17.1 Introduction
Sustainability transitions are processes of structural and long-term societal change involving multiple actors in different roles, relations and interactions with one another (Geels, Reference Geels2004; Loorbach et al., Reference Loorbach, Frantzeskaki and Avelino2017). These actors are embedded in societal structures, and those structures both shape their activities and are shaped and enabled by those activities in turn. This is also referred to as the ‘duality of structure’ (Giddens, Reference Giddens1984) and is one of the underlying assumptions of transition thinking and its notion of ‘the regime’ (Fuenfschilling, Reference Fuenfschilling2019; Geels, Reference Geels2004). The regime as a structural environment is understood as both an outcome and a medium for the activities of actors. One concept that offers a bridge across this agency-structure-debate is the concept of ‘roles’, which has long been considered a ‘simple but useful means for explaining self-society relationship’ (Callero, Reference Callero1994, p. 228 cf. Arditi, Reference Arditi1987). It is not only a multi-facetted concept with a long history in different social science traditions, it also is a concept-in-use, used in everyday language (Simpson and Carroll, Reference Simpson and Carroll2008).
Based in a socio-institutional perspective on transitions (Loorbach et al., Reference Loorbach, Frantzeskaki and Avelino2017),Footnote 1 this chapter takes a role-based perspective onto examining agency in sustainability transitions. There are at least two interesting entry points to interrogate roles in and for sustainability transitions research: social roles and transition roles (Wittmayer et al., Reference Wittmayer, Avelino, van Steenbergen and Loorbach2017). For example, in aiming to decarbonise their local municipality, policymakers (as a social role) might engage in connecting different citizen initiatives around decentralised energy production and thus act as intermediary (transition role). In doing so, they might also challenge the current conception of the social role of policymaker and what can be expected from them, while establishing an understanding of what transition intermediation looks like. Transition roles and social roles are thus different entry points into understanding changes in the social fabric as well as actors and their agency in transitions – both use the same language of roles but come with a different analytical understanding.
Taking social roles as an entry point considers roles as institutions to refer to broader societal positions, categories or groupings (e.g. policymaker or citizen) and how our understanding of these changes over time. Drawing on institutional theory, Geels and Schot (Reference Geels and Schot2007) consider roles and role relationships as normative institution. As an institution, roles are part of the ‘dominant rules of the game’ (Fuenfschilling, Reference Fuenfschilling2019) or the ‘standard operating procedures’ of a society (Hall Reference Hall1986 in Lowndes and Roberts, Reference Lowndes and Roberts2013, p. 47). They therewith both constrain and enable human activity. Since institutions are in essence social constructions,Footnote 2 these are not fixed and change over time. This can occur, for example, when due to changes in values and societal priorities earlier role constructions become untenable or dysfunctional (Fuenfschilling, Reference Fuenfschilling2019 drawing on Berger and Luckmann Reference Berger and Luckman1966; Lowndes and Roberts, Reference Lowndes and Roberts2013; specifically for roles, see Turner, Reference Turner1990). Roles can be institutionalised to different degrees and thus be considered ‘dominant’ or ‘constraining’ to different degrees – for example, roles can be formalised and explicated, or informal, emergent and tacit. Roles are thus also susceptible to institutional work, that is to attempts to create, maintain or transform them (Lawrence and Suddaby, Reference Lawrence, Suddaby, Clegg, Hardy, Lawrence and Nord2006). A focus on social roles takes a sociological perspective onto transitions to understand how social roles as shared social constructions are shaping and enabling activities of actors but are also shaped by them, and therefore how these roles change over time. This then allows us to understand institutional change by probing into how social roles change over time.
Taking transition roles as an entry point moves away from this sociological basis, taking it more as a concept-in-use to label activities of diverse actors and/or their stances in relation to transition dynamics and directions. It comes from an explicit transition perspective, often making use of categories from different bodies of transition theory as an entry point to differentiate between roles actors take in engaging with transition dynamics (e.g. regime actors, transition intermediaries). As such the starting point for one’s research comes from an understanding of transition dynamics and from there moves towards understanding the positions of actors therein. Transition roles are primarily analytical categories, which are used to analyse and describe transition dynamics. However, transition roles may also be used as resources upon which actors can draw strategically to arrive at certain ends (e.g. Callero, Reference Callero1994). For example, positioning or framing oneself as transition intermediary provides with a different standing and possibly access to resources for furthering certain transition directions and dynamics (c.f. van Lente et al., Reference van Lente, Boon and Klerkx2020).
While this chapter separates out these two entry points of a role-based perspective for clarity of presentation, these are also often used together, for example to analyse civil society as niche actor (Seyfang et al., Reference Seyfang, Hielscher, Hargreaves, Martiskainen and Smith2014) or farmers as incumbent actors (Friedrich et al., Reference Friedrich, Faust and Zscheischler2023). In the following, this chapter first outlines the origins and empirical applications of the concept of roles in sustainability transitions research. In doing so, it elaborates on the distinction between social roles and transition roles. Second, it provides an overview into ongoing research and current trends based on a review of relevant articles in the journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transition.Footnote 3 Third, the chapter concludes with ideas for future research.
17.2 Origins and Empirical Applications of the Concept of Roles in Sustainability Transitions Research
This section introduces the origins and empirical applications of the concept of roles in sustainability transitions research using the distinction between social roles and transition roles.
17.2.1 Social Roles
Broadly speaking, sociologists refer to social roles as sets of activities and attitudes that an actor uses in recurring situations. In return, these activities and attitudes are expected from an actor acting out that role (Biddle, Reference Biddle1986). While roles do not exist ‘out there’, they are assumed to be ‘real’ and constrain or enable activities of actors – as such they can be considered as social constructions and are subject to change. For example, the social role of grandparents changed from an authoritative one to a companion role (Turner, Reference Turner1990), while citizens are expected to take on an active, rather than passive, attitude in relation to societal issues (Marinetto, Reference Marinetto2003; Newman and Tonkens, Reference Newman and Tonkens2011). Most often, social roles are evoked in transition research to analyse how certain categories of actors engage in sustainability transitions. There is a body of work looking into the roles of social movements (e.g. Hess, Reference Hess2018, see also Chapter 20) and community-based initiatives (Seyfang et al., Reference Seyfang, Hielscher, Hargreaves, Martiskainen and Smith2014). Examining the ways that civil society engages, Frantzeskaki et al (Reference Frantzeskaki, Dumitru, Anguelovski, Avelino, Bach, Best, Binder, Barnes, Carrus, Egermann, Haxeltine, Moore, Mira, Loorbach, Uzzell, Omman, Olsson, Silvestri, Stedman, Wittmayer, Durrant and Rauschmayer2016) for example differentiate between civil society as pioneering new practices, as providing services unmet by governments and as a disconnected innovator. Others have researched the roles of municipalities and local governments, for example as enablers of experimentation (Mukhtar-Landgren et al., Reference Mukhtar-Landgren, Kronsell, Voytenko Palgan and von Wirth2019).
As social constructions, roles are recognised and legitimate within a particular group at specific times (Collier and Callero, Reference Collier and Callero2005; Simpson and Carroll, Reference Simpson and Carroll2008). In acting out roles, actors can reproduce and strengthen the shared construction, or they can deviate from expectations and thereby start negotiating new role conceptions (Simpson and Carroll, Reference Simpson and Carroll2008; Turner, Reference Turner1990). Overall, a change in how actors fulfil a certain role includes negotiations between the actor and their surroundings on whether the role remains recognisable. For example, the move towards a more decentralised and renewable based energy production includes discussions and new arrangements for the role of citizens in energy production and consumption. Citizens are expected to produce energy as energy citizens (Ryghaug et al., Reference Ryghaug, Skjølsvold and Heidenreich2018) or as prosumers (Horstink et al., Reference Horstink, Wittmayer and Ng2021) – rather than as passive consumers. This new role becomes formalised through the European Union’s Renewable Energies directive asking member states to create the legal form of the renewable energy communities to act as market actors in the energy market (ibid.).
Roles are also relational, which means that they are dependent on one another (Fischer and Newig, Reference Fischer and Newig2016) and co-evolve with one another (Wittmayer et al., Reference Wittmayer, Avelino, van Steenbergen and Loorbach2017). For example, at a time of major budgetary constraints due to the 2007–2008 financial-economic crisis, discourses around ‘participation society’ in the Netherlands (Putters, Reference Putters2014; Tonkens, Reference Tonkens2015) or ‘Big Society’ in the UK (Kisby, Reference Kisby2010; Ransome, Reference Ransome2011) emerged. These revalued the relations between state and citizens where a retreating (welfare) state became more facilitative, of citizens, who were considered to become more ‘active’. This means that a change in one role (e.g. state) has consequences for other roles (e.g. citizen). When these changing social relations come with new ways of doing, thinking and organising, they may also be referred to as social innovations (Pel et al., Reference Pel, Haxeltine, Avelino, Dumitru, Kemp, Bauler, Kunze, Dorland, Wittmayer and Jørgensen2020).
In sum, a perspective on social roles provides insights into institutional change and the extent to which it is transformative, by zooming in onto roles as institutions, and the ways these are being maintained, but also created and transformed (cf. Lawrence et al., Reference Lawrence, Suddaby and Leca2009). It allows to explore how role constellations are subject to change and to link it to social innovations as changes in social relations.
17.2.2 Transition Roles
Refining an earlier definition of transition roles (Wittmayer et al., Reference Wittmayer, Avelino, van Steenbergen and Loorbach2017), we suggest to consider transition roles as roles, which are defined by their stance towards specific transition dynamics and directions. Transition roles thus take the stance of actors towards transition dynamics and their directions (opposing, following, intermediating, etc.) as a starting point for analysis. Analysis may ask which actor group is taking on a certain transition role or inquire into the activities actors engage in when acting out their transition roles. Transition roles thus position actors in relation to transition dynamics around certain directions of social change.
Considering the relative dominance of the multi-level perspective in transitions research, it is not surprising that scholars often investigate the roles of niche or regime actors (Fischer and Newig, Reference Fischer and Newig2016). ‘Niche actors’ are those advocating and working towards alternative futures, while ‘regime actors’ are conserving the status quo. With a slightly different connotation, also the role of ‘incumbent actors’ is referred to often in relation to those in power (Geels, Reference Geels2014). A similar dichotomous role categorisation is the one between ‘supporting actors’ (e.g. new market entrants) and ‘opposing actors’ (e.g. civil society, existing firms), where actors in both roles make use of similar strategies in their efforts to enhance or hinder certain future directions or transition dynamics (Fischer and Newig, Reference Fischer and Newig2016). Adding granularity to the debate, de Haan and Rotmans (Reference de Haan and Rotmans2018) have proposed ‘transformative actors roles’ including the more well-known ‘frontrunner’ (providing alternative solutions), along with ‘connectors’ (connecting solutions and actors), ‘topplers’ (working institutions) and ‘supporters’ (providing legitimacy through adoption). The role of connecting different parties involved in sustainability transitions is more prominently referred to as transition intermediary (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019; Chapter 18 this volume).
In sum, a perspective on transition roles is taken to gain insights into how transition dynamics are being influenced and orchestrated by different actors, and who is taking up which roles at which pace and order of magnitude. It also allows us to consider individuals and actors in their broadest sense, not by pre-conceiving of them along certain social groups they identify with or are categorised along due to certain social markers (i.e. their social roles) but by focusing on their stances and activities in relation to certain transition dynamics and directions (cf. Pesch, Reference Pesch2015).
17.3 Ongoing Research on Social and Transition Roles in Sustainability Transitions
This section provides an overview of the ongoing research around social and transition roles, based on a review of selected articles in the journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transition.Footnote 4
17.3.1 Social Roles
Ongoing research on social roles focuses mainly on the enactment of specific social roles in certain sustainability transition dynamics. There remains a steady body of work focusing on the public sector, including public sector organisations (Borrás et al., Reference Borrás, Haakonsson, Hendriksen, Gerli, Poulsen, Pallesen, Somavilla Croxatto, Kugelberg and Larsen2024) as well as local and national governments and more broadly at the role of the state (Silvester and Fisker, Reference Silvester and Fisker2023, see also Chapter 14 this volume), This research shows how these actors – when facing new challenges and contexts – are struggling with old and new expectations towards their social role as well as with missing action repertoires. Similarly, there continues to be a steady body of research around community-based initiatives, their transformative potential and role in shaping transitions and their selection environments (e.g. Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Durrant, Kern and MacKerron2018; Grandin and Sareen, Reference Grandin and Sareen2020; Morais Mourato and Bussler, Reference Morais Mourato and Bussler2019). Only at times, do these studies dig deeper into a changing understanding of social roles in certain societal groupings over time, as indicative of institutional change. For example, Pflitsch et al. (Reference Pflitsch, Hendriks, Coenen and Radinger-Peer2024) have examined the organisational context for civil society actors in the city of Augsburg over time, changing from a more advisory function to a more proactive role driving urban transitions.
Current work also takes up individual level professional roles such as workers (Moilanen and Alasoini, Reference Moilanen and Alasoini2023) or livestock farmers (Friedrich et al., Reference Friedrich, Faust and Zscheischler2023) and how these shape or are being shaped by transition dynamics. Focusing on consulting engineers, Sørensen et al. (Reference Sørensen, Lagesen and Hojem2018) outline how these influence environmental decisions through advice, calculations and design in ambivalent spaces thereby combining different kinds of transition work including work of persuasion and mediation, but also concrete technological problem solving and broader institutional work. Likewise, collective roles within the market sector (e.g. firms) are becoming a point of attention. This extends to the potential of investors (Dordi et al., Reference Dordi, Gehricke, Naef and Weber2022) for supporting sustainability transitions, or the overall finance sector, if it manages to overcome its inertia and risk-averseness (Nykvist and Maltais, Reference Nykvist and Maltais2022). Other work is on roles of collective actors within the third sector logic, including a focus on transnational or international actors (Kranke and Quitsch, Reference Kranke and Quitsch2021), such as development agencies (Bhamidipati et al., Reference Bhamidipati, Elmer Hansen and Haselip2019), the world bank (Lesch et al., Reference Lesch, Miörner and Binz2023) or the ways that religious organisations engage through experimentation, upscaling and regime support (Koehrsen, Reference Koehrsen2018). This work into a more diverse set of established social roles of professions and organisations shows two things. First, it shows their potential meaning for and their action repertoire in influencing transitions. Second, it shows the necessary changes in those role understandings for these potentials to become true.
The reviewed articles, while not taking an explicit sociological role perspective, do provide insights into struggles with current role understandings and demands for changes in those, while they provide less insights into the dependency and interrelations between different social roles or into changes of role understandings over time. This might partly be due to the chosen review approach, such work may be published in different journals, and partly due to the use of other theoretical concepts as entry points such as networks, strategic action fields (Kungl and Hess, Reference Kungl and Hess2021) or ecosystems (Vernay and Sebi, Reference Vernay and Sebi2020). As such, the potential of understanding institutional change through taking a roles perspective remains largely untapped.
17.3.2 Transition Roles
In the ongoing work on transition roles, one can observe a move away from a focus on niche actors and frontrunners, towards carving out other roles including prominently work around intermediaries, incumbents and followers. In doing so, this work opens up the underlying dichotomy between niche and regime actors that has directed much transition research (cf. Sovacool et al., Reference Sovacool, Turnheim, Martiskainen, Brown and Kivimaa2020).
The role of the transition intermediary (see also Chapter 18 in this volume) is a case in point. The last years has seen more and more work addressing intermediary activities in transition dynamics, leading Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019) to consolidate and propose five types of transition intermediaries, namely system intermediary, regime-based transition intermediary, niche intermediary, process intermediary and user intermediary. These focus on intermediating activities such as linking actors and activities or connecting alternatives and visions to existing regimes by engaging in knowledge sharing, networking, brokering, innovating, diffusing innovation, visioning and other institutional work (Sovacool et al., Reference Sovacool, Turnheim, Martiskainen, Brown and Kivimaa2020). The transition intermediary role can be taken up by many different actors, including foundations, funding agencies, government agencies, networks, industry associations, or companies. It might not be by chance that an increasing focus on intermediaries comes along with an increasing focus on networks and collectives (Fischer and Newig, Reference Fischer and Newig2016; Koistinen and Teerikangas, Reference Koistinen and Teerikangas2021; see also Chapter 20) in sustainability transitions research. Lately, intermediaries have not only been studied in relation to their work in disrupting the status quo, but also how organisations acting as intermediaries might be created by or work with incumbents allowing these to shape changes (Sovacool et al., Reference Sovacool, Turnheim, Martiskainen, Brown and Kivimaa2020).
A second transition role receiving increasingly nuanced treatment is the role of incumbent. Actors with an established position in certain sectors or markets are considered as incumbents. In this role, they are usually considered to have a vested interest in stabilising the status quo and not in enabling any form of radical change or transition. The role of incumbent is thus equated with the role of regime actor (e.g. Novalia et al., Reference Novalia, Rogers and Bos2021). The incumbent role is often ascribed to firms and (subsections of) governments, but is equally relevant for trade unions, knowledge organisations or NGOs (Turnheim and Sovacool, Reference Turnheim and Sovacool2020). More recently there have been calls for a re-evaluation and diversification of our understanding around the interests and activities of actors in incumbent roles (e.g. Kump, Reference Kump2023; Turnheim and Sovacool, Reference Turnheim and Sovacool2020). These aim to show that actors with established positions can relate in different ways to transition dynamics, where one way is the urge to maintain the status quo, while others are to bring about or contribute to regime change making use of this strong position as a starting point. Sovacool et al. (Reference Sovacool, Turnheim, Martiskainen, Brown and Kivimaa2020) relate this also to a different understanding of how transitions unfold, juxtaposing radical transformations and reconfigurational transformations, where the latter might hold a broader variety of activities for actors in incumbent roles.
A final transition role is the follower, around which research is only emerging. As part of EIST’s next decade research agenda, Geels (Reference Geels2021) argued that more attention needs to go to the ways in which ‘the mainstream’ which includes wider publics, firms, policymakers, consumers, follows transition dynamics. Actors taking up or being categorised in a follower role are those that are not frontrunners or pioneers of alternatives, but those that need to ‘reorient’ from the status quo to niches.
None of these transition roles is ‘fixed’ or ‘set’, but we see transition researchers trying to understand and establish certain transition roles as analytical categories across different empirical contexts.
17.4 Concluding thoughts and Future Research
This chapter took a role-based perspective on actors and agency in sustainability transitions research. In doing so it made use of the distinction between social roles and transition roles. Social roles as that set of activities and attitudes expected from individual or collective actors are social constructions and an element of the institutional context. Changes in institutional contexts, including social roles and relations, are a vital element of any transition (Fuenfschilling and Truffer, Reference Fuenfschilling and Truffer2014). Social roles therefore provide an interesting entry point to study institutional change in sustainability transitions. Transition roles are defined by their stance towards specific transition dynamics and directions. As analytical categories they can be used to better describe transition dynamics, as resources actors can draw upon them to position themselves in transition dynamics. While this chapter introduces a role-based perspective, it also wants to caution that working with the concept of roles, means resisting the impulse of reifying roles and considering them as steady and stable. More productive is to consider them as temporary stabilisations, subject to negotiations and change, and as a heuristic to analyse how individual or collective actors engage in transition dynamics as well as a proxy for researching institutional change.
While early transition research has included historical or longitudinal research, ongoing research mainly focuses on understanding transitions-in-the-making. Taking a more historical and longitudinal approach again would be an interesting way forward to uncover some of the depth that the classic sociological understanding of social roles can bring to understand the institutional changes that efforts towards making our world more just and sustainable have brought. This would entail charting how social roles change over the course of transitions to understand changing cultural meanings, societal values and social orders. As a link between society and self (Callero, Reference Callero1994), social roles can also be linked fruitfully to the concept of identity – which is interesting to consider especially in the context of phase-out and decline. Where social roles have a stronger structural element and are culturally negotiated, identity can be seen as experiential understanding of who one is (cf. Janssen et al., Reference Janssen, Beers and van Mierlo2022). Questions that are interesting to consider taking social roles as an entry point, include: How are certain roles understood in society and how are these positioned vis-à-vis sustainability transitions? How do these roles change over time and how does this relate to transition dynamics? How does one role relate to other roles?
In terms of transition roles, the field has moved beyond the dichotomous roles of regime and niche actors and lately focused on consolidating the role of transition intermediary, opening up the understanding of the role of incumbent and started exploring the role of follower. Questions that are interesting to consider taking transition roles as an entry point, include: Taking a specific future direction and transition dynamic as a starting point of a transition role, which individual or collective actors take or create this role? How are these roles constituted? Which social groups are taking on this role in which contexts and how? How do these differ across contexts? Next to its analytical use, its promise as a resource for actors engaging in sustainability transitions makes it a useful boundary object for action-oriented, transdisciplinary sustainability transitions research. Here it can open up dialogues about how individual or collective actors position themselves vis-à-vis ongoing transition dynamics.
Taking a role-based perspective appreciates thus how the concept of roles can be an entry point to investigating institutional change and to understanding how different actors engage in transition dynamics and relate to directions of transitions. It thus offers a fruitful perspective on how to study actors and their agency in sustainability transitions.
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