This essay examines epistemological tensions inherent in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) project. The clash between the totalizing logic of the SDGs and growing populist antipathy for expert governance can be better understood and potentially mediated through a critical pragmatist view. For the SDGs, technocratic fundamentalism not only serves the ambition for universality but also ensures epistemic stability in problem framing and protects the interests that benefit from it.

https://journals.openedition.org/irpp/1242

Hartley, Kris. (2020). “The epistemics of policymaking: from technocracy to critical pragmatism in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.” International Review of Public Policy, 2(2).