and policy analyses of sustainability issues, which characterize all of thepapers.