8.1 Introduction

Accelerating sustainability transitions is crucial for tackling wicked sustainability challenges. The urgency is underscored by the 2015 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which set ambitious targets to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and limit temperature rise. Specifically, it called for emissions to peak by 2020 – a deadline that has already passed – and for a reduction to zero emissions by 2050. These goals highlight the need for immediate action across energy systems, agriculture and manufacturing to address the climate crisis and achieve global sustainability effectively.

The benefits of accelerating sustainability transitions extend beyond climate action. They foster innovation in sustainable development, promote social equity and improve public health. Rapid shifts to cleaner energy, sustainable materials and efficient technologies are essential. Additionally, these transitions can enhance air quality, reduce environmental degradation and improve overall well-being. They can also stimulate economic growth by creating new jobs and opportunities in sustainable industries, thereby promoting economic resilience. Investments in renewable energy and green technologies can lead to long-term environmental and financial gains while encouraging global cooperation.

The concept of time in sustainability transitions – characterised by pace, speed and acceleration – requires careful consideration. While it serves as a benchmark for measuring success (Sovacool et al., Reference Sovacool, Hess, Amir, Geels, Hirsh, Medina and Yearley2020; Marquardt & Delina, Reference Marquardt and Delina2021), there is limited reflection on the implications of these timeframes (Marquardt & Delina, Reference Marquardt and Delina2021), including resource allocation and legitimacy, which can create winners and losers (Newell et al., Reference Newell, Geels and Sovacool2022; van Bommel & Höffken, Reference van Bommel and Höffken2023). Critical discussions about how to meet these time-bound targets, who will be responsible, and the impact on public engagement (Skjølsvold & Coenen, Reference Skjølsvold and Coenen2021) – particularly for vulnerable populations (van Bommel & Höffken, Reference van Bommel and Höffken2023) – are often overlooked (Ciplet & Harrison, Reference Ciplet and Harrison2020).

This chapter aims to explore these complexities, examining the relationship between time and socio-technical change in sustainability transitions. Time is a social construct (Stehr & Von Storch, Reference Stehr and Von Storch1995; cf. Marquardt and Delina, Reference Marquardt and Delina2021) that shapes how we organise our lives (Elder, Reference Elder1994; Kreitzmnan & Foster, Reference Kreitzman and Foster2011), and its meanings can vary widely (cf. Marquardt and Delina, Reference Marquardt and Delina2021). From the perspective of Science and Technology Studies (STS), time is co-produced with advancements in science and technology (Jasanoff, Reference Jasanoff and S. Jasanoff2004a; cf. Wyborn et al., Reference Wyborn, Datta, Montana, Ryan, Leith, Chaffin and Van Kerkhoff2019; Marquardt & Delina, Reference Marquardt and Delina2021) and influenced by social and political dynamics (Jasanoff, Reference Jasanoff and S. Jasanoff2004a, Reference Jasanoff and S. Jasanoff (Ed.)2004b). Making, remaking and unmaking time is intertwined with politics, technological advancements and epistemologies or knowledge-making (Jasanoff & Kim, Reference Jasanoff and Kim2015) in that this co-production could lead to the displacement of certain members of society (Jasanoff & Simmett, Reference Jasanoff and Simmet2021). This understanding allows for a critical examination of the often neutral framing of sustainability transitions, particularly in decarbonisation efforts.

When discussing accelerated sustainability transitions, it becomes clear that envisioning sustainable futures involves more than just setting deadlines. Achieving these transitions is inherently political and contested, involving various local and national stakeholders (Delina & Janetos, Reference Delina and Janetos2018). Different actors will advocate for their own timescales and technologies based on their interests and visions of sustainability (Delina & Janetos, Reference Delina and Janetos2018; Newell et al., Reference Newell, Geels and Sovacool2022). Therefore, a nuanced understanding of time in sustainability transitions is essential for fostering transparency, equity and justice (Delina & Janetos, Reference Delina and Janetos2018; Delina & Sovacool, Reference Delina and Sovacool2018; van Bommel & Höffken, Reference van Bommel and Höffken2023).

To further this discussion, Section 8.2 revisits the temporal dimensions in sustainability transition research and practice. Section 8.3 reviews past research on time construction and its political implications, emphasising the need for critical assessments of speed and acceleration. Finally, Section 8.4 concludes by raising guiding questions for future research.

8.2 Temporalities of Sustainability Transitions

Sustainability transition studies have explored how technological and societal changes occur at multiple scales – local, national and regional – over time, whether relatively quickly or gradually (Sovacool, Reference Sovacool2016). These studies also focus on the various technological disruptions accompanying these changes and their impacts on societies. In this context, the concept of time emerges as a crucial and multifaceted dimension, encompassing aspects such as speed, duration and acceleration. Speed refers to the rate at which societies and environments adopt sustainable practices and systems. The concepts of substitution and diffusion illustrate this, as discussed in Section 8.2.1. Duration, conversely, pertains to the length of time required for these transitions to become embedded in societal norms and structures. Acceleration signifies the increasing pace of change toward sustainability goals over time. Understanding these temporal aspects is essential, as they shape the dynamics, challenges and opportunities in transitioning towards sustainability. By examining the speed, duration and acceleration, researchers can identify bottlenecks, leverage points and critical junctures that influence the success or failure of sustainability transitions. This nuanced analysis allows for developing strategies and policies that facilitate smoother and more effective transitions towards a sustainable future.

8.3 Intersections Between Temporality and the Multiple Dimensions of Sustainability Transitions

The analysis of the speed, duration and acceleration of sustainability transitions, coupled with the exploration of timescapes, has enriched the integration of temporal dimensions across the various aspects of sustainability transitions. This section delves into six critical elements: (1) technological choices and innovations, (2) income and consumption, (3) markets, (4) politics, institutions and policy, (5) end-users and the public and (6) just transitions. This chapter emphasises these factors and their pivotal roles in influencing and shaping the complex interactions within sustainability transitions.

8.4 Future Research

Understanding the connection between time and the various aspects of sustainability transitions requires an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates diverse research methods and reflexivity (Delina & Janetos, Reference Delina and Janetos2018; see Chapter 27). It is essential to consider the interactions among different factors and actors, as fostering public participation is vital for ensuring just transitions (Newell et al., Reference Newell, Geels and Sovacool2022). Scholars can collaboratively and critically explore temporalities and their implications for pressing sustainability transition targets through interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. Additionally, multi- and mixed-methods research approaches serve as valuable tools for comprehensively understanding the timescapes of sustainability transitions.

9.1 Introduction

Niches provide ‘protective space’ for people and organisations to innovate more radically compared to incremental innovation typical in socio-technical regimes (Chapter 5; see also Kemp, Schot, & Hoogma, Reference Kemp, Schot and Hoogma1998; Smith & Raven, Reference Smith and Raven2012). Niches foster experiments using diverse organisational forms and novel technological arrangements that typically seek to be path-breaking. Indeed, experiments often pursue alternative norms or rules for what it means to be sustainable. Sustainability in regimes, for example, is seen synonymously with green growth to be pursued through ecological modernisation and eco-efficiency. Path-breaking innovations in niches can be informed by radically different visions for sustainability. Experiments might, for example, emphasise post-growth ideas for human well-being and ecological flourishing instead of endlessly increasing production and consumption (Fitzpatrick, Reference Fitzpatrick2022; Pansera & Fressoli, Reference Pansera and Fressoli2021).

Niche–regime interactions are a key process in sustainability transitions: interactions lead to a reconfigured structure and operations in the regime (Chapter 2). In this chapter, niche–regime interaction is defined as those processes by which enduring relationships are built between path-breaking niche spaces and incumbent socio-technical regimes. Interactions can include alignments, exchanges and conflicts between niches and regimes and can result in changes to one or the other or both. Differences between conceptions of sustainability in niches and regimes will affect the way they interact. Differences can build tensions as well as synergies into the kinds of interaction that arise as a result. Research into niche–regime interaction is vital for understanding reconfiguration processes and the kinds of sustainability realised (Smith, Reference Smith2007).

Niche–regime interactions are illustrated in this chapter with an example that contrasts sustainability strategies in the automation regime of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with a niche space that we call post-automation. The latter subverts ostensibly automating technologies for purposes radically different to the rules of the regime. Where sustainability under the automation regime follows green growth rules for renewing capital accumulation, boosting labour productivity, and enhancing managerial control in production and consumption, experiments in the post-automation niche spaces practice diverse kinds of sustainability through technological activity based in creativity, care and conviviality.

Section 9.2 provides a short review of key themes in niche–regime interaction. Interactions are illustrated for the post-automation case in section three. Section four considers debates about appropriate analytical perspectives and policy approaches towards niche–regime interactions. Section five concludes with observations relevant for further research.

9.2 Historical and Thematic Development

The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions conceives potentially path-breaking innovation originating in niche spaces (Chapter 5). Opportunities open for niche innovations to scale-up and exert wider influence whenever and wherever regimes find themselves under concerted pressure to become more sustainable. Pressure arises through a combination of the regime’s own ecological and social contradictions and developments in the wider landscape. Under such circumstances, niche innovations become more prominent and contribute to a socio-technical reconfiguration of the technologies, actors and institutions that constitute the structure and operation of regimes: a sustainability transition (see Chapter 2). Research into niche regime interaction tries to understand this reconfiguration process and improve strategies for niche development and influence (Smith, Reference Smith2007).

In thinking about interaction, it is important to keep in mind the reason why the niche concept developed. It was intended to push the attention of innovation studies and policy beyond the economic diffusion of cleaner technologies in conventional innovation systems, and move analysis into real-world experiments already exploring fundamentally different approaches to sustainability (Hoogma, Kemp, Schot, & Truffer, Reference Hoogma, Kemp, Schot and Truffer2002). Niches were conceived as protective spaces where experimentation for sustainability could be both radical and diverse. The idea was to reframe analysis beyond the economic diffusion of cleaner technologies and study instead the development of path-breaking socio-technical configurations across an expanding network of experimentation (Rip & Kemp, Reference Rip, Kemp, Rayner and Malone1998). The aim was that sociologically richer research would help unlock fundamentally genuinely transformative sustainability transitions (cf. incremental eco-efficiency in regimes) (Kemp et al., Reference Kemp, Schot and Hoogma1998).

Emphasising protective niche spaces was important for transitions because promising ecological and social initiatives tend to perform poorly relative to economic criteria institutionalised in regimes (Smith & Raven, Reference Smith and Raven2012). Regimes consist of criteria for technological success whose historical evolution has had little concern for environmental sustainability and social justice. Regimes tend to lock out sustainability and instead lock in unsustainability. Today, as more regimes integrate environmental considerations into their operations, the challenge shifts to the form and depth of sustainability at stake (Section 9.3 and 9.4).

In strategic niche management, a degree of niche compatibility with regimes is recommended. Niche developments need to make sense and appear promising for those entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and policymakers in the regime open to green reforms. Niches must offer reasonable, sustainable solutions and be easy to interact with (Schot & Geels, Reference Schot and Geels2008; Weber, Hoogman, Lane, & Schot, Reference Weber, Hoogman, Lane and Schot1999). This poses a paradox for niche–regime interactions (Smith, Reference Smith2006). Interaction will be easiest when there is already good alignment between niche and regime, but such alignment will by definition not demand very great changes in the regime. Conversely, more radical sustainability alternatives cannot develop beyond the protective niche space when their configurations place too many demands upon powerfully institutionalised regimes.

A key research question arises: how can niche spaces at radical odds with incumbent regimes interact with them productively and help induce deeper sustainability transitions? Empirical research into niche–regime interactions identifies four broad types of interaction that permit a more dynamic and nuanced way of understanding the reconfigurations involved in transitions (Meijer, Schipper, & Huijben, Reference Meijer, Schipper and Huijben2019; Mylan, Morris, Beech, & Geels, Reference Mylan, Morris, Beech and Geels2019; Smith, Reference Smith2007; van Summeren, Wieczorek, Verbong, & Bombaerts, Reference van Summeren, Wieczorek, Verbong and Bombaerts2023). These four interactions help answer the key question above and are summarised below.

9.3 Empirical Application

We illustrate niche–regime interactions in the case of regime of automation and its role simultaneously as a key technology, organisational form and rule in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Automation is also central to sustainability in this so-called revolution. After describing the automation regime and its contradictory approach to sustainability, the post-automation niche space is introduced, and four niche–regime interactions are illustrated. We refer readers to Smith and Fressoli (Reference Smith and Fressoli2021) for full analysis and references.

9.4 Ongoing Debates

Researchers are increasingly recognising how important it is to analyse the interdependent relationships between these varied interactions and their consequences in sustainability transitions (e.g. Meijer, Schipper, & Huijben, Reference Meijer, Schipper and Huijben2019; Mylan et al., Reference Mylan, Morris, Beech and Geels2019; Smith, Reference Smith2007; van Summeren et al., Reference van Summeren, Wieczorek, Verbong and Bombaerts2023). Often niche–regime interactions result in reconfigurations in which narrowed-down innovations are appropriated into regimes. Disappointment in the thinner and shallower sustainability that results can frustrate some, but it can also reinvigorate radical niche alternatives. Critical reflection about initial differentiation and subsequent hybridisation opens debates about building more transformative strategies. Debates can mobilise strategic action for more promising hybridisations in future.

Ongoing debates turn on the analytical perspective one adopts towards these interactions and hence recommendations for policy (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Hargreaves, Hielscher, Martiskainen and Seyfang2016). A strategic niche management perspective emphasises appropriation interactions. In the absence of analysis and strategies for addressing niche–regime power imbalances (Shove & Walker, Reference Shove and Walker2007), a fit-and-conform strategy prevails that pragmatically aligns niche experiments to given regime possibilities. Interaction policies recommend improving the performance of technological and organisational innovations in the niche in ways that make them compelling and appropriable to a wider constituency of regime actors and the mix of conventional market criteria and sustainability reforms to which they are committed.

A niche policy advocacy perspective emphasises stretch-and-transform strategies. The most significant interaction is considered to be hybridisations that help institutionalise in regimes some of the norms demonstrated in niche innovations. Policies that reset the regime context for interaction are recommended. Improving technical and organisational innovations remains important, but it is the task of transforming the criteria through which performance is understood and innovation develops that is decisive for this perspective. Niche policy advocacy emphasises the political work needed to build alliances, gather evidence and construct persuasive narratives for realigning regime institutions with niche norms. Whether interactions lead to stretch-and-transform reconfiguration depends upon the success of niche advocacy negotiating favourable institutional changes.

Ultimately, only if power relations shift radically and permanently in ways favourable to niche norms will the latter unsettle incumbent regimes fundamentally (Smith & Raven, Reference Smith and Raven2012). A critical niche perspective emphasises this political reality. Hands-on experimentation can raise awareness about the concrete ways that wider social structures inhibit the full flourishing of niche alternatives. A critical niche perspective addresses directly and practically the distribution of power that favours regimes over niches, and which constrains transformational hybridisations. For example: Why must scaling-up always be market-based? Why not scale-down and decentralise institutions and empower local innovation capabilities instead? Why should historic access to capital privilege some positions over others? Niche experiments address in very material ways the reasonableness of political and economic questions like these. The interactions that matter for critical niches are differentiation and criticism.

We see in the post-automation example appropriation and hybridisation interactions of interest to the above perspectives. But post-automation should not be reduced to a curious generator of commercially promising innovations or entrepreneurial policy ideas. Critical interactions exist that anticipate and insist upon more radical transformations (e.g. political and economic institutions that prioritise co-operative work and the democratisation of technology). There is a dialectical relationship here through which niches are formed as the antithesis of problematic regimes and later become sources of innovation for appropriation or selective hybridisation (synthesis). A dynamic is created which generates a renewed round of differentiation and critical transformative effort (Smith, Reference Smith2007). In practice, niche–regime interactions are far more complex and dynamic than this dialectic suggests, and debate turns on how to simplify matters and where to focus policy attention.

9.5 Emerging Research and Further Needs

In sustainability transitions research, niche spaces are conceived as being fundamentally different to regimes but needing to provide valuable innovations amenable to mainstream reforms. Given power asymmetries between niches and regimes, hybridisations are likely to be partial and skewed towards regime. Only when counter-veiling pressures arise, for example when niches become emblematic for social movements demanding political and economic transformation, can the really radical sustainabilities in niches break through and exert wider influence (Chapter 20). Which niche–regime interactions count and prove influential depends upon wider social movement dynamics and the ability of niches to exploit those dynamics favourably.

Sustainability transitions research is (after considerable effort) beginning to inform innovation policymaking (Chapter 3). However, experience to date suggests policy supports appropriable alignments with regimes more than policy simultaneously empowers critical niches. Democratic public policy is an especially important counter to power relations in hybridisation. Organised progressively, policies can provide recognition and resources for niche alternatives that help push hybridisations further, and policies can use regulatory pressures to push the regime further than would otherwise happen.

The experience of post-automation reminds us that it is not only policymakers and business leaders who are interested in technological futures. Social activists are too, but in deliberately different ways. However, building institutions that align with activist norms in the post-automation niche requires much more ambitious and concerted political programmes. Dismantling intellectual property arrangements and creating commons-based technology policies, for example, or inserting the right to repair into manufacturing requires powerful political programmes and alliances (Lloveras, Pansera, & Smith, Reference Lloveras, Pansera and Smith2024; Chapter 12).

In becoming more attentive to niche–regime interactions in terms of contexts, consequences and perspectives, the politics of technology and sustainability becomes more evident. Future research engagement needs to help turn technological innovation from an easily dismissed fix and distraction for social movements and into a vital stage for conducting their genuinely transformative sustainability politics.

10.1 Introduction

For many years, scholarship in transition studies has primarily focused on the emergence of innovations and the associated transformation of a socio-technical system such as electricity, transport or agri-food. This is reflected in key conceptual frameworks such as the multi-level perspective (Geels, Reference Geels2019) and technological innovation systems (Markard, Reference Markard2020) that typically portray transitions as unfolding around a specific set of technologies in a focal socio-technical system. Influences from outside the focal system were treated as landscape developments, or context factors.

However, many real-world transitions are increasingly characterised by change processes that span across multiple systems. The net-zero energy transition, for example, involves transitions in heating, industry and transport, which again rely on low-carbon electricity and the transition of the electricity system (Andersen, Geels, Coenen, et al., Reference Andersen, Geels, Coenen, Hanson, Korsnes, Linnerud, Makitie, Nordholm, Ryghaug, Skjolsvold, Steen and Wiebe2023; Markard & Rosenbloom, Reference Markard, Rosenbloom, Rogge, Kern and Meadowcroft2022). Similarly, multi-purpose technologies such as ICT, batteries or carbon capture affect many different socio-technical systems (creating new interdependencies), and the circular economy transition could transform entire value chains across different sectors (Decourt, Reference Decourt2019; Finstad & Andersen, Reference Finstad and Andersen2023; John et al., Reference John, Wesseling, Worrell and Hekkert2022; Kern et al., Reference Kern, Sharp and Hachmann2020).

Transition scholars have worked on multi-system interactions in the past (Konrad et al., Reference Konrad, Truffer and Voß2008; Papachristos et al., Reference Papachristos, Sofianos and Adamides2013; Raven & Verbong, Reference Raven and Verbong2007; Sutherland et al., Reference Sutherland, Peter and Zagata2015). This early wave of multi-system interaction analysis generated first ideas about how to approach the topic but also left many questions open (Andersen & Geels, Reference Andersen and Geels2023; Bakhuis et al., Reference Bakhuis, Kamp, Barbour and Chappin2024; Rosenbloom, Reference Rosenbloom2020). Our existing knowledge about multi-system phenomenaFootnote ¹ thus needs to be widened in a new wave of conceptual developments and empirical studies to meaningfully grasp currently unfolding multi-system dynamics (Andersen et al., Reference Andersen, Steen, Mäkitie, Hanson, Thune and Soppe2020; Kanger et al., Reference Kanger, Schot, Sovacool, van der Vleuten, Ghosh, Keller, Kivimaa, Pahker and Steinmueller2021; Rosenbloom, Reference Rosenbloom2020).

To provide an overview and orientation, we review existing work on multi-system interactions in transition studies. We look into three strands of the transitions literature: technological innovation systems (TIS), multi-level perspective (MLP) and deep transitions (DT). We discuss phenomena of interest, types of systems and interactions analysed, and main insights from each framework, see Table 10.1. Subsequently, we discuss differences, similarities and open issues across the frameworks to articulate a research agenda, see Table 10.2.

We focus on interactions between socio-technical systems in different domains (e.g. energy, transport), whereas we mention interactions between systems in different places (e.g. national, global), or between socio-technical and e.g. political, financial or educational systems only in passing. Socio-technical systems include interrelated actors, institutions and technologies (Rip & Kemp, Reference Rip, Kemp, Rayner and Malone1998) and they typically provide key societal functions such as energy, transport or food (Konrad et al., Reference Konrad, Truffer and Voß2008). Note that readers should have a good understanding of transition studies, and the individual frameworks discussed in this chapter to fully comprehend the text. An obvious starting point would be chapters on MLP, DT and innovation systems in this book (Davies & Schot, Reference Davies, Schot, Wesche and Hendriks2024; Geels, Reference Geels and Hendriks2024; van der Loos, Reference van der Loos, Wesche and Hendriks2024). Also note that multi-system dynamics as a research topic and related concepts are rapidly evolving which implies that our review and discussions merely reflect how we currently perceive the topic.

10.2 Brief Literature Review

We distinguish four generic settings of increasing complexity for multi-system interactions to occur, see Figure 10.1. The first Figure 10.1(a) is about interactions between two or more stable systems, e.g. through the exchange of resources (input–output relations). For instance, the supply of gasoline (oil and gas system) and conventional cars (vehicle manufacturing system) in the past to the transport system (focal system on the left). This reminds us that multi-system interactions are ubiquitous in modern economies because systems exchange resources all the time. Second Figure 10.1(b), a focal system is in transition (circular arrow) with interactions to one or more stable systems. For example, the electrification of car-based personal transport in Norway (left) by connecting to an electricity system that was already fully renewable.

Figure 10.1

Different settings for multi-system interactions. Interactions of two systems in transition. An example is the electrification of road transport in places where both the electricity and the transport system were originally based on fossil fuels. Fourth (Figure 1(d)), interactions of several socio-technical systems in transition that together make up a complex of systems. For example, net-zero, digital or circular economy transitions affecting multiple systems through a shared directionality and interdependent resource exchanges. While multi-system analysis in the second and third setting typically has a focal system as the main unit of analysis, the fourth setting may also come with a shift in the unit of analysis from a focal system towards sets or complexes of interdependent systems

(Andersen & Geels, 2023; Kanger & Schot, 2019; Markard & Rosenbloom, 2022)

We further distinguish between multi-system interactions, referring to different types of couplings and resource flows between systems, and multi-system dynamics, which refer to socio-technical change processes (of varying depth) significantly influenced by other systems (i.e. Figure 10.1(b)–(d)). Although interactions and dynamics obviously are closely related, we make the distinction to emphasise that zooming in on the interactions and couplings (e.g. how to design or create them) is only one part of the broader research topic of multi-system dynamics. The distinction also highlights that different multi-system dynamics phenomena may involve similar types of multi-system interactions.

10.3 Discussion and Outlook

A general feature of multi-system perspectives is that elements, which were treated as context or landscape before, are now integrated into the analysis (endogenised). This allows for more encompassing analyses of (new) multi-system phenomena, but it also makes the conceptual frameworks more complex. Our review shows that there is so far not one dominant approach to study multi-system interaction phenomena. Instead, multi-system dynamics have been analysed with different frameworks and at different levels of aggregation. Multiple systems are at the core of the DT framework and have also gained more attention recently for TIS and MLP. There are some conceptual overlaps among the frameworks but also many differences. In this section, we share reflections and discuss future research needs that can aid cross-framework synthesis and advance our knowledge about multi-system dynamics. We focus on three topics: (i) systems, (ii) interactions and (iii) phenomena, see Table 10.2.

10.4 Conclusions

In this chapter, we have reviewed how three central transition studies frameworks conceptualise and analyse multi-system interactions and dynamics in transitions and discussed similarities and differences. We also outlined a research agenda for multi-system dynamics in transition studies building on opportunities for synthesising insights across the reviewed frameworks to better address new and emerging empirical multi-system dynamics phenomena.

An important omission from our chapter is methods for studying multi-system dynamics. It is easy to be fascinated by the interconnectedness a multi-system perspective reveals, but one should always critically ask what value-added to answering a specific question or understanding transition phenomena such a perspective brings. We noted the need to be careful about system boundaries but also the discussion about methods is still immature. Another omission from our review is policy and governance in relation to multi-system dynamics. Despite recent advances (Kanger et al., Reference Kanger, Sovacool and Noorkõiv2020; Rogge & Goedeking, Reference Rogge and Goedeking2024), the topic is rather novel, and we hope that our discussion of systems, interactions and phenomena can support future work on policy and governance (Rogge et al., Reference Rogge, Goedeking, Girones, Wesche and Hendriks2024).

Despite its limitations, our review aims to provide a starting point and an introduction to multi-system analysis in transition studies that we hope will inspire more scholars to engage with this rapidly emerging topic.

11.1 Introduction

This chapter examines how the concept of disruption has been used and defined in the context of sustainability transition studies. Sustainability transitions have often been described to involve ‘disruptions’. However, many writings in this field have been rather imprecise about what disruption means in the context of transitions, beyond the disruption of status quo. In the literature, references to disruptions have ranged from a discourse on disruptive niche innovations (Wilson & Tyfield Reference Wilson and Tyfield2018) to disruptive landscape influences (Geels & Schot Reference Geels and Schot2007). A systematic literature review conducted in 2020 revealed that the conceptualisation of disruption was often imprecise and empirical studies were oriented to the energy sector (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021). In the review, we defined disruption as a ‘high-intensity effect in the structure of the socio-technical system(s), demonstrated as long-term change in more than one dimension or element, unlocking the stability and operation of incumbent technology and infrastructure, markets and business models, regulations and policy, actors, networks and ownership structures, and/or practices, behaviour and cultural models’ (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021: p. 119).

In this chapter, we build on this definition of disruption and complement the understanding by reviewing the most recent literature on disruption, adding to the initial review comprising 47 articles. While disruption as a concept originates from the literature on disruptive innovation, we can see its recent expansion in transitions studies encompassing whole socio-technical systems. This chapter provides much-needed clarity on the conceptual confusion that has ensued and evaluates the links between the concept of disruption, and the ways in which mainstream technologies, practices and business models in socio-technical regimes need to be phased-out (Johnstone & Hielscher Reference Johnstone and Hielscher2017; Koretsky & van Lente Reference Koretsky and van Lente2020), destabilised (Karltorp & Sandén Reference Karltorp and Sandén2012; Turnheim & Geels Reference Turnheim and Geels2013; Turnheim Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022) or decline (Koretsky et al. Reference Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and Lente2022; Novalia et al. Reference Novalia, McGrail, Rogers, Raven, Brown and Loorbach2022; Rosenbloom and Rinscheid Reference Rosenbloom and Rinscheid2020). We end by examining the relevance of the concept of disruption to emerging scholarly and societal debate on just transitions.

11.2 Conceptualising Disruption in Transition Studies

Disruptive innovation emerged in the 1980s and 1990s innovation management literature, which described it as innovation which has industry-changing effects (Christensen Reference Christensen1997; Tushman & Anderson Reference Tushman and Anderson1986). Early definitions also described disruptive innovations to constitute products and services which may perform worse than mainstream products but result in other benefits to customers (Christensen Reference Christensen1997; Christensen & Rayner Reference Christensen and Rayner2003). These were described to contrast sustaining innovations which incrementally improved existing products or processes (Christensen & Rayner Reference Christensen and Rayner2003). Later literature has critiqued early literature of too simplistic arguments but agreed with the interpretation that disruption is related to the activities of incumbent actors (Markides Reference Markides2006) in a way that may force them to change their actions. Disruption, therefore, also connects to how incumbency has often been framed in the transitions literature as something that needs changing (Stirling Reference Stirling2019).

The literature on disruptive innovation has developed since then to a more nuanced direction. For example, more recent argumentation increasingly emphasised that disruption does not mean the loss of all competencies for incumbent firms (Ho & Chen Reference Ho and Chen2018) – as indicated by Abernathy and Clark (Reference Abernathy and Clark1985). Instead, incumbent actors are diverse and are not only passive targets of disruption, destabilisation or regime decline. Therefore, disruptive innovation and broader disruptive influences alike rather create a reason for incumbents to change. This can occur, for instance, in the form of repurposing assets, reconfiguring products or reskilling workforce (Kivimaa & Sivonen Reference Kivimaa and Sivonen2023; Lonkila & Kaljonen Reference Lonkila and Kaljonen2021; Mäkitie Reference Mäkitie2020). Disruption can, in effect, lead to more substantial shifts in the practices of incumbents than more incremental change processes.

Figure 11.1 shows development in the use of the concept of disruption in innovation and transition studies from the 1980s until 2019. In both fields, one can see branching out to different uses and understandings.

Figure 11.1

Illustration of the evolution of the concept of disruption in innovation management and transition literatures.

Source: Reproduced from Kivimaa et al. (2021), under Creative Commons license.

One of the core arguments in the literature on disruption in sustainability transitions is that disruption can happen regarding different system dimensions (Johnstone et al. Reference Johnstone, Rogge, Kivimaa, Fratini, Primmer and Stirling2020). In the Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021) literature review, in addition to (1) technology, we identified four other dimensions regarding where disruptions may take place: (2) markets and business models, (3) regulations, policies and formal institutions, (4) actors and networks, as well as (5) behaviour, practices and cultural models. Table 11.1 provides some explanations regarding what disruption can mean in each of these categories.

A second argument is that disruption can be characterised in terms of magnitude and speed of change. The most typical association of disruption, perhaps, is an initially small magnitude of change in the form of disruptive innovation. Examples include e-bikes and solar thermal water tanks and potentially electric vehicles (Wilson Reference Wilson2018). Introduction of plant-based proteins into food systems (Bulah et al. Reference Bulah, Negro, Beumer and Hekkert2023) is an example of gradual small magnitude of change that has not changed the power structures in the food chain. A larger magnitude of change would require major shifts in the relations between farmers, food industry and retail (Lonkila & Kaljonen Reference Lonkila and Kaljonen2021). In a transitions context, large magnitude of change covers multiple elements of systems (see Table 11.2). Such change can be gradual or rapid, the latter more frequently associated with discontinuity, breakdown and replacement. For instance, a large magnitude gradual change can be exemplified by the ways in which the diffusion of wind and solar power have substantially altered the electricity system in many countries (Johnstone et al. Reference Johnstone, Rogge, Kivimaa, Fratini, Primmer and Stirling2020). In turn, more rapid large changes can result from ‘landscape shocks’, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and wars (see Chapter 7). Examples include the rapid and persistent change to telework and hybrid work (Newbold et al. Reference Newbold, Rudnicka, Cook, Cecchinato, Gould and Cox2022; Verma et al. Reference Verma, Venkatesan, Kumar and Verma2022). Harnessing such disruptive landscape events for large changes has also been called for (Markard & Rosenbloom Reference Markard and Rosenbloom2020). The Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021) review argued that it is not only rapid changes which should be accounted for as disruption but also gradual changes of large magnitude that result in whole system reconfigurations.

Overall, in Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021), we emphasised that a multi-dimensional understanding of disruption is important, and it needs to go beyond technological change and high-tech innovation. Moreover, disruption in one system dimension can lead to a cascade of disruptions where, for instance, a technological disruption leads to business model disruption and a disruption in practices. For instance, technological advances in data sharing and programming created new business models around mobility-as-a-service with potential for broader transport transitions (Carbonara et al. Reference Carbonara, Messeni Petruzzelli, Panniello and De Vita2024; Kivimaa & Rogge Reference Kivimaa and Rogge2022). Or, alternatively, a disruption in actor-networks can create a regulatory or technological disruption. This is not, however, always the case. A technological disruption can also support established practices, such as in the case of biofuels or electric vehicles that maintain established private car-based mobility practices. There are many ways in which disruption in transitions unfold. In essence, disruption as a phenomenon is unpredictable and unruly, and, for instance, technological disruption can lead to changes to more unsustainable practices (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021).

11.3 New Understandings and Specifications

The research on disruption in transitions has expanded since late 2020, when the Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021) review was conducted. In 2020, a search of terms ‘disrupt*’ AND ‘sustainability transition*’ OR ‘socio-technical transition*’ OR ‘socio-technical transition*’ OR ‘societal transition*’ resulted in 47 relevant articles (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021: p. 112). In September 2023, the same search on Web of Science, for the years 2021–2023 resulted in 36 articles published as scientific articles (excluding our review article). The articles were published in a wide variety of sources, in 30 academic journals and over a dozen empirical contexts. The energy sector dominated with about a quarter of articles, followed by agriculture and food, COVID-19, urban development and circular economy. About a third did not have a specific country focus, while Germany was most often mentioned.

As an overview, it can be stated that no coherent interpretation of disruption still exists in the sustainability transitions’ literature. In general, the term ‘disruption’ or ‘disruptive’ are often used as regular descriptive words. In our updated light review, 20 articles out of the 36 articles found were discarded due to only using disruptive as descriptive term. A few discussed disruptions as transition phenomena but did not delve deeper into it empirically or conceptually. We analysed the remaining 13 articles more closely for the purposes of this book chapter to update the insights derived from the Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021) literature review. We identified how recent uses of the concept of disruption link to our previous categorisation in terms of technology, markets and business models, regulations, policies and formal institutions, actors and networks and practices, behaviour and cultural models (Table 11.1). The new articles especially addressed disruption in relation to niche or incumbent actors, the COVID-19 pandemic as a landscape disruption and the nature of disruption. We will sum up these insights below.

11.4 Disruption in Relation to Destablisation, Decline, Phase-out and Just Transition

Destabilisation, decline and phase-out are closely linked concepts to that of disruption in sustainability transition studies. In this literature, the concepts of disruption and destabilisation share some similar characteristics but differ in their origin (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021). While the concept of disruption originates from innovation and management studies as something contrary to incremental innovation (see Christensen Reference Christensen1997), the concept of destabilisation originates from the changes affected by or initiating from the socio-technical regime (see Turnheim & Geels Reference Turnheim and Geels2012, Reference Turnheim and Geels2013). Therefore, destabilisation is an original concept of transition studies, whereas disruption is an ‘imported’ one. Moreover, destabilisation is mostly used in the context of the Multi-level perspective (MLP) (see Chapter 2), while disruption is used more broadly in transition studies (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021). As the understanding of disruption has expanded from radical niche innovations to landscape events and regime changes in different dimensions, the two concepts have clearly moved closer to one another. Their intertwining is needed to understand the broader societal processes linked to disruptions.

Turnheim (Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022: p. 45) defines destabilisation as “a longitudinal process by which otherwise relatively stable and coherent socio-technical forms (systems, regimes, institutional arrangements, sets of practices and networks) become exposed to challenges significant enough to threaten their continued existence and their “normal” functioning, triggering strategic responses of core actors within the frame of existing commitments (preservation) and in some circumstances away from such commitments (transformation).” Also, Ghosh et al. (Reference Ghosh, Kivimaa, Ramirez, Schot and Torrens2021: p. 17) define destabilisation as reducing alignment between the different system elements “resulting in a process in which regime actors abandon behaviors, beliefs and values constituting the [socio-technical] regime”. Destabilisation is hence mostly understood as a process (Martínez Arranz Reference Martínez Arranz2017; Turnheim & Geels Reference Turnheim and Geels2013), which is caused by rapid or gradual disruption(s). One could argue that the process of destabilisation that creates disalignment between system elements may then be followed by disruptive changes within these system elements, leading to disruptive outcomes.

Decline, in contrast, relates to often a more objectifiable or quantifiable degradation of system performance (e.g. size, economic viability, population, hegemonic power, legitimacy), which can (but rarely does) lead to total decline (Turnheim Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022: p. 45). In this sense, it comes closer to understanding of disruption as an outcome. Deliberate decline (Rosenbloom & Rinscheid Reference Rosenbloom and Rinscheid2020) and phase-out (Johnstone & Hielscher Reference Johnstone and Hielscher2017; Koretsky & van Lente Reference Koretsky and van Lente2020), in turn, relate to deliberate interventions seeking partial or total discontinuation of a socio-technical form that is deemed undesirable (Turnheim Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022). This perspective also relates to disruption in terms of regulations, policies and institutions. Deliberate decline and phase-out, hence, are best understood as governance objectives, forms of intervention and as processes including several temporal phases. Lonkila et al. (Reference Lonkila, Lukkarinen, van Oers, Feola and Kaljonen2024) talk also of deliberate destabilisation (see also Kivimaa & Kern Reference Kivimaa and Kern2016; van Oers et al. Reference van Oers, Feola, Moors and Runhaar2021). However, similarly to how the concept of disruption is understood, there are also different interpretations of decline and phase out. For instance, Koretsky & van Lente (Reference Koretsky and van Lente2020) describe phase-out as a disruption, or unravelling, of the linkages between materials, competencies and meaning (see Shove et al. Reference Shove, Pantzar and Watson2012). Since phasing out implies the disruption of links between the materials-meanings-competences triad, they underline that losing one of them would not be enough (Koretsky & van Lente Reference Koretsky and van Lente2020). Most often, however, phaseout has been a narrower concept than disruption, destabilisation or decline. It has mainly focused on technology (Andersen & Gulbrandsen Reference Andersen and Gulbrandsen2020; Koretsky & van Lente Reference Koretsky and van Lente2020) or discourses (Rosenbloom Reference Rosenbloom2018; Trencher et al. Reference Trencher, Healy, Hasegawa and Asuka2019).

Turnheim (Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022) underlines destabilisation as a dynamic context of action, involving pressures, strategic responses, varying commitments to prevailing commitments and for navigating the changing opportunities. In this way, the concept of destabilisation aims to capture the political dynamics related to transitions in a much more thorough way than the literature concerning disruptions. As also van Oers et al. (Reference van Oers, Feola, Moors and Runhaar2021) and Lonkila et al. (Reference Lonkila, Lukkarinen, van Oers, Feola and Kaljonen2024) highlight the way in which destabilisation challenges the positions of those in power; the political nature of destabilisation cannot be escaped. Incumbent responses to destabilisation may focus on resisting, hindering and slowing down phase-out policies because they not only pose a threat for their vested interests (van der Ploeg Reference van der Ploeg2020) but also more change-oriented responses are possible as illustrated by empirical studies (e.g. Mäkitie Reference Mäkitie2020). Furthermore, the strategic defensive work of incumbents can in turn be disruptive in a negative manner (Lehmann et al. Reference Lehmann, Graf-Vlachy and Koenig2019; Loehr et al. Reference Loehr, Chlebna and Mattes2022), as noted above. Resistance-oriented responses have been shown to emerge within the processes that unsettle technical competency, but are likely to be even more poignant when they touch upon regionally embedded livelihoods, practices, behaviours and cultural models of people (Cha Reference Cha2020; Janssen et al. Reference Janssen, Beers and van Mierlo2022; Lonkila et al. Reference Lonkila, Lukkarinen, van Oers, Feola and Kaljonen2024).

Recent research on destabilisation has called attention to a more plural understanding of incumbency beyond the focus on the most powerful (Andersen & Gulbrandsen Reference Andersen and Gulbrandsen2020; Stirling Reference Stirling2019; Turnheim & Sovacool Reference Turnheim and Sovacool2020). Local communities, workers and civil society organisations also embody attributes of incumbency with strong cultural, material and financial ties to existing regimes. Deliberate destabilisation and disruption should recognise such plurality and complexity of the incumbent ties, from which the different incumbent groups benefit. Addressing the existing injustices within the regime can assist in finding alternative pathways forward (Kuhmonen & Siltaoja Reference Kuhmonen and Siltaoja2022; Lonkila et al. Reference Lonkila, Lukkarinen, van Oers, Feola and Kaljonen2024). Andersen & Gulbrandsen (Reference Andersen and Gulbrandsen2020) show how realising the potential of recombinations and diversification of diverse incumbent firms and actors may dampen the possible negative effects of transitions such as loss of jobs and bankruptcy of firms.

The recent political and academic discussion on just transition also aims to capture and navigate the repercussions caused by destabilisation, decline, phase out or disruption (Kaljonen et al. Reference Kaljonen, Kortetmäki, Tribaldos, Huttunen, Karttunen, Maluf and Niemi2021; Newell et al. Reference Newell, Geels and Sovacool2022; Williams & Doyon Reference Williams and Doyon2019). In this literature, however, disruption as a concept is seldom referred to. The recent developments within this realm are nevertheless helpful for capturing and navigating the broader societal effects and tensions arising from disruption and/or destabilisation (Turnheim Reference Turnheim, Koretsky, Stegmaier, Turnheim and van Lente2022). We want to especially highlight two lines of conceptual development, where the first concerns navigating the inherent tensions between rapid and just transitions (Newell et al. Reference Newell, Geels and Sovacool2022) and environmentally and socially just transitions (Ciplet & Harrison Reference Ciplet and Harrison2020; Heffron & McCauley Reference Heffron and McCauley2022; Huttunen et al. Reference Huttunen, Tykkyläinen, Kaljonen, Kortetmäki and Paloviita2024; Stevis & Felli Reference Stevis and Felli2020). The second line of development aims to bring together the recent understanding on deliberate destabilisation and transformative policy mixes (see Chapter 14) together for finding ways forward, towards more active and emancipatory just transition policies, in contrast to policy measures focusing solely on distributive outcomes (Kaljonen et al. Reference Kaljonen, Paloviita, Huttunen and Kortetmäki2024). This debate emphasises issues of interest for managing disruptive outcomes: as transitions embody winners and losers, how should the effects of disruption be lessened or compensated and to whom and how should the resulting benefits and disadvantages be assessed and valued, across different scales (from local to global) and between different socio-economic and cultural groups of societies.

As the discussion on disruption moves gradually closer to the debates on regime destabilisation, decline and phaseout, a more nuanced understanding of incumbents, niche actors and just transitions are important for broadening the discussion. Importantly, it can open novel avenues for addressing the existing injustices and power relations within the regime. Here the perspective on restorative justice can be helpful as a counterforce for disruption. Restorative justice gives attention to the management of severe injustices that have already occurred and examines avenues for mitigating those harms, both on individual and communal levels (McCauley & Heffron Reference McCauley and Heffron2018). Restorative justice introduces a historical and anticipatory temporal dimension to destabilisation and assists in moving away from sole reactive approaches to more emancipatory approaches in addressing existing injustices and creating just alternative future pathways (Hazrati & Heffron Reference Hazrati and Heffron2021; Kuhmonen & Siltaoja Reference Kuhmonen and Siltaoja2022; Lonkila et al. Reference Lonkila, Lukkarinen, van Oers, Feola and Kaljonen2024).

11.5 Conclusions and Future Research Needs

Disruption is a term often used in sustainability transition studies but with differing meanings from a more descriptive approach to an analytical concept increasingly related to conceptualisations of regime decline, destabilisation and phaseout. Whereas the concept originated from studies of disruptive innovation, it has broadened its use in transition studies covering niche innovations, regime dynamics and a descriptor of landscape influence. This chapter highlighted the definition and dimensions of disruption presented in an earlier review (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021) and added new discussion from more recent literature and in relation destabilisation, decline and just transitions.

Disruption can be defined as a high-intensity outcome in the structure of the socio-technical system, which includes more than one system dimension. These dimensions include technology; actors and networks; markets and business models; regulations, policies and formal institutions; behaviour, practices and cultural models. Whereas the first studies addressed mainly technological disruption, more research has oriented to disruption in the context of actors (niche actors and incumbency) and in policy and institutional interventions as well as the role of the COVID-19 pandemic as a landscape-level disruption. As noted above, when the disruption concept has expanded from disruptive innovation to deal with system-level transitions, it has become more closely associated with other concepts oriented to socio-technical regime transformation: destabilisation, decline and phase out. This perhaps means that the added value of the concept of disruption is becoming reduced. However, whereas, for instance, phaseout has oriented mainly to technologies and discourses, disruption is attempting a broader coverage of different system dimensions affecting whole socio-technical systems. In addition, whereas destabilisation places focus on process, disruption is often oriented to the magnitude of change as an outcome of transition-related processes.

The definition of disruption provided in Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Laakso, Lonkila and Kaljonen2021), hence, still holds its place. In the future, the processual, and political, understanding of destabilisation can strengthen the understanding of large and small magnitude of disruptions further. Here, especially the more nuanced understanding of incumbents is critical in understanding their varying roles in disruptions, which may also be positive. Moreover, as the urgency of achieving a system-wide sustainability transition increases, it is critical to link the concept of disruptions to the understanding of the ‘flipside’ transitions and its strategic resistances in order to accelerate the needed just transitions. Likewise, the ability to survive and quickly recover from extreme and unexpected disruptions deserves further attention in transitions studies. Although resilience is closely related to disruptions, in particular in the current era of large landscape disruptions, resilience as a concept did not feature prominently in our literature review. Hence, connections between disruptions and resilience in transition processes should be a focus of future research (Jasiūnas et al. Reference Jasiūnas, Lund and Mikkola2021). Paying deliberate attention to restorative justice (Hazrati & Heffron Reference Hazrati and Heffron2021) can also provide a counterforce to disruptions. In a turbulent world, with many overlapping disruptive developments, transition studies should start to analyse more carefully what are the technologies, actors and networks, business models, regulations and policies, practices and cultural models that we want to save from disruption – and what require rapid disruption to address the increasing environmental sustainability challenges.

12.1 Introduction

Sustainability transitions are about societal transformation and involve structural changes in existing structures and regimes. If transitions require – by definition – regime change, as much of the state-of-the-art would argue, then it follows that transitions inherently involve changes in power relations. Hence, understanding power – what it means, how it works and how it changes – is an important prerequisite for understanding transitions. However, the field of sustainability transitions has been elaborately critiqued for ignoring or downplaying the role of power in processes of innovation and transition, and how this relates to an underdeveloped understanding of the role of politics, actors and decision-making (e.g. Hendriks, Reference Hendriks2009; Scoones et al., Reference Scoones, Leach and Newell2015; Smith and Stirling, Reference Smith and Stirling2010; Shove and Walker, Reference Shove and Walker2007; Meadowcroft, Reference Meadowcroft2009; Voß et al., Reference Voß, Smith and Grin2009; Kern, Reference Kern2011; Hess, Reference Hess2013). Some of these critiques are accompanied by attempts to conceptualise power in relation to innovation and transitions, often in the energy context (e.g. Ahlborg, Reference Ahlborg2017; Avelino, Reference Avelino2017; Brisbois, Reference Brisbois2019; Geels, Reference Geels2014; Hoffman, Reference Hoffman2013; Sovacool and Brisbois, Reference Sovacool and Brisbois2019).

Notwithstanding this increasing attention to notions of power, research that empirically analyses transitions in explicit power terms has remained scarce. This is problematic because much research about transitions tends to revolve around issues of power, that is individuals, organisations and systems’ (in)capacity to mobilise various types of resources to achieve a certain goal. A more systematic use of power concepts could provide insights into the socio-political dynamics of transitions. In this chapter, we will shortly discuss the state of the art of power discussions and propose two conceptual frameworks to analyse different dimensions of power. We illustrate these power frameworks with case studies of Community Supported Agriculture. Last but not least, we discuss challenges for future research on power in transitions.

12.2 A Short History of the Power Concept

Amongst debates about the meaning of power and the best ways to study it, most scholars tend to agree that power is relationally constituted and that it ‘resides in the social context’ (Barnes, Reference Barnes and Haugaard2002, p. 127). As Clegg puts it, people ‘possess power only insofar as they are relationally constituted as doing so’ (Reference Clegg and Haugaard1989, p. 257). This means that when the social context changes, power relations are bound to change as well, and that as such, changing power relations form an inevitable dimension of social change and innovation. While most power scholars agree that power is inherently relational, they fiercely disagree on how such power relations should be understood and studied.

Providing a state-of-the-art overview of power theories is a challenging task, because power is one of the most contested concepts in social and political theory. Power definitions range from actor-specific resources used in the pursuit of self-interest (Weber, Reference Weber1946) to the capacity of social systems to mobilise resources for collective goals (Parsons, Reference Parsons and Haugaard1967). There are many debates about how we should define and understand power. For instance, political theorists like Foucault (Reference Foucault1980, Reference Foucault1982) [A1] have focused on structural power over, that is how structures exercise power ‘over’ actors, while others like sociologist Parsons (Reference Parsons and Haugaard1967[A2]) and political philosopher Arendt (Reference Arendt and Haugaard1979)[A3] have focused more on power ‘to’ as a capacity of actors and collectives. Another considerable contestation in the history of power debates in political science is the question of how and to what extent power is centred or diffused. Dahl[A4] (Reference Dahl and Haugaard1968) argued that centralised power as a king or monarch had it in the past has become decentralised in modern democracies. Bachrach and Baratz (Reference Bachrach and Baratz1962) [A5] on the other hand pointed out that also in democracies, there is still the power of agenda-setting and of agenda-setting elites. Moreover, Lukes (Reference Lukes and Haugaard1974) [A6] argued that there is also the more invisible power of preference shaping, a process in which preferences and choices can be manipulated. There are many more debates about power, whether it is consensual or conflictual, constraining or enabling and the extent to which power preceding knowledge or shapes knowledge (see Avelino Reference Avelino2021). Within these many contestations about power, we argue that rather than ‘choosing sides’ within these power debates or attempting to ‘solve’ them, we need to acknowledge these power contestations as different dimensions of power (ibid.). When we do this, we can define power in a broader and open way as the (in)capacity of actors to mobilise means to achieve ends (ibid.). Here, the use of the double meaning ‘(in)capacity’ serves to recognise that capacity by one actor at one level can imply incapacity elsewhere, and that power is both enabling and constraining (cf. Follet, Reference Follett1998; Foucault, Reference Foucault and Haugaard1977). More relevant than such a generic definition, however, is to then further enriches this broad notion of power with a more context sensitive, complex set of dimensions and to operationalise different dimensions of power into a research design.

There are a broad range of multi-dimensional power frameworks in power studies, which aim to synthesise different perspectives on power. Two notable examples include the three circuits of power by Clegg (Reference Clegg and Haugaard1989), distinguishing between relational, dispositional and structural power, and the four dimensions of power by Haugaard (Reference Haugaard2012, Reference Haugaard2020), which distinguishes between (1) power as violence, coercion and authority, (2) power conflicts over structures and dominant ideology, (3) the social construction of norms, knowledge and consciousness and (4) the ‘making of the social subject’ that is processes of subjectification. In the field of sustainability transitions, several authors have built on these and other power frameworks to explore different dimensions of power in transition processes. For instance, Grin et al. (Reference Grin, Rotmans and Schot2010) relates Clegg’s concepts of power to the multi-level perspective on transitions, arguing that ‘niches’ exercise relational power, while dispositional power is exercised at the level ‘regimes’ and structural power at the level of the so-called landscape. In turn, Geels (Reference Geels2014) builds on Grin et al. (Reference Grin, Rotmans and Schot2010) and several others, to distinguish instrumental, discursive, material and institutional forms of power exercised specifically by regime actors to resist transformative change.

Insightful as these frameworks may be, one of the challenges in existing concepts and framework of power is that they tend to focus on (the interaction with) regime structures and power elites. Therefore, in this chapter, we focus on sharing two power frameworks that take a more relational and complex perspective on different dimensions of power. Both frameworks draw on debates on power within political sciences and sociology and have been applied to the field of sustainability transitions, as we explain in Sections 12.2 and 12.3. Specifically, both frameworks deviate from the understanding of power as a resource, something owned and exercised by agents independently of their embedded context, which implies a static manifestation of power that is incompatible with the changing dynamics inherent to sustainability transitions. However, they offer two different approaches to the concept, illuminating different power dimensions that shape the winners and losers of sustainability transitions, and configure structural barriers or opportunities for change. By applying these two frameworks, we show the diversity of power analyses possible in sustainability transitions research.

First, we introduce the distinction between power to, power over and power with. This framework is exclusively related to the realm of human agency and analyses how power relations between actors (can) change over time and influence the process and outcomes of sustainability transitions. Then, we introduce a typology of power that includes three distinct and interrelated types of relational power: (1) The power of intentional actions and abilities of human actors (i.e. action-theoretical power), (2) the co-constitution of power during interactions between human and non-human actors (i.e. constitutive power) and (3) the influence of historical and situated processes on all forms of agency and power relations (i.e. systemic power). This typology decentralises the analysis from human exercise of power to also examine how human and non-human interactions and historical processes configure power relations that enable or constrain sustainability transitions.

12.2.1 Power to, Over and With

We propose to focus on the distinction between power to, over and with, following the work of authors such as Partzsch (Reference Partzsch2017), Pansardi and Bindi (Reference Pansardi and Bindi2021) and Avelino et al. (Reference Avelino, Hielscher, Strumińska-Kutra, de Geus, Widdel, Wittmayer and Crudi2023). While power over refers to an asymmetrical relation between two or more actors or groups of actors, power to consists of the ability of the actor herself to carry out certain specific outcomes, and power with refers to the ability of a group to act together in view of collective outcomes or goals (Pansardi and Bindi, Reference Pansardi and Bindi2021).

Power is derived from the Latin word potere – ‘to be able’. Some argue that power ‘is always a concept referring to an ability, capacity or dispositional property’ (Morriss, Reference Morriss2002, p. 283). Such understandings of power as capacity are referred to as power to perspectives. Power to refers to the capacity to intentionally mobilise resources and/or to achieve specific goals, that is ‘getting things done’, which includes intentionally affecting outcomes. Theories that focus on power to as a capacity include definitions of power as the capacity of humans to act in concert (e.g. Arendt, Reference Arendt and Haugaard1979) or the capacity of systems to achieve collective goals (Parsons, Reference Parsons and Haugaard1967). These theories are criticised for ignoring the relational or oppressive aspects of power ‘over’ others (Lukes, Reference Lukes and Haugaard1974). Understandings of power to are also criticised for ‘fail[ing] to account for individuals or groups in the community who, though they do not exercise power, nonetheless have power, in the sense that many people try assiduously to anticipate their reactions’ (Dahl and Stinebrickner, Reference Dahl and Stinebrickner2003 in reference to Bachrach and Baratz, Reference Bachrach and Baratz1962). Or in other words, even when actors are not intentionally exercising ‘power to’ achieve a goal, they can still be involved in the exercise of structural power, also referred to as ‘power over’.

Such power over perspectives have a more structuralist focus on coercion, force and domination, which includes forcing others to do things they would not do otherwise, or the constraining of agency by impeding structures. Power over includes processes of coercion, domination, dependency, oppression and exploitation, and it can manifest in different, more or less transparent ways, including visible, hidden and invisible as well as unconscious ways. Structural power can be both centred and authoritative as well as more subtle and diffused. While authoritative power ‘comprises definite commands and conscious obedience’, diffused power ‘spreads in more spontaneous, unconscious, decentred ways throughout a population, resulting in similar social practices that embody power relations but are not explicitly commanded’ (Mann in: Stewart, Reference Stewart2001, p. 25). An essential trait of diffused power is ‘normalisation’, that is the belief that certain practices are ‘moral’ or in the ‘common interest’, which relates to Luke’s (Reference Lukes and Haugaard1974) idea of power as preference-shaping, and to various discursive interpretations of power as found in Foucauldian analysis. The ability of oppressing without blunt violence is regarded by some as the essential characteristic of power over. According to Foucault ‘power is a form of pacification which works by codifying and taming war through the imposition of particular knowledge as truth’ (Foucault, Reference Foucault and Haugaard2002, p. 185). Here, it is relevant to acknowledge that power over is not necessarily a negative or undesirable phenomenon. As argued by Haugaard when discussing what he calls the second dimension of power: ‘Contrary to common sense perception, the exclusion of certain forms of decisions through structural constraint is not inherently normatively reprehensible, and two-dimensional power does not necessarily entail domination. In fact, as an empirical process, the second dimension of power constitutes one of the conditions of possibility for justice’ (Reference Haugaard2012, p. 40).

Power with is a third dimension (cf. Partzsch, Reference Partzsch2015; Pansardi and Bindi, Reference Pansardi and Bindi2021). Power with is about the collective capacity to collaborate to achieve collective goals, and includes co-action and empowerment as a goal in itself. From a power with perspective, actors can enhance their joint power, as is the case in Parsons’ definition of power as the capacity of a societal system to achieve collective goals (Reference Parsons and Haugaard1967, p. 93). This notion of power with builds on Arendt’s interpretation of power as ‘the human ability not just to act but to act in concert’ (Reference Parsons and Haugaard2002, p. 137). With this definition, Arendt emphasises that: ‘Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is ‘in power’ we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name’ (ibid.). As such, an important difference between power to and power with is that in power with, the aspect of coaction and empowerment are both conditions and goals of power in and of themselves. As such, in power with, the sharing of power, as a goal, supersedes more individual goals aspired to in the exercise of power to. As emphasised by Partzsch, in reference to Arendt: ‘Finding agreement becomes an end in itself and does not (only) serve the assertion of particular interests’ and ‘the actions of individuals (and their self-interests) are not irrelevant in processes of power with; however, individuals only unfold their power when acting together with others’ (Partzsch Reference Partzsch2015, p. 195).

Taken together, power to, over and with can be used to explain persistence of the status quo as well as change when studying innovation and transitions. While they are distinct, they are not exercised independently from one another. In analysing how these different types of power are intertwined (Partzsch and Fuchs, Reference Partzsch and Fuchs2012), we gain deeper insights into the dynamic interplay between different kinds of actors and initiatives, representing diverse interests, values and agendas.

We see the interplay of power to/over/with as a conceptual tool that can be used across disciplines and beyond academia to increase inter- and transdisciplinary understanding of power dynamics in transitions. As such, we conclude with a conceptual framework that uses the three dimensions of power. The purpose of Figure 12.1 is to synthesise debates about power, as discussed above, in three accessible and recognisable notions of power. The point of this conceptual framework, as visible in Table 12.1, is not to treat power to/over/with as separate or static characterisations of power exercises at one point in time. Rather, the aim is to also acknowledge how these different dimensions of power relate to each other and to gain understanding of how power relations (can) change over time, including power to/over/with relations.

Figure 12.1

Visual conceptualisation of power to, power over and power with

(source: Avelino et al., 2023)

Table 12.1Conceptual framework and empirical questions to study power to/over/with in transition initiatives

Table 12.1Conceptual framework and empirical questions to study power to/over/with in transition initiatives

Concepts of power	Foci of empirical inquiry > operationalised empirical questions to ask about transition initiatives
Power to: ‘getting things done’	How are which actors mobilising which resources to intentionally affect which outcomes?
Power over: ‘forcing & dominating’	How are actors impeded/coerced to do what thing that they would otherwise (not) have done?
Power with: ‘acting in concert’	How and which actors are collaborating to achieve common goals (and to what extent is empowerment a goal in itself)?
Power relations	How were power relations between which actors challenged and/or reproduced?

In addition, these three notions of power were applied to formulate empirical questions to study initiatives that aim to contribute to sustainability transitions, hereafter referred to as transition initiatives. Section 12.2.2 will illustrate how these questions were answered for a transition initiative.

12.3 Empirical Illustrations of Power Dimensions in Community Supported Agriculture

We explore power in sustainability transitions by using the case of community-supported agriculture (CSA) in the pursuit of socially just and ecologically sound agri-food systems.Footnote ¹ We first introduce the case and then we apply the two power frameworks to (i) uncover the various issues of power shaping the process and outcomes of agri-food transitions and (ii) examine the role of power in sustainability transitions. Additionally, the analysis highlights the partial, tentative and ambiguous nature of shifting power relations that is key to understanding real-life sustainability transitions not as a silver bullet for ongoing socio-ecological problems; instead, it is a process of continuous negotiation between different actors with contrasting interests and positions for or against change.

Community-supported agriculture is an agri-food grassroots initiative where local consumers support the farmer by providing upfront financing for a harvest season in exchange for a weekly supply of fresh produce. This way, CSA shields food producers from the pressures of the food market and creates a space favourable for experimenting with agri-food operations that are closely aligned to the values and objectives of the members involved. CSA Guadiana, located in rural Alentejo, South Portugal, showcases the role that CSA can play in agri-food transitions as a space for politicisation and community action. It serves as a platform for agri-food collaborations and has the potential to address social and environmental injustices in agri-food systems. The initiative, a partner of the Portuguese CSA Network, aligns with the network’s goal of promoting food sovereignty, food as a commons and agroecology. CSA Guadiana is one of the few active agri-food initiatives that pursue an alternative to the dominant industrial agri-food system in rural Alentejo.

Established in 2019, CSA Guadiana consisted of six farmers and fluctuates between 20 and 30 consumer-members each harvest season. The initiative primarily comprised immigrant neo-rurals, who are often individuals migrating from urban centres to rural regions in search of a lifestyle change and proximity to the natural environment. A significant aspect of CSA Guadiana was the diversity of gender and sexual identities among its farmers and consumer-members, which starkly contrasted with rural Alentejo’s mainstream heteronormative socio-cultural context. Members self-identified their sexual orientation as bisexual, gay, fluid, trans fluid, undefined and heterosexual, while their gender identities include cis-women, cis-men,Footnote ² creative and non-binary. However, the initiative has never discussed gender and sexuality collectively and issues of inclusivity and diversification were not included in their agenda.

Particularly for queerFootnote ³ individuals, participating in CSA Guadiana provided a heightened sense of dignity compared to other interactions with conventional farmers and local agri-food actors unrelated to the CSA. One queer cis-woman farmer supplying artisanal cheese for CSA Guadiana mentioned ‘I am grateful for the CSA because it allows me to exist. It is a place where I can express myself, where I can be creative and where I am respected for the work I do. CSA members trust and appreciate my work. When selling outside the CSA, I am viewed as unprofessional, and my cheese production is viewed only as a hobby’. Besides, queer members encountered discrimination against their gender and sexuality when searching for land, selling or purchasing food in local agri-food venues, or integrating into the rural community. However, the same farmer highlighted that she received recognition and valorisation for both their farming work and queer identities within the CSA Guadiana, ‘the CSA members treat us as a couple, not as friends. They not only accept it but also respect it. This is very important for me’.

The farmers and consumer-members met weekly to assemble and distribute the vegetable baskets, fostering conviviality, community-building and collective work. These gatherings also provided a space for discussing local politics and exploring ways for the CSA to act as a political agent. For example, CSA Guadiana has partnered with the local government to organise a farmers’ market featuring small-scale producers from the region that are often excluded from the conventional agri-food circuit for not complying with industrial and commercial requirements.

An interesting case concerns the involvement of CSA members with a local social movement that opposed the construction of a photovoltaic power plant spanning 816 hectares in their region. Several CSA members found support within the CSA to join the social movement due to concerns about the plant’s adverse effects on health, economy, society and the environment. Of particular concern was the lack of concrete information about the plant’s effects on the ecosystem and landscape, which could directly affect the quality and diversity of local food production. The decision to build the plant had been unilaterally made by regional government representatives and an international engineering company without sufficiently consulting civil society representatives. The actors behind the plant’s construction saw it as an opportunity to foster the energy transition in Portugal by supplying renewable energy to an important nearby harbour and the country’s capital, Lisbon.

The social movement took action with the support of many CSA members who participated at different levels, including distributing informative posters, creating audio-visual content for awareness campaigns and engaging with the press to report on the movement’s objectives. Two immigrant queer cis-women farmers assumed prominent roles on the movement’s board, organising meetings at their farm, conducting awareness campaigns and hosting public events to inform the local population about their concerns and mobilise a critical mass. In October 2021, the social movement presented a precautionary measure to halt the plant’s construction, targeting the regional government and the German company.

However, the interactions between CSA members, the local political system and other native residents were marked by discrimination and heightened self-awareness of socio-economic privileges. Some segments of the local population resisted joining forces with the social movement. Local politicians and members of affluent families questioned the credibility and legitimacy of social movement leaders as they were immigrants, women and lacked affiliation with wealthy local families. Working-class residents showed a lack of alignment with their arguments elucidating ecological and social benefits over the economic gains promised by the local government. Based on this experience, CSA members acknowledged their limited understanding of the local culture and politics, realising that the CSA formed a bubble of socio-economically and intellectually privileged rural residents that cultivated values and practices that were not representative of the native population in their region.

12.4 On-going Debates and Emerging Research on Power in Transition

Research on power in transitions is rapidly expanding. New empirical applications are regularly explored (e.g. Raj et al., Reference Raj, Feola, Hajer and Runhaar2022; Schägg et al., Reference Schägg, Becker and Pradhan2022), and new approaches and theories are being developed (e.g. Brisbois et al., Reference Brisbois, Torres Contreras, Loe, Balest, Smith, Sareen and Sovacool2024; Thombs, Reference Thombs2019; Haas, Reference Haas2019). There is a healthy academic community, especially amongst doctoral candidates, who are engaging deeply with questions of power. This is helping to create perspectives and tools that are suitable for pursuing a wide range of power-related aims in different contexts. In this respect, research on power in transitions is active and thriving.

Despite this, attention to power in transitions research remains insufficient. This is clearly not because of a dearth of research on power, but rather because wider research on transitions often fails to account for the implications of power in developing theory or causal explanations of empirical outcomes. As a result, power un-aware theories and explanations are often inadequate and fail to effectively identify and address important drivers for, and barriers to, sustainability transitions.

This pattern may be partly due to the interdisciplinary nature of transitions studies. Rooted in innovation studies and organisational management, transition studies attract scholars with a wide range of epistemological foundations and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. For those trained in fields like sociology or critical geography, attention to power and its implications is often second nature. For those from more positivist fields, it may not be immediately obvious how, for example, power inherently shapes technological innovation system (TIS) functions and their outcomes. The answer to calls for more attention to power in transitions is thus not (only) for more direct research on power, but for researchers who do not study power as a focus to improve their understanding of this core social concept and work to integrate this expanded understanding into their project conceptualisation, design and analysis, regardless of the empirical focus of their work.

One of the key strengths of power-aware research is that it moves often-hidden issues, dynamics and structures from the black box of ‘context’ into the analytical frame. In doing so, it can both reveal what needs to change for transitions to progress, and provide insight into how change can be supported and actioned. The empirical analysis in this chapter illustrates two power-aware frameworks that can support sustainability transitions researchers to (i) uncover the various issues of power shaping the process and outcomes of transitions and (ii) examine the role of power in sustainability transitions, for example, shifting power relations (power to/over/with framework) or power enabling or constraining transition (three relations of power framework).

These, and other power frameworks, provide insights that are necessary to accurately represent and support transition processes. However, examination of power often inevitably ends up politicising analysis as the power structures that define transitions are themselves inherently political. Transition studies are increasingly embracing the political nature of change processes (e.g. Feola, Reference Feola2020; Loewen, Reference Loewen2022) but, again, this is not reflected in all scholarship. The challenge is thus to determine ways to advance power-aware perspectives on transitions research, even in situations when they might raise uncomfortable questions about deeply entrenched values, beliefs and structures.

Within power-focused transitions research, there is still much to be done. One promising area of research is the exploration of theories and perspectives on power from non-Western cultures, and from more diverse authors. Most of the classical power theorists upon which (often female) contemporary transitions scholars (e.g. Avelino, Brisbois, Partzsch and Ahlborg) are building are white, male and from Western backgrounds (e.g. Dahl, Lukes, Parsons, Mann, Foucault and Giddens). Other traditions have perspectives on power but these are often articulated as responses to oppression and colonialism, rather than as explicit contributions to Western power theory. Indeed, these perspectives on resistance and emancipation are increasingly relevant as global contexts become more conflicted and destabilised. There is thus significant potential for broadening and deepening perspectives on power in transitions by working with diverse perspectives.

There is a vast body of non-Western scholarship to build upon, although it is not always available through Western publication systems as a result of inequalities in access and representation. Potential perspectives include, but are certainly not limited to, Latin American theorists such as Paulo Friere’s pedagogy of the oppressed (Reference Freire1996), or Orlando Fals Borda’s ‘positive subversion’ (Reference Fals-Borda1969). From the African diaspora, Achilles Mbembe has articulated ‘necropolitics’ (Reference Mbembe, Morton and Bygrave2008), which discusses how power relations, and specifically racism, create systems where the lives of some are considered more valuable than others. Indian-Ugandan Mamdani (Reference Mamdani1996) examines post-colonial states and how systems of ongoing oppression are created and maintained. Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies present fundamentally new ways of understanding power relations and our relation to the natural world and others (e.g. Kimmerer, Reference Kimmerer2013). Other perspectives, drawn from all parts of the world, have much to say about how power and its implications can be understood and shaped through transitions research.

Using perspectives on power that have emerged from lived experiences of struggle tends to foreground wider structural conditions that shape transition pathways. For example, work that explicitly examines or responds to coloniality as a key power-related dynamic has much to say about how colonial logics pervade the business models, development strategies and governance systems that shape sustainability transitions, even in places like Europe (Arora and Stirling, Reference Arora and Stirling2023). Likewise, Indigenous philosophies that understand relationships between humans and the natural world, and all its animate and inanimate component parts, as two-way and actively relational creates a fundamentally different perspective on who comprises relevant ‘actors’ in a given socio-technical system.

Other emerging research areas include the exploration of post-marxist perspectives that focus on building and expanding more equitable, and often deliberative, democratic practices and societies, and understanding the role of conflict and struggle therein. There are wider moves to integrate these perspectives into broad sustainability transformations literature. For example, Kalt (Reference Kalt2024), Harry et al. (Reference Harry, Maltby and Szulecki2024), Patterson et al. (Reference Patterson, Feola and Kim2024)[A7] and Wanvick and Haarstad (Reference Wanvik and Haarstad2021) all examine the ways that conflict manifests and creates outcomes in sustainability transformations, often with a focus on populist or popular movements. Kalt (Reference Kalt2024) takes up this line of research specifically from a sustainability transitions perspective.

Also using post-marxist perspectives is related sustainability research that explores how power dynamics shape transition potential and pathways. For example, Keil and Steinberger (Reference Keil and Steinberger2024[A8]) examine how structural constraints introduced by capitalist profit logics in the automobile sector are impeding mobility transitions, while Machin (Reference Machin2020)[A9] takes up these questions in the context of nuclear expansion. These framings, ideas and perspectives are clearly applicable to transitions in socio-technical systems and can be fruitfully explored and integrated with transition framings and perspectives.

There is no ultimate end game for the study of power in transitions. As the fundamental concept in the social sciences (Russell, Reference Russell1938), power relations will exist no matter where transitions take us. There will thus be an ongoing need to develop, adapt and apply research on power to whatever futures we transition towards. However, at present, there is a pressing need for research on resisting and shifting unsustainable structures, building solidarities and prefiguring systems where power relations are better at facilitating socially and environmentally sustainable transitions. This includes both through direct research on power, and by ensuring that all transitions research reflects an understanding of how power is shaping transitions.

13.1 Introduction

Questions of socio-technical sustainability transitions, and of sustainability in general, are deeply rooted in ideas of temporality and relations to the future. Notions such as expectations, visions or imaginaries may appear as rather ephemeral phenomena in shaping socio-technical change, in contrast to more tangible forms of exerting power such as law, regulation, financial power, technological path dependencies and the like. However, expectations and visions, not least those that become shared and widely acknowledged in innovation and policy circles and in public media, constitute a subtle, but influential and often forceful element in mobilising, legitimising and guiding transition processes. Expectations and visions have been shown to be a key element in innovation processes in general (Borup et al., Reference Borup, Brown, Konrad and van Lente2006). Arguably, their role is particularly relevant for radical niche technologies and transition processes, as for these it is all the more important to imagine futures that differ from current socio-technical regimes and established technologies. Widely shared expectations and visions may even function as ‘prospective structures’ that actors treat as structures of the future, and by coordinating activities towards these imagined structures, may actually create them (Van Lente, Reference Van Lente1993; Van Lente & Rip, Reference Van Lente, Rip, Disco and Van der Meulen1998).

In the field of transition studies, early work on niche formation and Strategic Niche Management has quickly identified the importance of expectations on the future performance of novel technologies, their future environment and potential to address societal problems, in contrast to theories that mainly consider the current performance and system environment (Kemp et al., Reference Kemp, Schot and Hoogma1998; Schot, Reference Schot1998). Governance-oriented work has turned this insight into an instrumental approach with transition visions being a core element in Transition Management, which are supposed to align and guide diverse stakeholders in the governance of transition processes (Kemp & Loorbach, Reference Kemp, Loorbach, Voß, Bauknecht and Kemp2006; Rotmans et al., Reference Rotmans, Kemp and Van Asselt2001). Similarly, the approach of technological innovation systems (TIS) highlights visions and expectations as an important element in influencing the direction of search (Bergek et al., Reference Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, Lindmark and Rickne2008). A more explorative use of future visions can be found in work on socio-technical scenarios that taps into the expanding understanding of transition dynamics for investigating possible future transition pathways. More recently, we see a turn to less visible elements in anticipatory dynamics around transition processes, namely in the burgeoning field of studies that reveal the different socio-technical imaginaries that structure future-oriented discourses and that shape what is considered as desirable and possible directions for transition processes and niche developments (Jasanoff & Simmet, Reference Jasanoff and Simmet2021; Mutter & Rohracher, Reference Mutter and Rohracher2022). Questions of visions and expectations have also found renewed interest in recent discussions about transformative and mission-oriented innovation policies and the challenge of directionality (Bergek et al., Reference Bergek, Hellsmark and Karltorp2023; Weber & Rohracher, Reference Weber and Rohracher2012). Broadly spoken, visions and expectations are part of a range of anticipatory practices (Berten & Kranke, Reference Berten and Kranke2022) where discourses can be strategically framed (Lempiälä et al., Reference Lempiälä, Apajalahti, Haukkala and Lovio2019) as a means to perform authority and power (Beck & Mahony, Reference Beck and Mahony2018; Berten & Kranke, Reference Berten and Kranke2022), but at the same time are shaped by historically grown cultural repertoires (Lempiälä et al., Reference Lempiälä, Apajalahti, Haukkala and Lovio2019).

In the following, we explicate in more detail how the role of expectations, visions, scenarios and imaginaries has been discussed throughout the unfolding sustainability transitions research (Markard et al., Reference Markard, Raven and Truffer2012; Truffer et al., Reference Truffer, Rohracher, Kivimaa, Raven, Alkemade, Carvalho and Feola2022) with a focus on the main conceptual perspectives and on how different forms of socio-technical futures feature in the dynamics and governance of transitions. We illustrate these more general dynamics by pointing to studies on transitions in the energy domain and by discussing in more depth the case of hydrogen technologies. In a concluding section, we highlight current debates and emerging research.

13.2 Historical and Thematic Development

13.3 Ongoing Debates and Emerging Research

As our previous sections have shown, many of the approaches within the sociology of expectations, socio-technical imaginaries or methods of futuring such as scenarios, foresight exercises or policy labs have a long tradition (sometimes in other contexts than sustainability transition studies), but are still further developed, refined and operationalised. In discussing these themes, we have tried to show the continuum from early developments to ongoing debates. In this concluding section, we want to complement these topics by touching on some emerging themes in a rather eclectic fashion without pretending to cover the whole range of new developments.

A transition-related discourse which received a lot of public attention in recent years is the discussion about mission-oriented innovation policies. Schot and Steinmueller (Reference Schot and Steinmueller2018) speak of a 3rd generation of transformative innovation policies, and Mazzucato (Reference Mazzucato2018) has introduced these mission-policy concepts at the European Union level. Defining, operationalising and implementing long-term visions and goals in such missions (Geels et al., Reference Geels, Turnheim, Asquith, Kern and Kivimaa2019) and creating directionality of transformative change (Weber & Rohracher, Reference Weber and Rohracher2012) is one of the big questions related to the theme of visions and expectations. Attempts to create directionality in addressing societal challenges have been empirically studied at urban and regional levels (Parks, Reference Parks2022; Tödtling et al., Reference Tödtling, Trippl and Desch2022), but also in national mission-oriented innovation programmes (Grillitsch et al., Reference Grillitsch, Hansen, Coenen, Miörner and Moodysson2019), at sectoral levels such as transport (Schippl & Truffer, Reference Schippl and Truffer2020), or in relation to the challenge of ‘deep transitions’ (Johnstone & McLeish, Reference Johnstone and McLeish2020; Kemp et al., Reference Kemp, Pel, Scholl and Boons2022). Bergek et al. (Reference Bergek, Hellsmark and Karltorp2023) identified eight challenges which need to be dealt with in this respect: ‘handling goal conflicts, defining system boundaries, identifying realistic pathways, formulating strategies, realising destabilisation, mobilising relevant policy domains, identifying target groups, and accessing intervention points.’

A further research strand drawing on studies of expectations and visions in sustainability transitions is the study of narratives of change and the storytelling as a strategy in fostering transitions. Narratives are different from expectations or imaginaries in that they fill the gap between imaginaries and the present course of action, but they also guide our access to the past and align some elements of the past with the imagined future (Bazzani, Reference Bazzani2022). Stories in energy and climate research can both serve as artefacts to be investigated in terms of content, relationships and power, or they can be used to communicate with and engage audiences (Moezzi et al., Reference Moezzi, Janda and Rotmann2017). While storytelling is used in scenario development and design practices, its use remains undertheorised (Raven & Elahi, Reference Raven and Elahi2015). Also ‘fictional representations’ can have an important role in future studies, whether by providing a diversity of ‘ways of knowing’ and alternative ways the future can be understood, or by tapping into unconsciously held assumptions and implicit understandings (Bina et al., Reference Bina, Inch and Pereira2020). Fiction, art and performances can be mobilised as a participatory form of world-building ‘that allows for new ways of knowing, and new ways of being, in relation to post-fossil transitions’ (Stripple et al., Reference Stripple, Nikoleris and Hildingsson2021: 87).

Last, we want to name the role of visions and imaginaries as an element of conflict, contestation and power which have gained increased analytical attention in transition studies (e.g. Avelino, Reference Avelino2017; Madsen et al., Reference Madsen, Miörner and Hansen2022; Yuana et al., Reference Yuana, Sengers, Boon, Hajer and Raven2020). While Avelino (Reference Avelino2017) asks to analyse power relations implied in sustainability visions, Madsen et al. (Reference Madsen, Miörner and Hansen2022) point to the way visions and discourses are mobilised along various ‘axes of contestation’ in transition processes. Questions of power, conflict and justice in sustainability transitions are deeply entangled with the way they are represented in and mobilised through visions and imaginaries of the actor groups involved in these processes. Along with the other current debates highlighted in this section, this underlines how concepts of visions, imaginaries and expectations are cutting across different themes and dimensions of sustainability transitions research and can be of great analytical value for gaining a more nuanced understanding of transformative change and strategies to make the governance of sustainability transitions more effective.

14.1 Introduction

Recognising that societal challenges, such as climate change and social inequality, are systemic in nature, transition studies have called for public policies that promote socio-technical systems innovation (Schot and Steinmueller Reference Schot and Steinmueller2018). As synthesised by Weber and Rohracher (Reference Weber and Rohracher2012), the rationales for such transformational policy interventions are multi-faceted market failures (derived from economics), structural system failures (derived from innovation studies) and transformational system failures (derived from transition studies). At the same time, transition scholarship has recognised the contested political nature of transition processes (Meadowcroft Reference Meadowcroft2011) which can impede the adoption of transformative policy mixes (Kern and Howlett Reference Kern and Howlett2009, Rogge et al. Reference Rogge, Kern and Howlett2017). Investigating the policies and politics of transitions has therefore been a key line of research in transition studies (Markard et al. Reference Markard, Raven and Truffer2012), reflected for instance in the research agenda of both the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN) and the annual conference on International Sustainability Transitions (IST). Correspondingly, transition scholars have investigated how to deliberately steer and accelerate systemic changes towards sustainability (Geels Reference Geels2014, Kern Reference Kern2015, Robert et al. Reference Roberts, Geels, Lockwood, Newell, Schmitz, Turnheim and Jordan2018). They have also pointed to the dual politics of transitions arising from, on the one hand, resistance from incumbent actors entrenched in the declining trajectory and, on the other hand, contestations around designing the new ‘rules of the game’ in the emerging, potentially more sustainable trajectory (Rogge and Goedeking Reference Rogge and Goedeking2024). This line of research on the policies and politics of sustainability transitions is sometimes summarised under the umbrella of governing transitions and consists of multiple and evolving fields of investigation on when and how to intervene in transition processes (Koehler et al. Reference Köhler, Geels, Markard, Onsongo and Wieczorek2019).

Early work suggested a rather discrete albeit important role of interventions in transition processes, focused on industrial policy, procurement and regulation (Kemp, Reference Kemp1994). This view expanded to interventions in the different stages of a transition process and the role of governmental authorities within each stage, for which two key approaches were developed. One of them is Strategic Niche Management (see Chapter 5), which focuses on early transition stages (Kemp et al. Reference Kemp, Schot and Hoogma1998). The other concern is transition management (see Chapter 3) which proposes a long-term view on interventions in each transition stage (Rotmans et al. Reference Rotmans, Kemp and van Asselt2001). These developments were further nurtured by considerations of reflexive governance (Voss et al. Reference Voss, Bauknecht and Kemp2006).

Later research has delved into the notion of policy mixes, that is, the combination of policy strategies and instrument mixes for steering and accelerating sustainability transitions (Rogge and Reichardt Reference Rogge and Reichardt2016). Two key insights from this policy mix literature (Rogge Reference Rogge2019) include the importance of adopting policy mixes for creative destruction which are simultaneously supporting sustainability innovations and destabilising unsustainable regimes (Kivimaa and Kern Reference Kivimaa and Kern2016) and the importance of the credibility and consistency of policy mixes for driving transformative change (Rogge and Schleich Reference Rogge and Schleich2018, Rogge and Duetschke Reference Rogge and Dütschke2018). In addition, policy mix scholarship has increasingly pointed out the importance of investigating policy-making processes and has called for drawing on the policy studies literature to better investigate the politics of policy mixes (Kern et al. Reference Kern, Rogge and Howlett2019, Kern and Rogge Reference Kern and Rogge2018). This has led to new interdisciplinary developments, including a greater focus on policy feedbacks (Edmonson et al. Reference Edmondson, Kern and Rogge2019, Reference Edmondson, Rogge and Kern2020), investigations of the role of advocacy coalitions for policy change (Markard et al. Reference Markard, Suter and Ingold2016, Schmid et al. Reference Schmid, Sewerin and Schmidt2020, Gomel and Rogge Reference Gomel and Rogge2020) and analyses of the multiple streams of problem, policy and politics to unpack the politics of transitions (Norman Reference Normann2015).

In this chapter, we follow this call for better bridging transition studies and policy studies for investigating how public authorities can accelerate transitions towards more sustainable systems of production and consumption through transformative policy interventions – and refer to Chapter 12 for a deep-dive on the politics of and power in sustainability transitions (Avelino and Wittmayer Reference Avelino and Wittmayer2016, Avelino et al. Reference Avelino, Grin, Pel and Jhagroe2016, Avelino Reference Avelino2017).

Transition studies share with policy studies a sense of urgency to understand and inform public policy in response to societal challenges. To address these challenges, scholars in transition studies have called for policy interventions promoting socio-technical change through addressing different intervention points (Kanger et al. Reference Kanger, Sovacool and Noorkõiv2020), whereas those in policy studies have similarly called for policies with transformational aims (Derwort et al. Reference Derwort, Jager and Newig2021). These calls are reflected in policies such as the European Green Deal, which seeks to tackle the climate crisis through low-carbon innovation (European Commission 2021). We argue that investigating how public policy can help achieve such transformational aims can best be addressed by bridging insights from both transition studies and policy studies: while the former has explored interventions for transformations towards sustainability, the latter has studied policy change – including its mechanisms and causes. Yet, despite calls to bridge both fields (Kern and Rogge Reference Kern and Rogge2018, Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Geels, Lockwood, Newell, Schmitz, Turnheim and Jordan2018), with a few exceptions, transition and policy studies remain largely unconnected.

On the one hand, transition studies with its fundamentally systemic perspective offer insights on how to steer system transformations while recognising the complex and uncertain nature of socio-technical change (see the various contributions in this handbook). The field has experienced tremendous growth over the past two decades (Zolfagharion et al. Reference Zolfagharian, Walrave, Raven and Romme2019; Hansmeier et al. Reference Hansmeier, Schiller and Rogge2021). It emerged from innovation studies to investigate the occurrence and dynamics of change associated with socio-technical transitions (Geels Reference Geels2004), broadly defined as major shifts in systems fulfilling societal functions, such as energy or mobility. Such shifts require deliberate steering towards societally desirable outcomes (Grin et al. Reference Grin, Rotmans and Schot2010; Weber and Rohracher Reference Weber and Rohracher2012). Research has studied ‘the preconditions, driving mechanisms, broad patterns and possibilities for accelerating radical transformations’ (Kanger et al. Reference Kanger, Sovacool and Noorkõiv2020); developed several analytical frameworks for analysing these conditions, mechanisms and patterns (Markard et al.Reference Markard, Raven and Truffer2012); and has formulated policy recommendations on how to advance sustainability transitions (Geels et al. Reference Geels, Turnheim, Asquith, Kern and Kivimaa2019; EEA 2019; Kern et al. Reference Kern, Rogge and Howlett2019).

On the other hand, policy studies have researched policy change. For a long time it differentiated between two basic kinds of change: (small) incremental (Lindblom Reference Lindblom1959) versus (major) paradigmatic policy change (Hall Reference Hall1989, Reference Hall1993). This basic differentiation suggested that policymaking is often characterised by long periods of relative stability followed by short periods of significant shifts triggered by exogenous shocks (Baumgartner and Jones Reference Baumgartner and Jones1991, Reference Baumgartner and Jones1993). This orthodoxy was later challenged by Howlett and Cashore (Reference Howlett and Cashore2009), who argued that paradigmatic policy change can also come about endogenously: many incremental changes in the ‘same direction’ can over time culminate in paradigmatic shifts. These conceptual frameworks have significantly refined our understanding of policy change. However, they do not capture or explain system transformations to sustainability more generally, in part because they typically do not address how these transformations could be deliberately steered (Berglund et al. Reference Berglund, Dunlop, Koebele and Weible2022).

Given the significant potential for interdisciplinary collaboration between transition studies and policy studies, our guiding question for this chapter is: Which policy interventions help accelerate sustainability transitions, and under what conditions do they work? Following the realist synthesis (Pawson et al., Reference Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey and Walshe2005), we structure our chapter in four theory areas for which empirical insights are widely available: (1) directionality, (2) niche support, (3) regime destabilisation and (4) coordination. We selected these areas because they are comparatively mature, building on extensive empirical and conceptual work in transition studies (for further details on our methodological approach, see the online supplementary material).Footnote ¹ By presenting transition studies insights on key policy interventions for these four theory areas and by offering potential connections to policy studies, we ultimately aim to spark new interdisciplinary research bridging both fields.

14.2 Bridging Four Theory Areas from Transition Studies with Policy Studies

In the following, we introduce four key theory areas in transition studies, together with their relevance for transformational policy interventions, and reflect upon conceptual overlaps with policy studies (for an overview, see Table 14.1): (1) providing direction to transformations (directionality); (2) creating and protecting novelty (niche support); (3) destabilising the status quo (regime destabilisation); and (4) coordinating such processes (coordination).

14.3 Synthesising Insights on Transformational Policy Interventions from Empirical Transitions Research

In this section, for each of the four theory areas, we summarise and assess the policy interventions proposed by the transitions literature on how to accelerate system transformations (see Figure 14.1). To facilitate readability, references are cited as [JOURNAL ABBREVIATION#].Footnote ³

Figure 14.1

Overview of transformational policy interventions suggested by transition studies

14.4 Conclusion

In this chapter, we introduced four theory areas of relevance for interventions for sustainability transitions – directionality, novelty creation, destabilisation and coordination – and synthesised empirical evidence from transition studies. The empirics allowed us to take stock of how and under what conditions interventions work. In addition, by linking the theoretical and empirical transitions literature with insights from the policy studies literature, we demonstrated ample complementarity that supports earlier calls for a stronger interdisciplinary exchange between the two fields (Kern and Rogge Reference Kern and Rogge2018, Kern et al. Reference Kern, Rogge and Howlett2019).

We posit that there are several ways in which transition studies can leverage policy studies. Particularly, transition studies have not yet sufficiently engaged in discussions concerning the policy processes occurring as part of transitions. For this, policy studies offer an established canon of scholarship on how to open the black box of policymaking (Kern and Rogge Reference Kern and Rogge2018). This includes concepts on how to define, operationalise and measure policy change, as well as frameworks and theories on how to explain this change over time. Since policy change is key for accelerating transitions, transition scholars are advised to better leverage these concepts, frameworks and theories from policy studies. In addition, policy studies can help transition scholars more thoroughly analyse the politics of transitions. While there has been a political turn in transition studies, many transition frameworks continue to either downplay or overlook the role of politics. Policy studies can help address this omission by bringing upfront the contested and messy nature of political decision-making.

We recognise that there will be challenges in bridging both fields. Confusion and tension might arise, for instance, from different conceptualisations around how to capture and explain change. While policy studies have tended to employ variable-based approaches, whereby change is assessed vis-à-vis the effects of explanatory factors on dependent variables, transition studies often emphasises complex causality, co-evolutionary processes and the endogeneity of dependent and independent variables. Moreover, we predict that the normativity of transition studies could strike policy studies scholars as problematic. Many transition studies scholars tend to take a normative stand on how societal transformations ought to occur, which could be a point of controversy for policy scholars. We posit that if these and related challenges can be addressed constructively, the potential for interdisciplinary fertilisation is significant.

In closing, we reiterate the urgent need to make policies and policy mixes more transformational, and to this end argue for stronger interdisciplinary dialogue between transition and policy studies. Ultimately, we hope this chapter will spark an increased interest in future research that bridges both fields and thereby provides sharper insights into how to deliberately accelerate sustainability transitions.

15.1 Introduction: The Political Economies of Transition

In the study of socio-technical transitions and of pathways to sustainability more broadly, there has been increasing attention to questions of politics and governance (Meadowcroft Reference Meadowcroft2009; Scoones et al. Reference Scoones, Leach and Newell2015). Studies have highlighted, for example, the important role of institutions, ideas and political interests in shaping transition pathways (Kern Reference Kern2011). There is also growing interest in applying theoretical insights from different approaches to political economy as discussed in Section 15.2. However, significant scope remains to strengthen accounts which centre relations of power in seeking to understand who wins, who loses, how and why from prevailing governance arrangements and social-technical configurations (Newell Reference Newell2018). One of the benefits of political economy research on transitions is that it relates the underlying causes of problems that transitions are said to address to the structures within which they will be governed (Newell Reference Newell2018). This can lead to an overly pessimistic account of why change does not occur because of its focus on how incumbent or hegemonic power gets reproduced by dominant social and economic actors charged with addressing the problems they helped to create. On the other hand, it provides invaluable resources for critically assessing current landscapes of power in order to then explore the prospects of change and from whence openings for change might come. Concretely, this more practical application of political economy analysis can take the form of analysis of the potential for coalitions and broader alliances for change, for example (Meckling et al. Reference Meckling, Kelsey, Biber and Zysman2015; Hess Reference Hess2018, Reference Hess2019).

Classic political economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes sought to understand the processes of wealth creation and exchange in society, while critical political economists, most notably Karl Marx, explored the injustices and exploitation that these relations rely upon to generate wealth for the few at the expense of the many. It is important to note, firstly, that there are many political economies and ways of understanding power, therefore, production and reproduction of order in society. The starting point is often the relationship between states and markets (Strange Reference Strange1988) and the different forms that this relationship can take more liberal, coordinated and regulated, for example (Hall and Soskice Reference Hall and Soskice2001): the different ways in which they are governed and their distributional impacts. Political economy accounts tend to place centrally control over key areas of the economy from production and trade, to finance and technology as a means of understanding the material basis of uneven distributions of power. This provides a basis for understanding the ways in which governance arrangements seek simultaneously to expand the economy and manage the social and ecological conflicts which arise from that expansion. We will suggest here that political economy approaches can be refined and adapted to shed important light on the ways in which dominant socio-technical configurations reflect broader social and economic relations in society, just as disruptions associated with transitions can shift the power relations that political economy accounts seek to explain.

15.2 Historical and Thematic Development: From Governance and Politics to Political Economy

Early critiques of the neglect of questions of governance, politics and power in transition studies (Meadowcroft Reference Meadowcroft2009; Shove and Walker Reference Shove and Walker2007), led to leading authors in the field attempting to ‘bring politics in’ (Geels Reference Geels2014, Reference Geels2019). Transition scholars have incorporated insights from political science in a number of different ways. Some scholars have developed historical accounts of key institutions involved in the governance of transitions (Lockwood et al. Reference Lockwood, Kuzemko, Mitchell and Hoggett2016) or focused on ‘feedback effects’ (Lockwood Reference Lockwood and Scoones2015): the generation of benefits from transitions for key actors that help to secure their support for them and the role of ‘political coalitions’ in supporting and resisting change (Hess Reference Hess2018). Other research has focused on questions of incumbency and elite power (Sovacool and Brisbois Reference Sovacool and Brisbois2019) which is often exercised to resist or slow transitions threatening to status quo interests. This is sometimes organised around particular regimes of finance and production (Baker et al. Reference Baker, Newell and Phillips2014) and increasingly tied to questions of hegemony (Ford and Newell Reference Newell2021a). In turn, this has solicited growing interest in the role and nature of the state: not just its ‘entrepreneurial’ role in supporting innovation (Mazzucato Reference Mazzucato2011), but also adopting a relational view of tensions and complexities which arise from the multiple roles that states are expected to play in relation to transitions (Silvester & Fisker Reference Silvester and Fisker2023; Johnstone and Newell Reference Newell2018). Rather than adopt a monolithic view of the state, scholarship on varieties of state-market relations and forms of capitalism has explored the different approaches of coordinated (more social democratic) versus liberal market economies in how and by whom transitions are organised (Ćetković & Buzogány Reference Ćetković and Buzogány2016).

Alongside growing attention to governance and the state, there has been growing interest in the global governance of key issue areas such as energy, water and food; systems that are of interest to transition scholars (Van de Graaf Reference Van de Graaf2013; Goldthau and Witte Reference Goldthau and Witte2010), though the global governance and global political economy (GPE) of transitions per se remains a neglected area (Newell Reference Newell and Simms2020, Reference Newell2021). In terms of the conceptualisation of the global governance of transitions, critical GPE helps to inform an understanding of ‘the broader political and economic landscapes which shape transition pathways, the global interrelationships between national level transitions and to an appreciation of the shifting role of the state in a context of globalisation’. This helps’ not just to account for existing distributions of power and wealth in society, but to explore and engage with the potential for transformation beyond existing systems’ (Newell Reference Newell2020a: 344). In particular, such accounts can help (i) situate sustainability transitions within particular historical conjunctures, thereby contributing to work on ‘deep transitions’(Kanger and Schot, Reference Kanger and Schot2018). This body of work locates a series of connected and sustained fundamental transformations of a wide range of socio-technical systems in a similar direction such as moves towards increased labour productivity, mechanisation, reliance on fossil fuels, resource-intensity, energy-intensity and reliance on global value chains. A GPE account would relate these transformations to shifts in the stages of capitalism from Fordist models of production, for example, to a more financialised stage of late capitalism. Such an account can also provide rich historical accounts of technological, social and political lock in over time (Malm Reference Malm2016): how incumbent pathways are often supported and reinforced while alternatives are marginalised (Unruh Reference Unruh2000) (ii) provide an account of the inter-relationships between transitions in different parts of the world. These reflect the uneven distribution of power in the international system and the ways in which both benefits are captured by wealthier groups and costs passed on to the poorer ones through spatial and temporal fixes (Newell Reference Newell2021a,Reference Newellb) (iii) appreciate how the state’s insertion into the GPE shapes the degree of policy space and autonomy that states have to chart their own transition pathways. This space is affected by the nature of the trade, investment and aid relationships they have with other states and regions.

Going further still in this direction, there is increasing attention in political economy accounts to capitalism (Feola Reference Feola2020) and extractivism (Gudynas Reference Gudynas2021); the ways in which transitions are organised (and on whose behalf) in capitalist economies (Newell and Phillips Reference Newell and Phillips2016) and scope for transitions within and beyond capitalism (Newell and Paterson Reference Newell and Paterson2010) including deeper transformations. Given the emphasis on distributional questions in political economy, it is unsurprising that there has been increasing attention to questions of justice which inevitably foreground questions of power, politics and social relations. These have been applied to questions of just transition (Swilling and Annecke Reference Swilling and Annecke2012; Newell and Mulvaney Reference Newell and Mulvaney2013) in relation to specific sectors such as energy (Healy et al. Reference Healy, Stephens and Malin2019), but also explored in relation to the role of global governance institutions in frustrating and enabling just transitions (Newell et al. Reference Newell, Daley, Mikheeva and Pesa2023).

15.3 Empirical Application: The Political Economy of Energy Transitions in India

This section provides an empirical illustration of the political economy of energy transitions using India as a case study of a country that operates as a globally significant ‘rising power’ shaping energy transitions elsewhere in the world (Power et al. Reference Power2016), while also embroiled in its own national and state level transition politics.

15.4 Ongoing Debates & Further Needs on the Political Economy of Transitions

Firstly, we can see ongoing debates in transition studies about how best to understand the power relations which most scholars now accept are critical to understand and engage with as both an academic enterprise and in order to effect real-world change. Different approaches emphasise discursive power, institutional power as well as more material expressions of power (Isoaho & Karhunmaa, Reference Isoaho and Karhunmaa2019; Kuzemko et al. Reference Kuzemko, Lockwood, Mitchell and Hoggett2016). In reality these are not mutually exclusive and often overlap and combine to both enable and frustrate different transition pathways. Despite recent advances, we still lack a deeper and more holistic understanding of the state and how its different dimensions of power and arenas of function interrelate and the implications of this for transitions. This includes, across different state agencies and levels of sub-national decision-making as the Indian case makes clear. But also how military, welfare, foreign policy and entrepreneurial functions of the state impact the pursuit and nature of sustainability transitions. Related to this is the need for a more nuanced understanding of industry in (Newell 2025) the ‘business’ of transition (Newell Reference Newell2020a). Not just the lobbying and financial and political ties which bind the state and capital in different ways across diverse governance systems, but also the everyday politics of industrial organisation and re-ordering along complex power-laden value chains and through global production networks which shape transition pathways (Baker and Sovacool Reference Baker and Sovacool2017). It is here that opportunities for challenging incumbent power and de-stabilising dominant regimes can become more visible (Leipprand & Flachsland Reference Leipprand and Flachsland2018).

Secondly, questions of justice are central to any political economy account of transition processes. These centre on the politics of who is included and excluded from decision-making over pathways to sustainability and what this means in terms of the winners and losers from transitions and deeper transformations. Scholars and practitioners have started to analyse the inevitable trade-offs and tensions between procedural and distributional dimensions (Ciplet and Harrison Reference Ciplet and Harrison2020) including debates about how to reconcile speed and inclusivity (Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Geels, Lockwood, Newell, Schmitz, Turnheim and Jordan2018; Newell and Simms Reference Newell and Simms2020; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2016; Kumar et al. Reference Kumar, Höffken and Pols2021). For example, does the ‘need for speed’ mean that slower and more inclusive forms of deliberation are not viable or is deepening democracy a prerequisite to more progressive transformations? (Stirling Reference Stirling2014). Political economy accounts that emphasise the ways in which the state and dominant systems of governance both reflect and are embedded in broader social relations of class, caste, race, gender and coloniality help to broaden and deepen the analytical frame of transitions research (Lennon Reference Lennon2017; Newell Reference Newell2021a). Attention to coloniality in particular underscores the need to attend to restorative justice in transition debates, something indigenous communities know only too well (Gilio-Whitaker Reference Gilio-Whitaker2019). But such accounts need to be grounded in concrete struggles for just transitions which seek to challenge and overcome the multiple hierarchies, gendered and racialised assumptions and biases which structure and delimit the scope for more inclusive and progressive transitions (Bell et al. Reference Bell, Daggett and Labuski2020)

Thirdly, a key challenge is how to conceptually connect global, national and local political economies as our analysis above shows they must. Global dynamics still need to be located in specific political economies to make sense of the peculiarities and situated nature of national and sectoral transitions (Baker et al. Reference Baker, Newell and Phillips2014) and to draw on ‘local’ research traditions and trajectories to make sense of them (Broto et al. Reference Broto, Baptista, Kirshner, Smith and Alves2018). The nature of this global terrain is, of course, shifting amid major realignments in geopolitics with huge implications for the prospects of energy transitions. The pace of transition away from gas, for example, has been sharply affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparking conflicting demands: both to exploit more fossil fuels locally and to chart a path away from fossil fuels to avoid such dependencies in future. Refining accounts of the geopolitics of transitions building on existing strands of work (Shen and Power Reference Shen and Power2017; Power et al. Reference Power2016; Blondeel et al. Reference Blondeel, Bradshaw, Bridge and Kuzemko2021) will clearly be increasingly important in transitions research.

Fourthly, intersections with ecology and more than human transitions means broadening and challenging political economy by bringing in insights from political ecology (Lawhon and Murphy Reference Lawhon and Murphy2012) to understand the ‘ecologies of transition’ (Newell Reference Newell2021a): how demands for water, energy and land combine and solutions to one problem often exacerbate others. In turn, this requires an appreciation of how transitions ‘travel’ as costs and benefits are allocated unevenly between and within societies along temporal and spatial lines. Concrete contemporary examples might be how transitions in transport towards the use of biofuels produce conflicts over land and food security elsewhere in the world (Smith Reference Smith2000) or how the drive to electrification in richer parts of the world intensifies struggles over mining for critical minerals in places like the ‘lithium triangle’ in Latin America (Hernandez and Newell Reference Hernandez and Newell2022). Normatively, this gives rise to strategic questions of how to challenge dominant modes of extractivism and the political economies that give rise to them.

Finally, though we started the chapter by emphasising how political economy accounts of transitions are often grounded in analysis of economic structures, there is growing attention to cultural political economy which draws attention to norms, behaviours and practices in the production of energy and food cultures, for example (Strauss et al. Reference Strauss, Rupp and Love2013), such as work on petro-masculinities (Daggett Reference Daggett2018). Political economy accounts which are more attentive to the power of discourse, ideology, knowledge politics and the everyday cultural reproduction of patterns of production and consumption through social practice (Shove et al. Reference Shove, Pantzar and Watson2012) will be better placed to capture the mutually reinforcing nature of material, institutional, discursive and social and cultural power as they are expressed in sustainability transitions.

As power relations reconfigure and the political systems within which transitions are organised and contested evolve in relation to shifting ‘landscape’ pressures, the diverse set of tools and approaches introduced in this chapter provide a rich set of conceptual and empirical resources to draw on in making sense of contemporary sustainability transitions.

16.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on issues of justice in sustainability transitions, highlighting why there is an increased focus, and need, to develop sustainability transitions that are fair for all. Imagine a housing retrofit scheme being designed for your local area. Would you like to know who is planning that scheme and expect to hear from them? Would you want them to outline the process that is planned for the scheme? Would you expect that they would ask your opinion on it, listen to you and take your views on board? Would you want to know how decisions about the scheme are made, and by whom? Finally, would you care who benefits, or may even become worse off, because of that new retrofit scheme? Questions such as these are increasingly being asked about developments and initiatives that are the building blocks of sustainability transitions as we move towards net-zero societies. The concept of energy justice, in particular, has gained attention as a growing topic (e.g. Qian et al. Reference Qian, Xu, Gou and Škare2023) that has been used as an approach to unpack the justice implications that are related to whole energy systems, all the way from the materials that are needed, for example, for energy technologies, to end-use practices and waste (Sovacool et al. Reference Sovacool, Bell, Daggett, Labuski, Lennon, Naylor, Klinger, Leonard and Firestone2023). However, justice concerns spanning social and environmental justice (e.g. Fitzgerald Reference Fitzgerald2022) are also increasingly addressed in the context of other socio-technical systems of relevance for sustainability transitions, such as mobility justice (e.g. Sheller Reference Sheller, Cook and Butz2019), food system justice (including issues such as biodiversity loss) (e.g. Tribaldos and Kortetmäki Reference Tribaldos and Kortetmäki2022), labour justice (e.g. Kaizuka Reference Kaizuka2024) and social justice related to fast fashion (e.g. Buchel et al. Reference Buchel, Hebinck, Lavanga and Loorbach2022).

The issue of justice is an important concern for sustainability transitions as without due consideration for it, sustainability transitions may disproportionally benefit some people whilst causing harm to others. This risks sustainability transitions affecting people unevenly and casting a shadow on the end goal of sustainability transitions being core to addressing climate change. For example, in the United Kingdom (UK), Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) (RAC 2022) is a concept that has become hotly debated. Similar schemes have been introduced in other countries too, including, for example, car-free city centres in Norway (Haugland Reference Haugland2023; Remme et al. Reference Remme, Sareen and Haarstad2022). LTNs and car-free city centres aim to reduce travel-related emissions and air pollution in local streets by limiting car use and increasing active travel like walking and cycling. While LTNs’ objectives are to improve health, reduce emissions and make streets safer, they have become hotly contested in public, political and media debates as potentially impending on people’s right to choose how and when they use cars, for instance (The Guardian 2023). Another example of sustainability transitions being contested is the Fosen Vind project in Mid-Norway, one of Europe’s largest onshore wind farms, which has been developed despite being in conflict with the rights of the indigenous Southern Sami people to maintain reindeer herding practices as a basis of their culture and lifestyle (Fjellheim Reference Fjellheim2023). This has led to massive protests against wind power, involving prominent figures such as Greta Thunberg (Milne Reference Milne2023). Fosen Vind is only one of several wind developments in Norway that have been termed ‘green colonialism’, emphasising that sustainability transitions can have negative consequences and exacerbate existing injustices for marginalised groups (Fjellheim Reference Fjellheim2023). Such debates are a good example of the reasons why sustainability transitions need to not only consider but also integrate principles of justice, so that transitions can be truly inclusive and equitable. Addressing climate change requires a considerable effort in sustainability transitions, meaning that the issues of justice need careful consideration and debate, to avoid downplaying the core need for transitions.

This chapter first elaborates on the roots of the current research on justice in sustainability transitions and introduces relevant frameworks and their relevance to sustainability transitions research. It then illustrates via case studies of the digitalisation of transport and mobility and of double energy vulnerability how justice issues come to surface in sustainability transitions. Following the case studies, the chapter further outlines some of the ongoing debates and further research needs in justice research related to sustainability transitions, concluding with a summary of the chapter.

16.2 Historical and Thematic Development

The research addressing justice issues in sustainability transitions is a growing and increasingly multifaceted interdisciplinary field which focuses on different sustainability transition-related areas, such as energy, transport, agriculture and fashion and encompasses various conceptual approaches (for recent reviews, see, e.g. Jenkins et al. Reference Jenkins, Sovacool, Mouter, Hacking, Burns and McCauley2021; Qian et al. Reference Qian, Xu, Gou and Škare2023; Stark et al. Reference Stark, Gale and Murphy-Gregory2023; Wang and Lo Reference Wang and Lo2021). In this section, we outline the historical development of the field along two key linesFootnote ¹: (1) the ‘just transition’ concept and its roots in labour rights struggles and (2) the environmental justice movement, before elaborating on energy justice frameworks and briefly introducing relevant strands of justice literature related to other socio-technical systems, such as mobility and food systems.

The ‘just transition’ concept became prominent in the US labour movement in the 1970s when labour unions advocated for justice for workers in existing fossil fuel industries whose jobs were threatened by new environmental regulations (Wilgosh et al. Reference Wilgosh, Sorman and Barcena2022, Newell and Mulvaney Reference Newell and Mulvaney2013). The term has later been adopted by international organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), who shifted its focus from polluting industries to climate change and green industries while maintaining workers’ rights as key priority (Wilgosh et al. Reference Wilgosh, Sorman and Barcena2022, Stark et al. Reference Stark, Gale and Murphy-Gregory2023). Today, the concept also figures prominently in EU Green Deal policy and the vision of ‘leaving no one behind’ (European Commission 2019). The increasing popularity of the ‘just transition’ concept has led to the development of various interpretations of the concept (Healy and Barry 2017). McCauley and Heffron, for example, have introduced ‘just transition’ as an umbrella term encompassing perspectives from energy, environmental and climate justice, defining just transition as ‘a fair and equitable process of moving towards a post-carbon society’ (McCauley and Heffron Reference McCauley and Heffron2018: 2).

The research on justice issues in transitions also builds on the environmental justice movement and literature, which emerged in the US in the 1970s – parallel to the just transition concept – to investigate environmental injustices in relation to the siting of polluting infrastructure, such as hazardous landfills, in areas mostly inhabited by socio-economically disadvantaged groups (Knoble and Yu Reference Knoble and Yu2023). A range of studies show that impacts from environmental pollution are unequally distributed and that ‘ethnic minorities, indigenous persons, people of colour and low-income communities confront a higher burden of environmental exposure from air, water and soil pollution from industrialisation, militarisation and consumer practices’ (Mohai et al. Reference Mohai, Pellow and Timmons Robert2009: 406). The ‘jobs versus environment dilemma’ (Räthzel and Uzzell Reference Räthzel and Uzzell2011) becomes evident when environmentalists point out the injustices caused by polluting industries (environmental justice), while labour unions protest the loss of fossil fuel industry jobs due to new environmental regulation (just transition).

In the beginning, the concept of environmental justice focused mostly on questions of equity and the distribution of environmental risk and environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, thus linking environmental questions to social differences along dimensions such as race/ethnic identity, gender and social class (Fuller and McCauley Reference Fuller and McCauley2016; Schlosberg Reference Schlosberg2013). Later, the environmental justice literature became increasingly pluralistic; however, the most common framework – which the energy justice literature also adopted – is to distinguish between three dimensions of justice: distributional, recognition and procedural justice (Schlosberg Reference Schlosberg2013).

The energy justice literature, which features prominently in current research on justice in sustainability transitions, applies the same way of conceptual, analytical and normative thinking to a slightly narrower range of topics than environmental justice, that is, energy policy and energy systems encompassing both supply and demand and the entire lifecycle of energy systems (Jenkins Reference Jenkins2018). Socio-technical energy systems and changes of both energy supply and demand are at the center of sustainability transitions. McCauley et al. (Reference McCauley, Ramasar, Heffron, Sovacool, Mebratu and Mundaca2019: 920) argue that ‘addressing the transition towards sustainable low carbon energy systems means recognising and addressing energy justice’. As transitions entail radical changes of how we organise society and live our everyday lives, justice-related questions regarding energy transition processes and outcomes should be at the centre of attention. A popular definition of the energy justice concept has been introduced by Sovacool and Dworkin (Reference Sovacool and Dworkin2015: 436) who define it ‘as a global energy system that fairly disseminates both the benefits and costs of energy services, and one that has representative and impartial energy decision-making’.

There are two main energy justice frameworks. The first framework (see Table 16.1) represents the first systematic conceptualisation of the energy justice concept and is still among the most utilised frameworks today. It was introduced by McCauley et al. (Reference McCauley, Heffron, Stephan and Jenkins2013) as the three tenets of energy justice which mirror the three abovementioned environmental justice dimensions. The first tenet, distributional justice, focuses on how benefits and burdens are distributed. It investigates the outcomes of energy projects and policies, where injustices happen, what the positive and negative effects are, and who is affected how. The second tenet, recognition justice, addresses social inequities, diversity and representation with a specific focus on vulnerable and marginalised groups. It emphasises the recognition of the diverse voices, perspectives, needs, experiences and knowledges and pays attention to which societal groups are represented and who is ignored. Finally, the third tenet, procedural justice, focuses on participation and decision-making processes. It explores how different actors are invited and included in these processes and how to design and implement fair processes that enable just outcomes (Jenkins et al. Reference Jenkins, McCauley, Heffron, Stephan and Rehner2016).

Later, other dimensions have been added to these three tenets. Restorative justice emphasises the importance of compensating injustices that already happened and of repairing damages caused by energy-related activities and restoration to the original state (Heffron and McCauley Reference Heffron and McCauley2017). Cosmopolitan justice highlights that justice principles apply equally to every individual on this earth. It emphasises the importance of having a global perspective when investigating energy justice and considering the impacts of people’s actions in one country on people’s lives in other countries (McCauley et al. Reference McCauley, Ramasar, Heffron, Sovacool, Mebratu and Mundaca2019). Linked to that, the concept of spatial justice pays attention to how justice plays out in different spaces and scales (regional, national, supranational) (Gürtler Reference Gürtler2023), whereas postcolonial justice acknowledges the continued power inequities due to colonisation and challenges white western hegemony. It addresses injustices related to the exclusion of non-western knowledges and perspectives and focuses on land justice and the need for rectifying injustices through ‘reparation, restoration, compensation and apology’ (Sovacool et al. Reference Sovacool, Bell, Daggett, Labuski, Lennon, Naylor, Klinger, Leonard and Firestone2023: 4).

Other justice dimensions go beyond the dominant focus on currently living human beings and emphasise equity for future generations, intergenerational justice (Eames and Hunt Reference Eames, Hunt, Bickerstaff, Walker and Bulkeley2013) and for non-human species, multispecies justice, focusing on the inherent value of biodiversity and nature (Winter, Reference Winter2022). The latter two dimensions reflect the breadth of sustainability as not only addressing relations between people who currently populate the earth but also relations with future generations and with the environment (Stumpf et al. Reference Stumpf, Baumgärtner, Becker and Sievers-Glotzbach2015).

The second widely used energy justice framework was introduced by Sovacool and colleagues (Reference Sovacool, Burke, Baker, Kotikalapudi and Wlokas2017) and incorporates the different justice dimensions into ten principles for decision-making. These are (1) availability, (2) affordability, (3) due process, (4) transparency and accountability, (5) sustainability, (6) intragenerational equity, (7) intergenerational equity, (8) responsibility, (9) resistance and (10) intersectionality (Sovacool et al. Reference Sovacool, Burke, Baker, Kotikalapudi and Wlokas2017).

While research on energy justice still dominates the field of justice in sustainability transitions, justice considerations related to other socio-technical systems are increasingly addressed as well. One example is the integration of justice considerations in transitions of food systems. Tribaldos and Kortetmäki (Reference Tribaldos and Kortetmäki2022), for example, introduce a framework that identifies principles for just transitions in food systems based on the following justice dimensions: distributive justice, cosmopolitan justice, ecology and non-human beings, procedural justice, recognition justice and capacities. They also note the importance of biodiversity and preventing biodiversity loss.

Another example is research on justice issues in transport and mobility systems which has grown significantly over the last years (Verlinghieri and Schwanen Reference Verlinghieri and Schwanen2020). Sheller (Reference Sheller, Cook and Butz2019:23) describes mobility justice as ‘overarching concept for thinking about how power and inequality inform the governance and control of movement, shaping the patterns of unequal mobility and immobility in the circulation of people, resources and information’. Research in this field has focused on a large diversity of issues, ranging from personal mobility and the accessibility and affordability of transport systems, the interlinkages of gender, race, class and age and how they affect (im)mobility to spatial injustices at different scales from urban inequities to issues of migration (Cook and Butz Reference Cook and Butz2019; Verlinghieri and Schwanen Reference Verlinghieri and Schwanen2020). Section 16.3 will illustrate some of the justice aspects to consider in transitions to sustainable mobility and energy systems.

16.3 Empirical Application

In this section, we illustrate the importance of considering justice issues in sustainability transitions through introducing two empirical examples: (1) Digitalisation of transport and (2) double energy vulnerability (DEV).

16.4 Ongoing Debates and Future Research Needs

As the field of research on justice issues related to sustainability transitions is growing and getting increasingly pluralistic as well as getting increasingly recognised as relevant by other academic fields and by policymakers and practitioners within sustainability transitions, many important debates have recently emerged in the field pointing towards new directions and research needs. In this section, we will briefly introduce four topics representing important debates and directions for the field (knowingly excluding many other important topicsFootnote ²): (1) acceleration and justice, (2) geographies and justice, (3) epistemic justice and (4) linking justice and sustainability transitions theories and education.

16.5 Conclusion

This chapter focused on the issue of justice in sustainability transitions. Although there is an increasing focus in academia, policymaking and practice on the importance of making transitions not only environmentally and economically sustainable, but also just and fair – so that costs and benefits are shared equally (European Commmission 2019) – this chapter has illustrated that social inequities can often be exacerbated rather than alleviated in the context of transitions. Indeed, people who are vulnerable and marginalised do not often benefit from sustainability transitions: they may have, for example, limited opportunities to actively participate as citizens, and suffer from negative consequences of climate and energy policies and projects. Such injustices are often the reason for contestations of developments, projects, policies and initiatives that are part of sustainability transitions. This underlines the importance of considering questions of distributional, recognition, procedural, restorative, cosmopolitan, spatial, postcolonial, intergenerational and multispecies justice when designing, developing and implementing sustainability transition policies and projects across all socio-technical systems, while keeping the injustices of existing fossil fuel systems in mind (Newell and Mulvaney Reference Newell and Mulvaney2013).

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.

17.3 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

17.4 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.

18.1 Introduction

Intermediaries have received research attention in the field of innovation management since the 1990s (e.g. Bessant and Rush, Reference Bessant and Rush1995). However, it is only in the last decade that intermediaries have begun to receive scholarly attention in the sustainability transitions literature (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a). Howells (Reference Howells2006) defines an innovation intermediary as ‘an organisation or body that acts as an agent or broker in any aspect of the innovation process between two or more parties’ (p. 720). Intermediaries have been identified as key catalysts that can facilitate sustainability transitions by connecting actors – both new entrants and incumbents – and their related activities, skills and resources to create momentum for change and disrupt unsustainable socio-technical systems (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a). Thus, previous studies on intermediaries in sustainability transitions have among others focused on defining what intermediaries are, the activities they undertake, their different types, interactions between them, and their potential influence on transition processes (Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020).

In the sustainability transitions literature, a variety of private, public and non-profit entities have been studied as intermediaries. These include, for example, cities, technology transfer offices, internet platforms, architects, clusters, innovation agencies, ports, charities and industry associations. These entities have different characteristics for example, ownership and governance structure, source of funding, mandate, scope of impact and capacity to catalyse change (Bjerkan et al., Reference Bjerkan, Hansen and Steen2021; Mignon and Kanda, Reference Mignon and Kanda2018). Some intermediaries seek neutrality and carry out their activities without altering the knowledge or goods being transferred, a notion particularly prominent in the innovation management literature (Klerkx and Leeuwis, Reference Klerkx and Leeuwis2009). The position of being impartial and neutral to suppliers, network partners, or preferred development strategies is particularly important in innovation management for intermediaries to be considered trustworthy by third parties. Other intermediary types work actively to shape the entities being transferred. Furthermore, some intermediaries have a normative orientation and champion the course of certain technologies and actors, a discourse which has emerged strongly in the transitions literature given the urgency and limited time to facilitate sustainability transitions (Kivimaa, Reference Kivimaa2014).

Intermediaries can be a specific actor category, either an individual or an organisation. They can also be group of individuals or organisations with a complex set of interrelationships (Hyysalo et al., Reference Hyysalo, Heiskanen, Lukkarinen, Matschoss, Jalas, Kivimaa, Juntunen, Moilanen, Murto and Primmer2022) essentially forming an ecology of intermediation (Stewart and Hyysalo, Reference Stewart and Hyysalo2008). Within an ecology of intermediaries, entities have different remits (e.g. scope of responsibility, authority or tasks), opinions, visions, competencies and operational mechanisms. Thus, they cooperate and sometimes compete to facilitate transition processes by going in-between other actors and their related activities, skills and resources (Soberón et al., Reference Soberón, Sánchez-Chaparro, Smith, Moreno-Serna, Oquendo-Di Cosola and Mataix2022). While intermediaries can be strategically established with a given mandate, the literature suggests most entities evolve to undertake intermediary activities during a transition. Other actors might engage in intermediary activities without acknowledging it. Intermediaries range from short-term, project-based entities which can be terminated after their mandate period, to more long-term and established entities that take on new roles as the transition evolves. As a result, intermediaries span a spectrum from formal, self-recognised and defined forms to informal and emergent forms of intermediation (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a).

The concept of intermediaries can also be related to actor roles and agency (see Chapter 17) in the broader sustainability transitions literature (Hodson and Marvin, Reference Hodson and Marvin2010; Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek and Boons2019; Rohracher, Reference Rohracher2009). In this regard, studies using notions such as ‘middle actors’ (Parag and Janda, Reference Parag and Janda2014), ‘hybrid actors’ (Elzen et al., Reference Elzen, Van Mierlo and Leeuwis2012), ‘boundary spanners’ (Smink et al., Reference Smink, Negro, Niesten and Hekkert2015), ‘user assemblages’ (Nielsen, Reference Nielsen2016), ‘interaction arenas’ (Hyysalo and Usenyuk, Reference Hyysalo and Usenyuk2015), ‘orchestrators’ (de Vasconcelos Gomes and da Silva Barros, Reference de Vasconcelos Gomes and da Silva Barros2022) and ‘system entanglers’ (Löhr and Chlebna, Reference Löhr and Chlebna2023) have also analysed intermediary-like activities sometimes without explicitly mentioning intermediaries.

The concept of an intermediary is essentially contested. The literature lacks consensus regarding where intermediation begins and ends, when an interaction between actors in general becomes intermediation and how to define it (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a). To differentiate intermediaries from other actors such as middle actors, hybrid actors, orchestrators and boundary spanners which undertake intermediary-like activities, there is a growing consensus in the literature that intermediaries should be defined by what they do (i.e. intermediation), rather than by who they are (Bergek, Reference Bergek2020). Thus, Kanda et al., (Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020 p. 453) argue that intermediaries can be identified and differentiated from other intermediary-like actors based on a combination of three criteria: (i) their position in-between two or more parties, (ii) the activities they undertake and (iii) the scope of impact of their activities. In contrast to other actors, intermediaries have generally a facilitative role in a transition by going in-between two or more actors enabling, supporting and assisting other actors in achieving their goals (Soberón et al., Reference Soberón, Sánchez-Chaparro, Smith, Moreno-Serna, Oquendo-Di Cosola and Mataix2022). On the contrary, other intermediary-like actors such as orchestrators can have more directive roles which involves leading, managing and making decisions to guide the actions of other actors (de Vasconcelos Gomes and da Silva Barros, Reference de Vasconcelos Gomes and da Silva Barros2022). System entanglers on the other hand connect different socio-technical systems (Löhr and Chlebna, Reference Löhr and Chlebna2023) while champions are individuals who actively and enthusiastically promote innovations to overcome the social and political pressures imposed by an organisation and convert them to its advantage (Howell et al., Reference Howell, Shea and Higgins2005).

The literature on intermediaries in sustainability transitions has expanded rapidly. Thus, this chapter seeks to provide the reader with a brief overview of intermediaries and intermediation in sustainability transitions (Section 18.1). This overview is then followed by a brief historical account of the development of the concept (Section 18.2). Thereafter, we provide some empirical examples of intermediaries in Section 18.3, followed by a problematisation of the literature specifically with regards to its lack of a clearly articulated theory on why intermediaries exist in transition processes (Section 18.4). Finally, we identify future research opportunities in Section 18.5.

18.2 Foundations of the Intermediary Concept in Transitions

The literature on intermediaries in sustainability transitions builds upon four earlier streams of literature – technological regimes, techno-economic networks, systems of innovations and innovation management (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a).

The literature on technological regimes by scholars such as Nelson and Winter inspired the work of Geels and Deuten (Reference Geels and Deuten2006) on the dedicated aggregation activities of intermediary actors to facilitate knowledge flows between local and global levels for niche development. This later inspired other contributions on intermediary activities in niche development from scholars such as Hargreaves and colleagues (Hargreaves et al., Reference Hargreaves, Hielscher, Seyfang and Smith2013) who analysed the role of community energy projects as intermediaries in niche development. A second stream of intermediary literature (e.g. Hodson and Marvin, Reference Hodson and Marvin2010) took inspiration from techno-economic networks with contributions from Callon and Latour to make empirical contributions on the activities of intermediaries in shaping urban infrastructure with a specific interest in the governance of socio-technical networks.

Starting with the systems of innovation literature with key contributions from Lundvall, Nelson and Edquist, van Lente et al., (Reference van Lente, Hekkert, Smits and Van Waveren2003) introduced the concept of systemic intermediaries which operate at the system or network level. Their contribution inspired several other contributions on systemic intermediaries in the agricultural and renewable energy transition context (e.g. Kivimaa, Reference Kivimaa2014; Klerkx and Leeuwis, Reference Klerkx and Leeuwis2009). Finally, the literature on intermediaries in innovation management in particular the work of Howells in 2006 had substantial influence on the discourse on intermediaries in sustainability transitions. This literature inspired several contributions on the roles of intermediaries in system level transitions (e.g. Kivimaa, Reference Kivimaa2014).

More recently, the intermediary concept has also been used in relation to the core theoretical frameworks in sustainability transitions such as the multi-level perspective, technological innovation systems, strategic niche management and transitions management. In the multi-level perspective, it is argued that intermediary actors can aggregate and transform knowledge and experiences from local niches to a shared global development trajectory (Geels and Deuten, Reference Geels and Deuten2006). In this context, intermediaries circulate, aggregate lessons and transfer knowledge across local experiments, potentially contributing to the upscaling of experiments beyond niches and challenging the status quo (Matschoss and Heiskanen, Reference Matschoss and Heiskanen2017). Intermediaries fulfil brokerage roles in technological innovation systems (see Section 18.3) by addressing the flow of knowledge and the formation of networks to tackle system failures related to the in-effective collaborations and resource mobilisation which stifle innovation (Célia and Marie-Benoît, Reference Célia and Marie-Benoît2023; Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, del Río, Hjelm and Bienkowska2019). Intermediaries can contribute to several of the niche internal processes in strategic niche management such as the articulation of expectations and visions (e.g. articulation of needs, expectations and requirements; acceleration of the application and commercialisation of new technologies), building of social networks (e.g. creating and facilitation of new networks; configuring and aligning interests) and learning and exploration processes (e.g. knowledge gathering, processing, generation and combination; technology assessment and evaluation; prototyping and piloting) (Kivimaa, Reference Kivimaa2014).

The concept of intermediaries is often used in relation to actor roles and agency in sustainability transitions. Transition processes require the governance of interactions between multiple actors, networks and institutions which can exceed the capabilities of any single actor. In this regard, intermediaries are needed to go in-between diverse groups of actors with the ambition to catalyse multi-actors’ interactions for systemic change. The contribution of van Lente et al., (Reference van Lente, Hekkert, Smits and Van Waveren2003), on systemic intermediaries largely kicked-off the interest in intermediary actors among transition scholars. Following this, a dominant focus in the sustainability transitions literature has been on the activities intermediaries undertake in different transition processes. The activities of intermediaries also change during the course of a transition in a co-evolutionary manner with the intermediary characteristics and context (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Hyysalo, Boon, Klerkx, Martiskainen and Schot2019b). Besides sustainability transitions, the concept of intermediaries has been used in other related literature. In eco-innovation, intermediaries perform activities to validate environmental benefits associated with eco-innovations and to internalise positive externalities in their development and diffusion (Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Hjelm, Clausen and Bienkowska2018). Intermediaries influence the rate of innovation diffusion by gathering and disseminating information and mobilising and distributing resources that facilitate the adoption of innovations between suppliers and adopters (Lichtenthaler, Reference Lichtenthaler2013).

Moving on, several typologies of intermediaries have been proposed in the literature. For example, van Lente et al. (Reference van Lente, Hekkert, Smits and Van Waveren2003 p. 257), adopting a systems approach, distinguished between three types of intermediaries – hard, soft and systemic – based on their activities in innovation systems. Klerkx and Leeuwis (Reference Klerkx and Leeuwis2009) made a similar contribution of seven types of intermediaries empirically operating in the Dutch agricultural innovation systems based on their activities. More recently, Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a p. 1068) introduced the concept of transition intermediaries. They define transition intermediaries as actors or platforms that facilitate transitions by connecting different groups of actors and their skills and resources. Transition intermediaries also bring together different ideas and technologies to create new collaborations and challenge un-sustainable socio-technical systems. Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a) present five types of transition intermediaries based on their emergence, neutrality, intermediation goals and their level of action. These characteristics essentially capture the level (i.e. actor vs. system level) of operation of intermediaries and their ambitions. The typology of transition intermediaries proposed by Kivimaa et al (2019) are:

1. 1) A systemic intermediary – operating on the niche, regime, landscape levels with an explicit transition agenda for whole system transformation. Systemic intermediaries operate on the system level between multiple actors and are typically established to intermediate.

2. 2) A regime-based transition intermediary – associated with the prevailing regime but with a specific ambition to promote transition. Thus regime-based intermediaries interact with a range of niches or the whole system.

3. 3) A niche intermediary – working to experiment and advance the activities and development of a particular niche. In doing so, niche intermediaries strive to influence the prevailing socio-technical system for the niche’s benefit.

4. 4) A process intermediary – facilitates change in a niche project without an explicit system transformation agenda of their own. Often, they support context-specific (e.g. project based or spatially located) agendas and priorities set by other actors to facilitate change.

5. 5) A user intermediary – connects users to new technology and communicates user preferences to technology developers. User intermediaries also translate new niche technologies to users, altogether qualifying the value of technology offers available between users, developers and regime actors.

In extending the discourse on the typology of transition intermediaries, a particular gap remained in the literature on how to conceptualise and demonstrate the contribution of intermediaries beyond the actor-level (often in bilateral one-to-one intermediation) to the broader system (often including multiple actors, their networks and related institutions). Furthermore, the strategic activities of intermediaries as operating across multiple system-levels had received limited scholarly attention. Kanda et al., (Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020) defined three systemic levels of aggregation (see Figure 18.1) within which intermediation occurs. These are: (i) system level 1 – in-between entities in a network, (ii) system level 2 – in-between networks of entities and (iii) system level 3 – in-between actors, networks and institutions. This classification was based on: (i) the intermediation activities, (ii) in-between which third parties it occurs and (iii) the scope of intermediation impact.

Figure 18.1

Different system-levels within which intermediaries operate

(adapted from Kanda et al., 2020)

A non-systemic level is included as a benchmark and is characterised by ‘one-to-one’ interactions. Intermediaries at this level are typically private organisations, such as consultants, who assist their clients in achieving innovation objectives for a fee. This level of intermediation is not considered a systemic since it does not explicitly seek to generate intermediation benefits beyond the third parties. However, intermediaries at this level can learn and build competence from different cases, which can be applied in their subsequent intermediation activities.

In system level 1, intermediation occurs between different entities within a network, such as a technology cluster or a niche coalition. The intermediaries facilitate learning and knowledge transfer between the network’s members through various physical arenas such as conferences, seminars and workshops. The intermediary helps to build a brand and legitimacy for the network’s activities and its members work towards a common interest. In system level 2, intermediation occurs between networks of different entities, where the intermediary facilitates interactions and collaborations in a ‘many-to-many-to-many’ form also referred to as a network of networks. These networks can represent different technological fields, such as solar or wind power networks, where members come together to facilitate low-carbon energy transitions. Intermediaries may create interaction spaces, disseminate information and provide brokerage support to address market or innovation system failures that result in sub-optimal connectivity between different actors and their networks.

In system level 3, intermediation activities go beyond the interactions between different types of networks to include interactions between actors, networks and relevant institutions. Institutions can be either informal (e.g. norms, values and culture) or formal (e.g. laws, regulation and technical standards) that shape the activities and decisions of actors. When intermediaries see an opportunity to realise interests, they highly value, they engage in different types of purposive and strategic actions to create, maintain, or disrupt institutions sometimes acting as institutional entrepreneurs (DiMaggio, Reference DiMaggio1988). Overall, intermediation at system level 3 involves shaping the institutional environment to enable the achievement of collective interests across different actor-networks.

Finally, while intermediaries are more likely to be conceptualised and profiled as one type (i.e. systemic, regime-based, niche, process or user intermediary) rather than portraying characteristics of several, in practice, intermediaries are strategic actors who can change their profile and operate on multiple system levels undertaking different activities to facilitate transitions. Altogether, this contribution from Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020 challenged the notion that intermediaries are homogenous entities (e.g. with regards to their roles and activities) and operate at a particular system level. The contribution opened several opportunities for further studies on the strategic actions of intermediaries which move across system levels leading to cooperation and competition, role adaptation, differentiation and power struggles among ecologies of intermediaries. This revealed a darker side of intermediaries beyond their facilitate role which at worse could even hinder transitions. The contribution also laid an essential foundation to explore the question about intermediary impact on system levels, that is, specifically by analysing how intermediary activities contribute to overall structure and functions in the system levels identified during a transition.

18.3 Empirical Examples of Intermediary Activities

In Table 18.1, we provide illustrative examples of the activities of the different types of transitions intermediaries in relation to different system levels of intermediation. The activities mainly come from the activities of intermediaries identified in Kivimaa et al., (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a) and Kanda et al., (Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020). These activities are then placed on different system levels depending on the entities in-between which they take place and the scope of their potential impact, that is, within a network, between different networks, towards institutions or a fee-paying client.

Essentially, Table 18.1 depicts the potential scope of impact of different transition intermediary types and their related activities. Some intermediary types, for example, systemic intermediaries dominantly operate at higher system levels in-between actors, their networks and institutions. On the other end of the spectrum, the activities of user intermediaries are dominated by bilateral one-to-one intermediation activities in-between third parties. Thus, the potential impact of different intermediary activities can be system-wide generating benefits for numerous actors and their networks or limited to the third parties in-between which the intermediation takes places. Due to the potential spillover of benefits from higher system level intermediation, intermediaries operating at such levels (e.g. systemic intermediaries) are often publicly affiliated through funding, ownership and mandate to generate public good that can facilitate a transition beneficial for many actors (e.g. Sitra and Motiva in Finland; Vinnova in Sweden). On the other hand, in bilateral one-to-one intermediation as often practiced by user intermediaries, one of the parties could be a paying client and can seek to capture all the benefits from the intermediation process limiting the (positive) system-wide spillovers. Nonetheless, intermediaries accumulate benefits (e.g. knowledge and legitimacy) which can be transferred to other system levels. Similarly, the entities in-between which intermediaries operate can benefit differently (even in the same network) from the intermediation activities which can be at the expense of competing niches not part of the network.

18.4 Theoretical Problematisation: Why Do Intermediaries Exist in Transitions?

A research gap we dedicate particular attention to is the lack of a clearly articulated theory on why intermediaries exist in transition processes. Research shows that intermediaries have important facilitating roles in transitions. Still, there is no congruent theory which explains why intermediaries exist in transition processes. Considering the eclectic nature of transition studies as a research field, this is hardly surprising. Theoretical explanations are important since they provide justifications for the establishment of intermediaries. In search of answers to the question why intermediaries exist in transitions, we return to the definition of transitions as major changes of socio-technical systems (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek and Boons2019). Such systemic changes will likely display gaps, glitches and tensions between different actors, their individual strategies and the activities they engage in. By bridging organisational boundaries, intermediaries can help fil out such gaps and glitches and work to resolve tensions. The characteristics of boundaries are central topics in many theories on organisation. Santos and Eisenhardt (Reference Santos and Eisenhardt2005) present four different conceptions of organisational boundaries with different theoretical foundations. These conceptions are useful to explain why intermediary organisations exist in transition processes.

The first conception, which is denoted efficiency is based on institutional economics, considering the organisation a legal entity with a prime motive to minimise costs and maximise return on investments. Derived from the seminal paper by Coase (Reference Coase1937) on the nature of business firms, transaction costs are central in the reasoning. Coase built his argumentation on a dichotomy between markets and firms, arguing that firms exist when the costs of market-based transactions are higher than the costs of hierarchical control. In their systematic review of literature on intermediaries, Kivimaa et al., (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a) argue that transaction costs is a common explanation for the existence of intermediaries in innovation studies and science and technology studies. In cases when the costs of market-based transactions are high, intermediaries can absorb risks and reduce transaction costs for the organisations involved. The intermediary thus acts as a broker to facilitate exchanges in cases when neither market-based transactions, nor strict hierarchical control are feasible options.

The second conception is denoted competence. Building on evolutionary economics (Nelson, Reference Nelson1985) and the resource-based view of the firm (Penrose and Penrose, Reference Penrose and Penrose2009) this conception posit that organisations are bundles of resources that co-evolve with the environments that they operate in. The competence conception is congruent with transition research that shows how intermediaries help facilitating knowledge flows between organisations (Geels and Deuten, Reference Geels and Deuten2006). To facilitate such flows, intermediaries aggregate local experiences into knowledge that is accessible for a variety of actors. Being more dynamic than the efficiency conception, the competence conception draws attention to the strategic development of resource portfolios that can result in long-term competitive advantages. Being located in-between different organisations and their resources, intermediaries undertake important activities to mobilise resources to facilitate synergies that can support transition processes.

The third conception power further elaborates on the competitive strategies of individual actors. Following theories on industrial organisation and resource dependence (Porter, Reference Porter1990), the conception is based on the assumption that organisations strive to reduce their exposure to uncertainties due to external contingencies. Important strategies for such uncertainty reduction are to gain influence and control through alliances and network engagement and though lobbying activities. As transitions involve a large variety of actors who strive to maximise their own influence and control, intermediaries are often needed to establish trust between different parties. Moreover, studies have shown how intermediaries are instrumental to influence regulatory processes in favour of transitions (Hyysalo et al., Reference Hyysalo, Juntunen and Martiskainen2018). Gathering a variety of actors, intermediaries can gain a stronger influence than the actors do individually.

The final conception identity conceptualises organisations as social entities for sensemaking (Weick, Reference Weick1995). The conception is based on literature on organisational behaviour and managerial cognition, which draw attention to the cognitive frames that shape interpretations and actions. Once accepted, such frames constitute a strong mechanism for coordination. Transition studies have often referred to cognitive frames and routines as explanations to the persistence of regimes. However, studies also show that cognitive processes are important for niche development. These studies suggest that socially constructed narratives can enrol support for transitions and help shaping markets (Ottosson et al., 2020). Through their socio-political work, intermediaries can assist the construction of narratives that link actors together.

In summary, the four conceptions provide complementary answers to the question why intermediaries exist in transitions. Table 18.2 summarises the conceptions in terms of their theoretical foundations, as well as the related functions and roles of the intermediary. For intermediaries, activities refer to tangible, specific actions, or tasks they undertake to facilitate sustainability transitions while roles refer to the positions or responsibilities intermediaries hold such as brokers, translators and mediators. Functions on the other hand refers to the broad and strategic areas of responsibility that intermediaries have. In the efficiency conception the intermediary acts as a broker to absorb risks and reduce transactions costs. This conception is useful when analysing intermediation between sellers and buyers, or more broadly stated: between a supply-side and a demand side actors. However, transitions processes tend to involve a multitude of actors and modes of interaction. In this respect, the competence conception may be more useful, describing the intermediary as a translator that enable synergies and interorganisational knowledge flows. Still the competence conception tends to underplay critical issues of conflict and contestation. By contrast, these issues are central for the power conception. This conception describes the intermediary as a mediator, whose central function is to establish trust through arbitration and negotiation in inter-organisational networks. The conception is also useful to explain the role of intermediaries in advocacy activities and lobbying. While the power conception is based on the premise of disparate interests among actors, the identity conception adds another dimension by claiming that transition processes will depend on a shared meaning and a common purpose among a multitude of actors. To help building such a purpose, intermediaries take the role of a sense-maker, engaging of actors in the construction of narratives and visions to make sense of the transition. Adopting and further developing this conceptualisation will enable to explore questions such as power relations, the politics at play, the normative positioning of intermediary actors and the battle between different intermediaries (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019a).

18.5 Emerging Research and Further Needs

Although the facilitating role of intermediaries in sustainability transitions is widely recognised, a critical analysis of the literature reveals diverse meanings and approaches to the concept. Thus, the concept of intermediaries remains essentially contested. It has multiple and diverse meanings, and its proper use may not be definitively settled by reference to empirical evidence, logical demonstration, or formal criteria alone. Thus, we expect persistent disagreement among scholars on the meaning, scope and normative implications of the concept of intermediaries which cannot be easily resolved. Furthermore, in the literature, an extensive number of activities are attributed to intermediaries which raises questions about the credibility and capacity of intermediaries to undertake such numerous tasks effectively. Thus, there is a need to position intermediaries in transitions in relation to other actors and their agency in transitions, delineating which activities can (or cannot) be undertaken by intermediaries and their interplay with the activities of other transition actors such as orchestrators, system entanglers and champions (see Figure 18.2).

Figure 18.2

Positioning intermediary actors in relation to other actors in transitions

Second, the impact of intermediaries on the actor level (e.g. projects and firms) are relatively tangible and easier to capture. However, it is particularly challenging how the impact of intermediaries is aggregated unto the system level. This stems from the difficulty in attributing cause and effects in long-term transition processes where multiple actors (e.g. intermediaries, orchestrators, champions, and system entanglers), processes and influences are involved. Attempts have been made to conceptually link the actor level activities to system level impact via different theoretical perspectives such as the Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) (e.g. Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, del Río, Hjelm and Bienkowska2019) and Strategic Niche Management (SNM) (e.g. Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Hjelm, Johansson and Karlkvist2022; Kivimaa, Reference Kivimaa2014). These previous attempts essentially map the tangible and specific actions, or tasks intermediaries undertake to facilitate transitions onto the TIS functions or SNM processes as a proxy for system level impact. However, for system level impact of intermediaries to be explored effectively, there is a need for further conceptualisation of the system levels as started in (Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Kuisma, Kivimaa and Hjelm2020), robust empirical evidence and in particular new methodological developments on causality and explanation in the broader transitions literature (see e.g. Geels, Reference Geels2022).

Third, the scholarly discourse needs to move beyond the dominant focus on the role of intermediaries in facilitating niche innovations and to explore their role in other contexts such as in the destabilisation of regimes. An important question in this respect is to investigate how intermediaries can actively work to destabilise unsustainable socio-technical systems and by doing so create windows of opportunities for niche innovations. This is particularly important given the urgency of sustainability transitions and the need for transformative intermediation. This will also require investigating how intermediaries adapt to different contexts and tasks, as well as examining the different types of intermediaries and capabilities needed to destabilise regimes. Intermediation with the purpose to destabilising regimes might also reveal the strategic struggles of intermediaries to make an impact giving a more nuanced understanding of intermediation in practise.

The literature has also been very positive towards intermediaries as facilitating transitions. However, future research could explore the role of power struggles and conflicts in the work of intermediaries, as their contribution to sustainability transitions can be contested. Research in this area could examine how intermediaries negotiate conflicting interests, manage power dynamics and navigate complex stakeholder environments. This research trajectory is important to provide more nuance to the idealistic picture of intermediaries presented in the literature as always seeking to facilitate transitions. Already on the actor level, there is empirical evidence to the effect that intermediaries sometimes prioritise their own survival and interests over broader system goals (Kant and Kanda, Reference Kant and Kanda2019). Thus, contributions on the complexity of intermediation and dilemmas will be welcome.

Furthermore, studies of intermediaries acting in isolation dominate the literature. However, as innovations diffuse from niches into mainstream markets, multiple transitions pathways emerge, accelerate and interact as argued in recent scholarship on multi-system transitions (Andersen and Geels, Reference Andersen and Geels2023). Thus, intermediation is no longer an activity undertaken by single actors in isolation but instead, ecologies of intermediation are needed in which intermediaries with different mandates, competencies, goals and interests, operate at different system levels scale and time (Barrie and Kanda, Reference Barrie and Kanda2020; Hyysalo et al., Reference Hyysalo, Heiskanen, Lukkarinen, Matschoss, Jalas, Kivimaa, Juntunen, Moilanen, Murto and Primmer2022). In such ecologies of intermediaries, entities collaborate; but also compete for dominance, may struggle to fit the context and can lack relevant capabilities (Soberón et al., Reference Soberón, Sánchez-Chaparro, Smith, Moreno-Serna, Oquendo-Di Cosola and Mataix2022). This demand delving into conflicts that can arise among intermediaries and how to address them. Thus, research needs to explore the dynamics in ecologies of intermediation, including their emergence, development and governance mechanisms. This provides an opportunity to explore the similarities and differences between intermediaries and other transition actors, for example, system entanglers, orchestrators, and champions who might emerge equally important in multi-system transitions (see Figure 18.2).

Furthermore, in multi-system transitions, intermediation can bridge actors from different socio-technical systems and create spaces for them to act (e.g. co-develop new knowledge and technology, align strategy and share resources) (Löhr & Chlebna, Reference Löhr and Chlebna2023). There is a need for new insights about how intermediaries can shape multi-system transitions, for example, by breaking couplings between unsustainable systems and bridging sustainable systems (Kanger et al., Reference Kanger, Schot, Sovacool, van der Vleuten, Ghosh, Keller and Steinmueller2021), visioning new cross-system configurations (Löhr & Chlebna, Reference Löhr and Chlebna2023), enabling learning and facilitating the flow of resources across multiple systems for example in cross sectoral transitions such as the circular economy (cf. Kanda et al., Reference Kanda, Geissdoerfer and Hjelm2021). Essentially, multi-system transitions demands an ecology of intermediaries (Barrie & Kanda, Reference Barrie and Kanda2020) particularly active at the intersection between regimes and niches (Geels & Deuten, Reference Geels and Deuten2006; Klerkx & Leeuwis, Reference Klerkx and Leeuwis2008). Thus, it will be naive to expect only facilitative intermediaries as part of transitions. There are intermediaries with an open (or hidden) agenda to defend the existing regime, for example, lobby organisations. Research about these types of obstructive intermediaries is crucial, to counteract their active work to hinder and create barriers to transitions.

In sustainability transitions, various actors play crucial roles based on their scope and approach of action (see Figure 18.2). Intermediaries, often with a starting position on the local actor level are facilitative and bridge actors and their related activities, skills, resources to create momentum for systemic change (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa2014). System entanglers, connect socio-technical systems and are facilitative, working across systems to align and integrate efforts, facilitating coherence among diverse actors (Hodson & Marvin, Reference Hodson and Marvin2010). Finally, Champions can be directive at the actor level, spearhead initiatives and build networks, mobilising support and fostering collaboration across sectors. Orchestrators are systemic and more directive, making strategic decisions to guide multi-actor processes. Essentially, the primary difference between facilitative and directive actors lies in their mechanism of operation. Facilitative roles focus on enabling others to act, while directive roles focus on leading and managing actions of others. Both are crucial for successful sustainability transitions operating at complementary system and actor levels to drive change. However, transition actors are strategic actors and can change their attributes across space and time to maintain relevance and longevity.

Thus, positioning intermediary actors in relation to other actors in transitions (as depicted in Figure 18.2) has implications for the discourse on actors and agency in transitions. First, for intermediaries, the focus of this book chapter, the literature has seen a broadening of the concept, its meaning and scope of operation from the actor level (e.g. Howells, Reference Howells2006) to a system level (e.g. van Lente et al., Reference van Lente, Hekkert, Smits and Van Waveren2003) in recent years which reflects the increasing complexity of innovation and sustainability transitions in the real world. Nonetheless moving from the actor level to the system level conceptually blurs the boundaries between intermediaries and other actors, for example, system entanglers and orchestrators. Empirically, intermediaries are expected to assume characteristics of other types of actors depending on their scope (i.e. actor vs. system level) and mechanism (i.e. directive vs. facilitative) of operation which demands different capabilities, resources and legitimacy. Thus, scholars need to carefully define and motivate the concept they choose to study actors and agency in transitions and reflect on the potential implication including benefits of their choices for example, which characteristics of actors and agency in transitions are highlighted vs. downplayed.

Overall, this chapter proposes several areas for future research on intermediaries in sustainability transitions, highlighting the need to move beyond the current focus on facilitating innovations to explore their role in destabilising regimes, as well as investigating their impact, power dynamics and complex reality in an ecology of intermediaries. Such research will deepen our understanding of intermediaries and their contribution to sustainability transitions, enabling policymakers, practitioners and scholars to better support and facilitate transitions towards a more sustainable future.

19.1 Introduction

Individual behaviour is a cornerstone of sustainability transitions: while systemic changes in technology and policy are vital, the role of individuals and small groups, such as families, initiatives or teams at work, in adopting sustainable practices and technologies, shaping and following social norms and supporting or opposing policy measures is equally critical. For sustainability transitions to be successful, it is necessary to address both macro-level changes and the micro-level behaviours and choices that play a role in both driving and hindering change. This applies whether individuals are organised in civil society groups (Smith, Reference Smith, Verbong and Loorbach2012) or acting separately as consumers or electorates with practical consequences nonetheless (Jackson, Reference Jackson2004).

The study of sustainability transitions, their evolution and emergence, has been an interdisciplinary field from the very beginning. Transition processes have always been characterized as fundamental changes in socio-technical systems. Thus, the ‘social’ side of transitions and the interaction of (technological) innovations with governance processes but also wider society has been a constitutive part of transition research. This in turn means that what people do, how individuals act on their own or in collectives, what they think and what influences their thoughts and actions are in principle an inherent part of transitions research. Individuals also play an important role in the collection of data on transitions, with interviews as a central research method in this field of research (Hansmeier et al., Reference Hansmeier, Schiller and Rogge2021). Thus, the perspective of the individual strongly shapes our view and knowledge on transitions.

In practice, however, the socio-technical sustainability transitions literature has had difficulty accommodating especially individual-level perspectives, principally because the field focuses on what may be thought of as meso- and macro-level processes, rather than the micro-level of individual psychology (Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Dütschke2019; Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Johansen2020). At the same time, failure to account for individual behaviour and leaving this behaviour ‘black-boxed’ as ‘emergent’, means that key processes are potentially neglected. Hence while connecting levels of analysis is challenging (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek, Boons, Fünfschilling, Hess, Holtz, Hyysalo, Jenkins, Kivimaa, Martiskainen, McMeekin, Mühlemeier and Wells2019), it is nonetheless of value to do so. In this chapter we explain why individual behaviour matters for transitions.

The APA Dictionary of Psychology (American Psychological Association, n.d.) defines behaviour as ‘an organism’s activities in response to external or internal stimuli, including objectively observable activities‘, but also ‘introspectively observable activities (…), and nonconscious processes‘. When transition scholars refer to behaviours, they tend to adopt partly similar definitions. Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021, p.587), for example, use a definition from the Cambridge English Dictionary: ‘The way a person acts in a particular way in a particular situation or under particular conditions.’ Both definitions link behaviour with certain conditions (‘external or internal stimuli’, ‘particular situations or (…) conditions’). However, while the first explicitly states that behaviours also include internal processes such as forming an opinion, this is not the case for the second. This difference is an important distinction between transition studies and behavioural studies, such as psychology, which place more emphasis on these internal behaviours.

The repeated pointers to activities in both definitions show that the study of individual behaviour is closely linked to the study of actors and agency. Other than referring to individuals, the concept of actors is generally broader and more closely linked to the concept of roles. Roles describe distinctive sets of behaviours associated with an actor (Wittmayer et al., Reference Wittmayer, Avelino, van Steenbergen and Loorbach2017 and cf. Chapter 17 in this handbook). Similarly, in contrast to behaviour, agency is a broader concept defined as the capacity to act intentionally (de Haan & Rotmans, Reference de Haan and Rotmans2018). Thus, agency has a component of direction and combines the acts themselves as well as the potential for acting by referring to capacity. Behaviours, however, are not necessarily intentional, but also include habitual or conditional reactions in certain situations.

Often, psychological approaches on behaviours differentiate between types of behaviour on a continuum, with routines and habits at one end and deliberative behaviour at the other end (Defila et al., Reference Defila, Di Giulio and Ruesch Schweizer2018; Verplanken & Aarts, Reference Verplanken and Aarts1999; Whitmarsh et al., Reference Whitmarsh, Poortinga and Capstick2021). Routinized or habitual behaviours are typically triggered by (external or internal) stimuli and occur repeatedly, often regularly. These types of behaviours are to some extent automated and often following routines, such as a morning shower – triggered by getting up and always using a specific water temperature and a certain soap. For example, they usually cycle, but take the bus in case of bad weather. At the other end of the continuum lie behaviours that are once-off and deliberative such as decision-making, especially where there is an investment of significant resources or where there are significant impacts. Such behaviours are often the result of longer processes that involve other behaviours, such as gathering information or considering costs and benefits. This type of behaviour is, for example, relevant for the decision to switch from a conventional vehicle to an electric one, or to adopt a car-free lifestyle.

All types of behaviour along this continuum are relevant to sustainability transitions because the establishment of the new system relies on decisions by a variety of individuals in different roles: policymakers need to adapt regulations, managers in firms need to invest in new products and households need to adopt these products. The new system is then likely to lead to new routines, which, in turn, influence all individuals in the changed system. This leads us to the standing acknowledgement that behaviours are embedded in contexts. They are influenced, supported or challenged by the current system. While this is more obvious for habitual behaviour as stimuli-driven, this also applies to more deliberative behaviours which are influenced by social norms, personal attitudes and available resources. The deliberative behaviour of, for example, buying an electric car ten years ago required a lot of resources and motivation, is much easier now, but still innovative in 2024 (at least in some countries) and is likely to be the ‘normal’ decision in 20 years’ time.Footnote ¹

However, transitions research has not frequently investigated the role of individuals and behaviour. According to Hansmeier et al. (Reference Hansmeier, Schiller and Rogge2021), the focus on actors and agency has increased significantly in transitions research in the past years, however, theory development in sustainability transitions on the role of behaviour and individuals is still ongoing and an emerging field. Hansmeier et al. (Reference Hansmeier, Schiller and Rogge2021) found that as of 2016, only 20% of papers from transitions research targeted actors (and their networks), while the share was nearly 50% in the period 2016–2019. Important contributions have been made recently by a review by Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) and by several papers involving Upham and Bögel (Bögel & Upham, Reference Bögel and Upham2018; Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Dütschke2019; Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel, Klapper, Kašperová, Teerikangas, Onkila, Koistinen and Mäkelä2021), building on earlier work by Upham et al. (Reference Upham, Lis, Riesch and Stankiewicz2015). The review by Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) provides a classification of behaviour types that we make use of below. The work by Upham and Bögel reviews the use of psychology and social practice theory in the transitions literature (Bögel & Upham, Reference Bögel and Upham2018, updated as Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel, Klapper, Kašperová, Teerikangas, Onkila, Koistinen and Mäkelä2021) and explores different ways of conceptually and methodologically connecting micro-level social psychological processes with larger scale transitions concepts.

Here, the focus will correspondingly lie on individuals and behaviour, extending previous accounts on actors and agency with additional perspectives and regularly drawing on neighbouring fields of research – psychology in particular.

19.2 Historical and Thematic Development

Studying the social or societal side of socio-technical systems has typically implied analysing social forms of action (Bögel & Upham, Reference Bögel and Upham2018). Individual behaviour, as a separate and smaller research focus, has been mainly discussed in relation to consumption behaviour and everyday life, described below, building close links with the increased interest on the role of the individual as a ‘consumer’ or ‘user’ in the broader field of science and technology studies (STS) (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek, Boons, Fünfschilling, Hess, Holtz, Hyysalo, Jenkins, Kivimaa, Martiskainen, McMeekin, Mühlemeier and Wells2019). An introduction to work in the latter vein can be found in the nine-fold co-design typology of Hyysalo and Johnson (Reference Hyysalo and Johnson2024).

A focus on users and consumers links with research on sustainable consumption, which is a field of research in its own. One of the prominent approaches has been to build on ‘practice theory’ (Warde, Reference Warde2005), which has also regularly been applied in transition studies (Kaufman et al., Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021 and also Chapter 6 in this book). Practice theory takes practices, that is, usually certain classes or groups of repeated or routinized behaviour, as a starting point, for example meal preparation and eating. It then moves on to identifying the factors that shape, uphold or potentially change these practices, typically including three types of factors such as material, image and skill. Material refers to existing structures, available equipment or objects, while image captures symbolic and communicative meanings and implications; finally, skills relate to individual competences involved in the practice (cf. Shove, Reference Shove2010 for exemplifying). A focus on practices is typically related to a focus on daily behaviours and how they are embedded in (social) context and structures and may extend to changes in these behaviours. The acting subjects are usually individuals in their roles as consumers or users and less often individuals involved in practices of changing or shaping the system itself.

The role of users and consumers has received significant attention in the last one to two decades also in other streams of research such as in innovation studies or studies on technology adoption.Footnote ² There has been a shift away from viewing consumers and users in a passive role of ‘adopting innovation’ or ‘accepting technologies’ into a more active one. In this active role, consumers are seen as individuals that shape or trigger developments in technological innovation by stating needs and driving, or at least refining, technological or sectoral developments (cf. Chadwick et al., Reference Chadwick, Russell-Bennett and Biddle2022). Examples here are the early phases of the German energy transition where many early investors came from fields outside the energy industry, such as farmers setting up windfarms or solar PV fields, or even earlier developments in Denmark where electricity users, including individuals and collectives, pushed forward windfarm installations (Schot et al., Reference Schot, Kanger and Verbong2016). This related field of research suggests that, in sustainability transitions, roles of individuals are changing from using and consuming to being entrepreneurs or suppliers within newly emerging niches or even regimes (Wesche & Dütschke, Reference Wesche and Dütschke2021).

Building on this line of thought and developing it further for the study of sustainability transitions, a paper by Schot et al. (Reference Schot, Kanger and Verbong2016) describes several roles of users and consumers in transitions and the corresponding relevant behaviours.Footnote ³ These behaviours are categorized according to roles of groups of individuals and differ according to the phase of a transition. In the early niche-focused phase, typical actors and behaviours driving the transition include

1. 1. user-producers who are involved in inventing and experimenting with technological or social innovations and enabling new routines to emerge and

2. 2. user-legitimators who shape the meaning, purpose and rationale of niche innovations by building and sharing narratives.

In the following acceleration phase, in which the interaction between niche and regime starts to change the current regime, they identify

1. 3. user-intermediaries who are involved in networking between niche actors and actors outside the niche for scaling up innovations and

2. 4. user-citizens who engage in changing the current regime to enable niches to grow.

Finally, in the stabilization phase of the new regime, there exist

1. 5. user-consumers who embed innovations in their lifestyle and adopt their lifestyle to the innovations and thus support their diffusion.

All five roles are associated with specific behaviours, such as designing technological applications, generating ideas or concepts, communicating with others or using and applying innovations. The behaviours identified by Schot et al. (Reference Schot, Kanger and Verbong2016) allude to the differentiation between more habitual and more conscious behaviour as defined above.

This continuum between routinized and deliberative behaviour also influenced the work of Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) who conducted a review on the transitions literature through a behaviour lens. The authors differentiate between four types of behaviours: reflective, automatic, strategic and everyday behaviour. Their categorization takes up conceptualizations found in the literature rather than observed phenomena in transitions. The first two types of behaviour were identified based on papers with a stronger focus on micro-meso perspectives. Reflective behaviour connects with conscious implementation – on the deliberative side of the behaviour continuum. Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) find that studies on reflective behaviour are typically engaged with changing behaviour and acknowledge bounded rationality and the drivers and barriers to behavioural change. A relatively high number of papers was identified in this field by Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021), but many of them not highly cited.

Automatic behaviour covers both habits and embedded behaviour triggered by situational cues, matching the routinized or habitual side of the behaviour continuum in psychological approaches. Beyond habits, Kaufman et al (ibid) found this literature to also emphasize the role of heuristics and biases in relation to behavioural choices. The reviewed studies suggest that interruptions are necessary to change these types of behaviours. Research advocating for nudges to foster transitions, that is, designing situations in a way that the probability of the desired behaviour increases, was also grouped under this approach. While fewer papers were identified than on reflective behaviour, they were more frequently cited. The other two types of behaviour, strategic and everyday, refer more to the meso-level and thus are less attached to the micro level and the individual. Strategic behaviour is seen as intentional action by collective actors, such as companies or agencies, niche actors or incumbents, to achieve a benefit for their innovation or retaining current technologies, usually in a competitive context. Thus, this perspective addresses interactions within networks of (collective) actors. Everyday behaviour covers what was described as practices earlier. Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) emphasize that from the literature it is not clear whether purposeful or directed change of practices by external actors is possible given the complexity of conditions shaping practices.

Additional streams in the transition literature that partially focus on behaviour but have a greater focus on collectives and the meso-level includes the research on social movements and civil society organizations (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek, Boons, Fünfschilling, Hess, Holtz, Hyysalo, Jenkins, Kivimaa, Martiskainen, McMeekin, Mühlemeier and Wells2019). Research on social movements looks for instance into grassroot innovations and how they create consumer demand or drive innovations from outside the traditional sector or branch as citizens (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek, Boons, Fünfschilling, Hess, Holtz, Hyysalo, Jenkins, Kivimaa, Martiskainen, McMeekin, Mühlemeier and Wells2019). While individual behaviour is usually not the starting point of the analysis, its importance is acknowledged (e.g. Hossain, Reference Hossain2016). Another part of literature on social movements analyses the role of individuals in challenging or providing legitimation to transitions, that is, resisting or promoting change. In line with what Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) categorized as strategic behaviour, this research does not only investigate individuals and collectives as drivers of transitions, but also as showing resistance. Examples are citizen-driven initiatives supporting wind farms and owning them through cooperatives versus local action groups opposing windfarms.

Furthermore, a stream of research which has been established in the literature is the one on the role of intermediaries in transitions, mainly building on Kivimaa et al. (Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019). Intermediaries are defined as ‘actors and platforms that positively influence sustainability transition’ (Kivimaa et al., Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019, p.1072) through a variety of behaviours such as ‘linking actors and activities (…) or by connecting transition visions and demands of networks of actors (…)‘. Intermediaries are discussed in more detail in Chapter 18 of this handbook.

A recent stream of literature, not only in the field of transition studies but also related to it, conceptualises energy citizenship to capture engagement with an energy system in transition. It typically refers to different types of engagement, such as citizens as consumers, prosumers, prosumers, political activists, members of energy communities, and thus also points to the diversity of relevant behaviours of individuals in transitions (Schlindwein & Montalvo, Reference Schlindwein and Montalvo2023) and the emergence of new practices (Ryghaug et al., Reference Ryghaug, Skjølsvold and Heidenreich2018). Although the topic of energy citizenship is inherently related to a transition, it has not yet become a major topic of transition research; no paper applying the concept could be found in the main journal ‘Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions’ until summer 2024. Nevertheless, this literature seems promising for theorising individual behaviour in a transition context.

Finally, classic disciplines that focus on behaviour and the individual have extended their scope. For instance, in environmental psychology, claims have been made to link research more strongly to transformative approaches (Wullenkord & Hamann, Reference Wullenkord and Hamann2021). In her influential book on ‘The Great Mindshift’ also Göpel (Reference Göpel2016), self-identifying as a political economist, makes the case for the role of individuals and their behaviour by stating ‘(…) the source of intentional change is human thinking, feeling and acting. Socio-ecological systems are created, ordered and stabilized through human decision making (…)’ (p. 50f). She draws on the Multi-level perspective from transitions research (cf. Chapter 2 in this handbook) and adds a ‘mini level’ representing the individual level to the usual MLP-structure (p. 47). This matches with the development that researchers from environmental psychology have extended their understanding of environmental behaviour as sustainable consumption to including so called ‘other directed behaviour’ or ‘public-sphere behaviour’ such as taking part in protests or other voluntary work on environmental issues (Capstick et al., Reference Capstick, Nash, Whitmarsh, Poortinga, Haggar and Brügger2022).

19.3 Empirical Application: The Individual and Its Behaviour in the Energy Transition

Sustainability transitions have commonly been studied with a focus on one or several sectors in which society is organized. These range from energy and transport to medicine and food production. The greatest empirical focus, both for overarching transition processes as well as for the individual and behaviour in transitions, has been on the energy sector (Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Johansen2020). In the following, we hence focus on examples applying a behavioural perspective to the energy transition as a large-scale change in one socio-technical system in which individuals and their behaviour have played a crucial role.

Looking at energy transition processes provides several opportunities to further illustrate the role of individuals and behaviour. The energy transition refers to the transformation of the energy system of a community, region, country or association of states (such as the EU) in such a way that it produces little or no greenhouse gas emissions. There are three basic approaches to achieving this, which can complement each other: consistency, efficiency and sufficiency. They involve replacing fossil fuel-based energy production with renewable energy (the consistency approach), achieving the same results with less energy (the efficiency approach) or reducing overall demand (the sufficiency approach) and they all affect and are affected by individuals and their behaviour.

Superficially, the consistency approach has little impact on the consumer side, as the required energy is still provided, only by different generation mechanisms. However, the fact that energy production from wind and PV has been able to achieve large impacts and develop to a stage where it is economically competitive has been driven by individuals and organisations outside the established energy sector (Schot et al., Reference Schot, Kanger and Verbong2016). Moreover, consistency approaches have serious implications for the supply system, changing business models and triggering new industries. This requires a wide range of individuals to change their current behaviour by investing differently, developing offerings along newly developed supply chains, or changing production patterns of energy generation technologies (see Fricaudet et al., Reference Fricaudet, Parker and Rehmatulla2023 as an exemplary study). Furthermore, moving on to generating electricity from wind or sun instead of coal and gas implies adapting to a fluctuating electricity production due to the weather. While this can be done technically by improving the interconnectedness with other geographical areas, or by providing energy storage, it can also be achieved through behavioural change which is known as demand side management. Demand side management means that demand for energy is adapted to the supply side, that is, increasing production in industrial processes or starting energy intensive household processes when ample energy is available (e.g. Wesche & Dütschke, Reference Wesche and Dütschke2021 on the different roles for organisations). Thus, demand side management is strongly connected to changing practices or – through a more individual lens – to adapting routines and habits (e.g. Solbu et al., Reference Solbu, Ryghaug, Skjølsvold, Heidenreich and Næss2024 on low-income households).

Efficiency as a strategy is mainly technology-oriented and refers to increasing the output without increasing inputs, for example, by using more efficient appliances, insulating buildings, moving to more efficient heating systems or changing patterns of consumption to less resource intensive products. Thus, this field of research is much about technology acceptance, but also includes broader transition-related topics such as studying the networking behaviours of actors in the heating transition (Wesche et al., Reference Wesche, Negro, Brugger, Eichhammer and Hekkert2024) or the discourse of households as users and installers around metering systems which are supposed to enable more efficient resource use (Rohracher & Köhler, Reference Rohracher and Köhler2019).

In addition to consistency and efficiency, sufficiency is increasingly discussed as a pathway to reach the goals of the energy transition. Sufficiency refers to systematically changing structures and behaviours in a way that leads to lower levels of resource and energy use will keeping levels of well-being (Sandberg, Reference Sandberg2021). In terms of electricity use, this could mean using fewer devices; in terms of energy more broadly, it could mean reducing the amount of space heated or switching heating systems to lower temperatures and cooling systems to higher temperatures, thus, finding other ways to achieve thermal comfort levels. Thus, as can be seen from the examples, the sufficiency approach has a strong behavioural component in changing habits and routines, but also broader practices and the use of different decision-making strategies. Systematic research on sufficiency is still in its infancy and therefore a rare topic also in terms of individuals and their behaviour in transition studies (see Solbu et al., Reference Solbu, Ryghaug, Skjølsvold, Heidenreich and Næss2024 as a rare example).

Other specific areas of interest linking individuals and their behaviour to the energy transition concern processes within organisations and the individuals embedded within them. This includes differences in strategic behaviour and motivations in transitions (Scherrer & Rogge, Reference Scherrer and Rogge2025), decisions between multiple technologies (Scherrer, Reference Scherrer2023) and the behaviour of individuals as employees or managers in companies (Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Dütschke2019). Scherrer and Rogge (Reference Scherrer and Rogge2025) presented a first analysis of the former for the decarbonisation of heavy-duty vehicles and Upham et al. (Reference Upham, Dütschke, Schneider, Oltra, Sala, Lores, Klapper and Bögel2018) exemplified the latter for the case of hydrogen fuel cell applications.

In addition, the study of behaviours that slow down the transition is also highly relevant – phenomena include, for example, what is referred to in the literature as rebound effects (Galvin et al., Reference Galvin, Dütschke and Weiß2021; Sorrell, Reference Sorrell2015), that is, when the use of more efficient technologies does not lead to the expected reduction in demand or when the increased share of green electricity leads to higher consumption levels. Unlike the case of technology diffusion, this is a behavioural effect that is usually not purposeful or rooted in resistance to the transition, but nevertheless undermines achieving the sustainability goals. For instance, Dütschke et al. (Reference Dütschke, Galvin and Brunzema2021) portray the variety of individual engagements with roof-top PVs in households and the heterogeneous outcomes related to it.

19.4 Ongoing Debates: Connecting Macro and Micro Analysis in Transitions Research

In this section we discuss debates relating to how to address the behaviour of individuals within or alongside the analytic frames used in sustainability transitions. This is one instance of structure versus agency and macro-micro debates that have accompanied the history of modern social and behavioural sciences. While we have shown that micro, individual-level processes have been relatively under-studied in sustainability transitions frameworks, the broader field of sociology has long recognised the importance of understanding macro-micro linkages, to understand (and particularly model) social phenomena (Berk, Reference Berk2006; Raub et al., Reference Raub, Buskens and van Assen2011; Schillo et al., Reference Schillo, Fischer, Klein, Goos, Hartmanis, van Leeuwen, Moss and Davidsson2001). Researching this linkage raises questions of how particular micro and macro level processes and conditions influence one another, of the directionality in cause and effect and of the ways in which these linkages can be studied. For transitions, it also raises the issue of where the research focus of the field both lies and should lie. These questions go to the heart of what the transitions field is and what transitions researchers want that field to be – what research questions, approaches, theories, frameworks, epistemologies and ontologies are viewed as constituting the field.

A key question that this requires scholars to negotiate is thus the extent to which, and how, agency, individual and collective behaviour, is and are determined or influenced by macro-level structures – including social norms and culture, technologies and infrastructures and economic and political systems (Gibbs, Reference Gibbs2017). Arguably, the transitions literature has implicitly taken a rather radical, pro-structural position on this question, by focusing mainly on structural change, to the neglect of the micro-level processes, choices and behaviours involved. As said, in social studies more generally, there is recognition of the roles of both macro structures and individual agents in relationship with one another. Indeed the structuration theory (Giddens, Reference Giddens1984) that Geels (Reference Geels2002) used to explain the differing degrees of societal embeddedness of the niche, regime and landscape in his multi-level perspective is an explicit attempt to reconcile macro- and micro-level phenomena (agents reproduce external structures by following internalised rules, a version of Bourdieu’s (Reference Bourdieu1977) theory of habitus). For further detail on micro-macro linkages in the social sciences generally, see Raub et al. (Reference Raub, Buskens and van Assen2011), who provide a short review of the work of the many authors who have sought to connect levels of analysis to understand social phenomena.

Social practice theory (Warde, Reference Warde2005), as mentioned above and drawing heavily on Bourdieu (Reference Bourdieu1977), is one of the approaches that contributes to delineating these relationships in depth, though again more leaning towards the structural side (see also Chapter 6 in this book). Instead, in psychology and behavioural economics, there has been a strong presumption that behaviour change research should aim to identify the decisive factors operating principally at the individual level, and that understanding these factors will support an anticipatory, predictive and interventionist approach to social change. These different positions are partly related to academic traditions: while sociologists and political scientists tend to emphasise structures, psychologists and behavioural economists tend to emphasise individual autonomy in decision-making and behavioural choices, even if those choices might be considered flawed from some external perspective. Moreover – and this is where the main problem lies in this context – much of the most popular social psychological or behavioural research in recent decades has focused on intra-individual processes. This is epitomised in theories such as the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Fishbein & Ajzen, Reference Fishbein and Ajzen1980) and the norm activation model (Schwartz, Reference Schwartz1977), which recognise factors external to individuals but nonetheless focus on individual, subjective experience to explain behaviour.Footnote ⁴ Bosnjak et al. (Reference Bosnjak, Ajzen and Schmidt2020) report that as of April 2020, the TPB had been investigated in more than 4200 papers referenced in the Web of Science, which means it is one of the most frequently applied theories in the social and behavioural sciences. It is not surprising that some sustainability transitions theorists want to keep a clear emphasis on structures external to individuals, and on collective, social phenomena rather than on the individual. At the same time, structure-focused research faces greater challenges in producing (seemingly) precise quantitative results, which has led to a lower societal impact compared to behavioural economics (Fuchs et al., Reference Fuchs, Debourdeau, Dütschke, Fahy, Garzon, Kirchler, Klöckner and Sahakian2025).

Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) call for a combination of perspectives instead to advance transitions and to ensure that relevant dynamics at different levels are not underestimated. This means recognising, considering and above all addressing the role of structures as well as the complexity of factors influencing socio-technical change, as in practice-driven approaches to everyday behaviour, by also considering strategic behaviour. At the same time, however, they take the view that the individual level should not be neglected – in its habitual constraints, but also with its capacity for reflective behaviour to adapt habits and routines and to support or resist to system change (ibid.).

Of other authors working in this space, Göpel (Reference Göpel2016) emphasises the role of individual mindsets for sustainability transformations; Huttunen et al. (Reference Huttunen, Kaljonen, Lonkila, Rantala, Rekola and Paloniemi2021) call for a pluralistic understanding of agency; and Upham et al. (Reference Upham, Bögel and Dütschke2019) set out ways in which micro-macro connections may be made in research practice: via nested or connected studies at different scales, using different methods; use of bridging concepts that have both individual and social dimensions (e.g. narratives or social representations); and study of individuals within collectives, such as organisations or movements.

Geels (Reference Geels2020, p. 3) strongly questions the endeavour to bring individual-level processes into transitions analysis, saying: ‘(…) methodological individualists suggest that only individual human beings should be considered as actors with the capacity to act (…) Such a conceptualisation is practically unworkable, however, for socio-technical transitions.’ Geels (Reference Geels2020) argues that too many individuals are involved in transitions and that collective actors are thus a key focus. Yet those seeking to bring social psychological insights into transitions perspectives are not arguing for methodological individualism, nor are they arguing against the importance of studying collective actors. The matter of there being too many individuals to account for is again not a very convincing argument: rarely does social psychology reason from the experience of single individuals alone, and transitions analysts themselves deal with a plethora of technologies, companies and contexts. In fact, the transitions literature often reasons from individual cases or a small number of these, which entails its own issues of generalizability. What matters in all of this is correspondence between the purposes of a study, its research questions, methods, theories or frameworks and the claims being made. What we have sought to explain above is that bridging macro-micro schisms is a longstanding tradition in the social sciences (Ritzer, Reference Ritzer2008), and that studying the role of individual behaviour in transitions is just one instance of this endeavour – but a worthwhile one.

19.5 Summary & Conclusions

Summing up, the perspective on individuals and behaviours has not been a core topic of transitions research, which has traditionally focused on mid-range theories. However, as the field becomes increasingly differentiated and with rising interest in details and complexities and the increasing awareness that actual sustainability transitions have not moved forward at the pace and the impact level needed, interest in the individual level is increasing. This also leads to a higher interest in building bridges to other disciplines with a longer history on these topics, first of all (social) psychology, but also other fields such as behavioural economics.

In the future, further conceptual development, especially to making links with already more established concepts and streams of research in transitions research is needed, as continued by authors such as Kaufman et al. (Reference Kaufman, Saeri, Raven, Malekpour and Smith2021) or Göpel (Reference Göpel2016). This could also contribute to overcoming some of the debates around the field or to move further by creating more detailed knowledge. More specifically, potential avenues for future research include:

• Future research should enhance our understanding of individuals and their behaviours by adopting a multi-actor approach, recognizing people not just as consumers, but also as decision-makers, public activists and policymakers (Upham et al., Reference Upham, Bögel and Dütschke2019).

• Studying the interrelation between individual and collective behaviour is crucial to understanding how individual actions influence collective strategies at micro, meso and macro levels.

• Analysing the diverse behaviours within multi-actor systems during different phases of transitions is important, including the roles of advocates, intermediaries, incumbents and those impacted by transitions, while also exploring how transitions become normalized and their effects on individual behaviour.

• Research should further explore how social disparities, inclusiveness and diversity impact individual behaviour in transitions, with a particular focus on underexplored factors such as gender influences.

This chapter ends on a reflexive note, as research on sustainability transitions is often, at least implicitly, normative in terms of the goals transitions seek to achieve; however, this context also raises a potential pitfall: a tendency towards an instrumental interpretation of behaviour and its transformation, which the field needs to be cautious about.

20.1 Introduction to Coalitions in Transitions Research

Sustainability transitions can be understood as the transformation of socio-technical systems towards the sustainable provision of societal functions (see the introduction of the book). Socio-technical systems are held together by formal and informal rules, also called institutions. These rules include shared beliefs and values, routines, laws, policies, institutionalised practices and capabilities (Fuenfschilling & Truffer, Reference Fuenfschilling and Truffer2014; Geels, Reference Geels2004). For sustainability transitions to materialise, the formal and informal rules of socio-technical systems need to change. In democratic societies, individuals acting alone rarely have the power needed to bring about institutional change that can eventually lead to system-level change. Rather, individuals need to collaborate and coordinate their actions, often in the form of coalitions, to collectively change and shape these rules. For example, Smith, Stirling und Berkhout (Reference Smith, Stirling and Berkhout2005, 1492) state that: ‘system-level change is, by definition, enacted through the coordination and steering of many actors and resources’. In sustainability transition studies, we define coalitions as groups of actors who share the same goal and coordinate strategies and actions over time to shape the socio-technical systems they operate in. As a result of these coalition-driven actions, selection environments are created in which sustainable innovations can thrive, and unsustainable socio-technical configurations are destabilised and phased out.

The concept of coalitions is often used in transition theory to represent coordination and steering efforts. Diverse empirical examples of coalitions advocating for change can be found throughout the sustainability transitions literature, including those related to the deployment of renewable electricity technologies in Germany (Geels et al., Reference Geels, Kern, Fuchs, Hinderer, Kungl and Mylan2016; Jacobsson & Bergek, Reference Jacobsson and Bergek2004; Jacobsson & Lauber, Reference Jacobsson and Lauber2006; Lauber & Mez, Reference Lauber and Mez2004; Negro & Hekkert, Reference Negro and Hekkert2008); the deployment of renewable electricity technology in Sweden and the Netherlands (Ulmanen, Verbong & Raven, Reference Ulmanen, Verbong and Raven2009); hydrogen in Germany (Löhr, Markard & Ohlendorf, Reference Löhr, Markard and Ohlendorf2024); Swiss energy policy (Markard, Suter & Ingold, Reference Markard, Suter and Ingold2016); the green transition in Finland (Haukkala (Reference Haukkala2018); with a focus on European energy transitions (Lindberg & Kammermann, Reference Lindberg and Kammermann2021); and with a more conceptual lens Roberts et al. (Reference Roberts and Geels2018) and Hess (Reference Hess2019b). In these contributions, coordination is often described as taking place in niche-support coalitions that collectively pressure regime actors to change institutions, thereby adapting the selection environment to favour niche innovations.

Although the concept of coalitions is frequently used in sustainability transitions, it is often applied in various ways and is not well conceptualised. To improve the conceptualisation of coalitions and their role in sustainability transitions research, the goals of this chapter are to:

• define coalitions and related concepts (Section 20.2),

• show how coalitions have been used in sustainability transitions studies (Section 20.3),

• introduce theoretical strands that use different types of coalition concepts and discuss how they can be applied to sustainability transitions (Section 20.4) and

• highlight valuable avenues for future coalition-related research (Section 20.5).

20.2 Defining Coalitions and Adjacent Collective Action Concepts

The terminology used for coalitions and adjacent concepts is inconsistent and researchers both in the sustainability transitions field and in related social science fields (e.g. sociology, political science and organisational studies) describe similar topics with different terms. The term ‘collective action’ is used here and in the background literature as an umbrella category for political action beyond the individual level with a shared goal or goals for change (Diani & Bison, Reference Diani and Bison2004). Hence, although the focus of this chapter is on coalitions, we also define related concepts, such as social networks, alliances and social movements, to delineate their distinct boundaries and differences.

We suggest using these in the following sense:

• Social Network: A social network is a dynamic, interconnected system of individuals, groups, organisations, or other entities that share relationships, values, or interests. These social actors (nodes) are linked by ties (edges) that define their interactions, collaborations and dynamics (McLevey, Scott & Carrington, Reference McLevey, Scott and Carrington2024). Network nodes can also include non-actor entities, such as ideas, frames, or events. The ties can be formal or informal and direct or indirect and for actors, they involve various forms of interaction, such as communication, exchange of resources, or mutual support. The nature of these ties shapes the network’s structure, which influences the flow of information, the distribution of power and the overall dynamics of the network changes.

• Alliance: An alliance is understood here as an agreement between two or more actors with a common goal. In the context of politics, an alliance often refers to a formal relationship between government units (such as countries that form a league or confederation) or between political parties that form an alliance prior to elections. The term ‘alliance’ can also refer to companies that have a formal relationship, such as two airlines that coordinate and share routes (Oxford English Dictionary).

• Coalition: The term ‘coalition’ is sometimes used synonymously with ‘alliance’; however, the term ‘coalition’ is understood here as a broader concept. In general, a coalition involves different types of actors who share a goal (e.g. beliefs in the Advocacy Coalition Framework) and have some coordination of strategy (Weible & Ingold, Reference Weible and Ingold2018). Coalition action may also involve multiple episodes or events over time. Coalitions can be ephemeral and short-lived or become more established (Weible, Ingold, Nohrstedt, Henry & Jenkins‐Smith, Reference Weible, Ingold, Nohrstedt, Henry and Jenkins-Smith2020). In politics, a common use of the term occurs when two or more political parties form a coalition government. In contrast in sustainability transitions studies, the main coalitions are those engaged in the governance of socio-technical systems. These coalitions can be in favour of or in opposition to efforts that support niche configurations or the phase-out of unsustainable configurations. Like social movements, coalitions emerge from diverse conditions, including institutional opportunities, mobilisation capacity and resources and political conflicts and grievances (M. Fischer, Reference Fischer2015; van Dyke & Amos, Reference Van Dyke and Amos2017).

• Social Movement: The term ‘social movement’ often refers to a long-term mobilisation of actors across diverse campaigns that challenge authorities and seek change. Examples include the environmentalist, anti- or decolonial, feminist, labour and conservative movements (van Dyke & Amos, Reference Van Dyke and Amos2017). The understanding of a social movement often includes the idea of protest or extra-institutional action, such as the following: ‘A social movement is a collective, organised, sustained and non-institutional challenge to authorities, powerholders, or cultural beliefs and practices’ (Goodwin & Jasper, Reference Goodwin and Jasper2003). Depending on the temporal and spatial scale on which an analysis is based, social movements can comprise multiple coalitions over diverse campaigns. Whereas the term ‘coalition’ is generally used in the context of state-oriented action with an institutional repertoire of action, the term ‘social movement’ can have non-state actors as targets and can include extra-institutional repertoires of action, such as street protest and civil disobedience (Della Porta & Diani, Reference Della Porta and Diani2017).

20.3 The Role of Coalitions in Established Transition Research Frameworks

Coalitions have been described and used in several of the main sustainability transitions frameworks. In the following section, four major sustainability transitions frameworks will be briefly introduced, with an emphasis on how, if at all, they conceptualise coalitions. These frameworks were selected as foundational approaches in transition studies (Markard, Raven & Truffer, Reference Markard, Raven and Truffer2012). When introducing the use of coalitions in these four key frameworks, we will also briefly discuss coalition frameworks developed outside the Sustainability Transitions Research field, such as the Advocacy Coalitions Framework and the Discourse Coalition approach. These frameworks will be explored in greater detail in Section 20.4, alongside the concepts of Policy Networks and Strategic Action Fields.

20.4 Introduction of Four Theoretical Strands to Understanding Coalitions

In this section, we will introduce four theoretical strands, the Advocacy Coalition Framework, Discourse Coalitions, Policy Networks and Strategic Action Fields, that use different types of coalition concepts. We will discuss how these can be harnessed for sustainability transitions studies. The number of concepts could easily be expanded. However, we have chosen those that most closely deal with coalitions. For a general discussion of policy process theories in particular and how to utilise them for sustainability transitions research, see also Kern und Rogge (Reference Kern and Rogge2018).Footnote ¹

20.5 Future Research Needs and Conclusion

Here, we identify and discuss several key areas for future research related to coalitions based on the previous findings. These areas are categorised into three themes: linking coalition theories to transition theory, characteristics and internal dynamics of coalitions and the activities and strategies of coalitions to accelerate socio-technical change.

21.1 Introduction & Brief History of the Geography of Transitions

Over the past two decades, studies on sustainability transitions have developed into a thriving field of research that deals with long-term, systemic and fundamental transformation processes towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption through socio-technical innovation. Initial theory-building of sustainability transitions was structured around several ‘foundational’ frameworks – MLP (Chapter 2), SNM (Chapter 5), TM (Chapter 3) and TIS (Chapter 4) – which emerged in the early 2000s based on cross-overs between evolutionary economics, social constructivist accounts of technology development, reflexive modernisation and research on innovation systems (Grin et al., Reference Grin, Rotmans and Schot2010). Foundational research on sustainability transitions originated in the Netherlands but grew quickly into an international, if not global, scholarly community.

At its onset, questions concerning how sustainability transitions emerge across places and scales were largely off the radar with the focus instead on the development of universal, a-geographical explanations and singular scales of analysis (typically national-level case studies). In spite of the obvious relevance and importance of the profound impacts that globalisation and urbanisation were having on socioeconomic development and environmental change, early transition theorising showed little interest in its spatial dimensions and multi-scalar processes and provided limited analytical purchase to deal with them (Coenen et al. Reference Coenen, Benneworth and Truffer2012). The field’s often implicit methodological nationalism led many early transition studies to draw ex-ante national boundaries around sectors, technologies and systems in transition (Markard et al., Reference Markard, Raven and Truffer2012). This national bias has weakened substantially over time but still remains present. For example, Geels and Turnheim (Reference Geels and Turnheim2022, page 49) recently argued that:

To further add to geographical misperceptions in transition theory, pioneering work on, especially, MLP and SNM made allusions to scales that by-and-large failed to disrupt the singular focus on the national. Geels and Raven (Reference Geels and Raven2006), for example, placed niche development trajectories into a ‘local–global’ perspective. Here, local niche experiments are considered to evolve to the global level as local outcomes are aggregated into more universal lessons and rules. Similarly, Geels and Deuten (Reference Geels and Deuten2006) argued that transitions depend on localised innovation networks evolving into inter-local, trans-local and finally global networks, paralleled by the emergence of higher-level epistemic communities shaping those technologies and innovations’ evolution. Both cases reflect an overly simplistic and containerised means of understanding scales; as aggregated products of lower-level processes (e.g. niche-to-landscape) rather than recognising the multi-scalar nature of the MLP’s three analytical levels. That is, landscapes can be localised in micro-social behaviours, practices and norms, while niches can be shaped by global forces and factors and multi-locational networks. In sum, transition scholars have often empirically equated (or, rather, conflated) landscape, regime and niche levels in MLP with spatial scales. Such allusions have been problematic when seeking to understand and explain geographical dimensions and aspects of transitions. Also, the complex translation and re-scaling processes that necessarily accompany the spatial diffusion of transformative ‘niche’ solutions have remained suspiciously absent from transition studies’ key conceptual frameworks (Miörner and Binz, Reference Miörner and Binz2021; Sengers and Raven, Reference Sengers and Raven2015).

The initial methodological nationalism (Heiberg et al., Reference Heiberg, Binz and Truffer2020; Fuenfschilling and Binz, Reference Fuenfschilling and Binz2018) and spatial/scalar naivety of transition studies has been readily met and criticised by geographers and scholars in other spatial sciences such as urban and regional studies (Bulkeley et al., Reference Bulkeley, Broto, Hodson and Marvin2010; Coenen et al., Reference Coenen, Benneworth and Truffer2012; Hansen and Coenen, Reference Hansen and Coenen2015; Hodson and Marvin, Reference Hodson and Marvin2010; Murphy, Reference Murphy2015; Truffer, Reference Truffer2008). These studies voiced a concern that transition theories were insufficiently equipped to assess the advantages, unevenness, conflicts and tensions that are constituted by the economical, institutional, social and cultural contexts in which transitions dynamics and pathways are embedded. Central to these criticisms was the notion that transition theories had failed to recognise why and for what reason transformative instances of institutional, entrepreneurial and innovation occur where they do and how factors and forces at multiple scales shape these processes. This blind spot could very easily lead to the naïve assumption that sustainability transitions can take place anywhere through generalised processes rather than place-specific, contingent and multi-scalar dynamics.

In response to these shortcomings, work on the ‘geography of sustainability transitions’ (GeoST) has been a relatively recent addition to transition theorising, addressing the need for greater sensitivity and attention to the scales, spatialities and context-specific factors that shape transitions. Interest and engagement with the geographical dimensions of sustainability transitions quickly grew into a prominent sub-field, characterised by a fruitful trading zone that is populated by geographers, transition scholars and other social scientists seeking to better account for place specificity, multi-scalarity and spatial unevenness in their studies of socio-technical change. In fact, the GeoST subfield now has its own thematic group within the STRN network, and it has become a core theme at the International Transition Conference series, as well as in major international conferences in (human/economic) geography. Nonetheless, however, misconceptions on the aims and scope of GeoST research prevail in human geography and the transitions community as exemplified by Köhler et al.’s (Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek and Boons2019: 14) claim that the geography of transitions is ‘primarily concerned with understanding how and why transitions are similar or different across locations.’ Moreover, their (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek and Boons2019) subsequent discussion on transitions in cities and the Global South further reifies the notion that empirical location is the only geography that matters (for a critique, see Binz et al. Reference Binz, Coenen, Murphy and Truffer2020). Such overly simplistic, descriptive and outcome-focused geographical understandings ignore the contributions that GeoST scholars are making with regard to the multi-scalar, context-specific mechanisms, processes and relationalities shaping transitions and their uneven outcomes within and between places and regions (North and South).

In the remainder of this chapter, we aim to transcend an empirical concern with the geography of transitions and, instead, outline the contours of the GeoST’s wider theoretical research agenda and ongoing debates, framing these specifically around conceptualisations of place and the scales in/through which transitions unfold. While many books and papers have been devoted to discussing these concepts, we need to limit ourselves to the following definitions. To start with the former, place refers to a location or a site in space where an activity or object is located and which relates to other sites or locations because of interactions, movements and diffusions between them (Agnew, Reference Agnew1987). Places are thus relationally constituted – that is they are (re)produced through socio-material, multi-scalar and power-laden relations that interconnect and situate actors, materials, histories, identities, markets and built environments within particular space-time contexts that condition the pathways and prospects for transitions, and which create a sense of place (Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Martin and Murphy2011). Scale, on the other hand, refers to the socio-material size and areal extent of phenomena (Bridge et al., Reference Bridge, Bouzarovski, Bradshaw and Eyre2013). Human geography generally assumes that the scales at which social structures and dynamics (like transitions) unfold are not pre-set, but socially constructed and fluid. Key decisions on whether and how a given sector transforms may then not be allocated to one distinct scale, but rather depend on interactions between local, regional, national and global scales or be consciously ‘rescaled’, e.g. from being a ‘local’ to a ‘national’ problem.

Why do transitions occur in one place and not in another? How do transitions unfold across different geographical contexts? How do spatial features and scalar dimensions shape transition dynamics? These questions typically characterise a geographer’s perspective and provide highly relevant theoretical inroads to explore the spaces and spatiality of transition processes. Current research is relatively strong in explaining past transitions, focusing predominantly on qualitative case studies that draw on historical insights (Zolfagharian et al., Reference Zolfagharian, Walrave, Raven and Romme2019). Even though there is growing interest by transition scholars into the role played by geographical difference in shaping the co-evolution of technologies, actors and institutions (Bergek et al., Reference Bergek, Hekkert, Jacobsson, Markard, Sandén and Truffer2015), place and scale are all too often treated at best as a passive background variable providing little causal explanation or theoretical purchase.

21.2 Place

A review of studies on the geography of transitions (Hansen and Coenen, Reference Hansen and Coenen2015) found that the majority of the geographical analyses have zoomed in on the importance of spatial context for transition processes. Here they adopt a relational and evolutionary view of space, one that views it as a socially produced phenomenon that is the outcome of interactions between actors, institutions, practices, materials and routines that are historically and culturally situated in places and times. For example, an energy (socio-technical) regime where coal is the primary source (material) of (for) electricity will have associated with it relations, institutions and practices that reinforce interdependencies between mining communities, companies and workers, power utilities and generation facilities, state actors and consumers, among others. Importantly, each of these features, materials and actors is embedded in particular spatial (and multi-scalar) relations that shape regime-specific path dependencies, lock-ins and the prospects for realising a sustainability transition. Ignoring such geographies risks developing overly deterministic, and/or (universal) thin understandings of the drivers of, and strategies to achieve, transitions.

The greater spatial resolution adopted in geographical analyses of sustainability transitions has helped to specify that niche formation and formation processes in emergent technologies are contingent on place-dependent factors such as technological and industrial specialisation, natural resource endowments, market formation dynamics, urban and regional visions and policies and localised informal institutions (Hansen and Coenen, Reference Hansen and Coenen2015). While a higher level of sensitivity concerning the importance of locality is gained in these studies, it may have come with a bias towards emphasising particularities found in single case studies of distinct places, typically nation-states. As a result, the consensus is still that place matters while there is little generalisable knowledge about how spatial specificities matter for transitions. There is a risk that such analyses simply observe spatial specificity and establish differences in transition dynamics as an empirical matter-of-fact without seeking to typologise, explain or theorise the observed differences. This in turn may limit the contribution of geographical analysis to sustainability transitions to that of topical contrivance: of interest to geographers but with limited reach beyond this discipline (Bridge, Reference Bridge2008). This suggests that there are yet un-theorised sources of spatial difference in transition dynamics observed as place specificity.

One particularly prominent perspective afforded by adopting a geographical vantage point with regard to place is through the notion of territorial and spatial embeddedness. Here, economic geographers have drawn extensively on institutional analysis to successfully explain geographically uneven technology development, diffusion and innovation (Asheim and Gertler, Reference Asheim and Gertler2005). The basic tenet in these analyses is that institutions enable and constrain innovation in spatially differentiated, place-specific ways. However, geography of transitions requires an expanded understanding of institutional conditions beyond technological innovation, taking into account more diverse, non-technological forms of innovation and social adaption and configuration processes (Hansmeier and Kroll, Reference Hansmeier and Kroll2024). Importantly, it entails a focus on the institutional factors that shape emergent, ‘sustainability’ directionalities or transitions, and which help to contextualise the heterogeneity of societal challenges, problems and solutions such as those related to public health, security, basic services and the environment (Wanzenböck et al., Reference Wanzenböck, Wesseling, Frenken, Hekkert and Weber2020). Such an approach is essential for transitions studies to identify and conceptualise mechanisms that can account for contexts beyond the archetypical settings of Western Europe and conventional sectors such as energy and transport. In other words, to diversify the geographies, places, and socio-technical configurations that form the empirical basis for transitions frameworks and theories.

Instead, theorising institutional difference across locations will allow scholars to generalise the institutional contingencies and particularities of the various contexts where transitions take place. A well-known empirical example is provided by the comparison between the evolution of the Danish and US wind turbine industries as described by Garud and Karnøe (Reference Garud and Karnøe2003). The example demonstrates that the Danish success with developing wind turbines is not just a matter of picking the right strategy by firms and entrepreneurs but that these strategies are conditioned by specific territorial institutional advantages in terms of e.g. public-private co-ordination, collaboration practice and informal sharing of information in Denmark’s coordinated Variety of Capitalism (VoC). For a more extensive review of the VoC literature, in a context of sustainability transitions, we refer to Loewen (Reference Loewen2022). This study highlights that key concepts from VoC could enrich transitions’ political, economic, social and, ultimately geographical, perspectives which include a more analytically granular treatment of coordination, strategic interactions and comparative institutional advantage.

Beyond comparative analyses such as this, there is also a need for transitions researchers to critically rethink the ‘wheres’ with regard to the places from which transformative changes may originate. Here we take inspiration from recent work on peripheries that argues that their spatial isolation, distance and disconnection from so-called ‘cores’ creates opportunities for radical, novel experiments, niches and socio-technical configurations to emerge in sectors such as mobility, sanitation and agriculture (Feola and Nunes, Reference Feola and Nunes2014; Hautala and Ibert, Reference Hautala and Ibert2018; Zuev et al., Reference Zuev, Tyfield and Urry2019; Glückler et al., Reference Glückler, Shearmur and Martinus2023; Wainaina et al., Reference Wainaina, Truffer and Murphy2023). Despite the potential, such innovations are rarely able to diffuse widely thus raising critical questions regarding how and why ‘peripheralised’ transition configurations might diffuse or become rescaled into global regimes, best practices and strategic actions (Grabher, Reference Grabher2018; Miörner and Binz, Reference Miörner and Binz2021). Moreover, diversifying and expanding the ‘wheres’ of transitions research to include more studies of non-Western, developing/emerging and/or peripheralised places/regions offers a critical means for rethinking, contrasting and/or replacing the euro-centric, linear spatial diffusion models that underlie many pioneering transitions studies. A key concern here is to develop more varied models of transition pathways, ones that explicitly take more granular, place-based spatial perspectives that avoid methodological nationalism and account for innovation processes within cities, regions and contexts that differ significantly from the Anglo-European experience (Hansen, 2019; Van Welie et al., Reference Van Welie, Cherunya, Truffer and Murphy2018).

Concerns about place are also very much about context-specificity and, particularly, the kinds of localised institutional, social, cultural and political conditions that can foster sustainability transitions. Here we argue that an engagement with evolutionary economic geography offers a powerful approach through which to understand how place or region-specific combinations or varieties (related and unrelated) of skills, capabilities, institutions, industries and markets can facilitate structural, socio-technical transformations that lead to new industries and service (sectoral) provisioning regimes (Boschma et al., Reference Boschma, Coenen, Frenken and Truffer2017; Hidalgo et al., Reference Hidalgo, Balland, Boschma, Delgado, Feldman, Frenken, Glaeser, He, Kogler and Morrison2018). Results reported by van den Berge et al. (Reference van den Berge, Weterings and Alkemade2020) in their analysis using patent data for 201 European regions confirmed the assumption in evolutionary economic geography that technological relatedness enhances regional diversification potentials into cleantech industries. Qualitative studies have also drawn on the notion of relatedness to explain the emergence of green industries in space. For example, Simmie (Reference Simmie2012) shows how Danish agricultural machinery manufacturers, such as Vestas – a leading Danish manufacturer of mobile cranes and agricultural equipment at that time, saw a market opportunity to diversify their product ranges into wind turbines exploiting technological relatedness. Unrelated diversification, that is, leaps into development pathways that are not technologically or institutionally similar, may also be associated with sustainability transitions and is an area of place-based scholarships that demand further exploration by economic geographers and transitions researchers (Binz and Diaz Anadon, Reference Binz and Diaz Anadon2018; Grillitsch and Hansen, Reference Grillitsch and Hansen2019).

Place and its influence on transitions can also be understood relationally, namely as networks and other interconnections between actors, institutions and innovations that serve as socio-spatial contexts within and through which transition dynamics play out. Such relational contexts can facilitate learning processes (van Mierlo and Beers, Reference Van Mierlo and Beers2020), empower ‘green’ entrepreneurs (Yu and Gibbs, Reference Yu and Gibbs2018) and enable legitimisation and trust-building processes to occur such that niche and regime alignments come into being (Murphy, Reference Murphy2015). Gibbs and O’Neill (Reference Gibbs and O’Neill2014), for example, show how evolving networks of actors, institutions, innovations and entrepreneurs in the Boston metro region challenged the dominant regime in support of a green economy transition. Such processes are inherently power-laden and political, with relational places serving as contexts where state-society-economy struggles over development pathways play out, albeit often in exclusionary ways that can constrain the prospects for sustainability transitions (Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Martin and Murphy2011; Johnstone and Newell, Reference Johnstone and Newell2018).

GeoST scholars have recently also engaged with relational views as a means to understand if and how sustainability concerns become integrated into place frames and to what degree these are mobilised in development policies and strategies (Murphy, Reference Murphy2015; Frantzeskaki et al., Reference Frantzeskaki, Van Steenbergen and Stedman2018). Here, especially place-making theories, which have a long tradition in human geography, primarily in the political, social and urban sub-fields, could add important insights (Massey, Reference Massey2005). Frames serve as views of, or visions for, a place’s past, present and future that provide a ‘gaze’ for local actors in how they frame a given place’s past and future development (Hommels, Reference Hommels2005). Most places have a diversity of frames associated with them that are held together by differing actor coalitions and associated institutions who may seek to mobilise them through social movements, politics, socio-technical innovations and initiatives that strive to ensure a particular status quo or transition. Place frames are thus key contributors to directionality (Parks, Reference Parks2022) and the development of transition pathways. They can also obstruct transitions, particularly in cases where deeply embedded place frames create cognitive, institutional, technological and/or political lock-ins that stifle change (Newey and Coenen, Reference Newey and Coenen2022), lead to watered-down, unambitious transformations (Westman and Castan Broto, Reference Westman and Castan Broto2022; Torrens and von Wirth, Reference Torrens and von Wirth2021) and/or even strategically prevent sustainability transitions.

Finally, place frames – and consequently place-based sustainability transitions – are fundamentally about identity and shaped by identity politics (Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Martin and Murphy2011). That is, successful regime reconfigurations can occur when transition promoters, innovators, state actors and activists are able to align new technologies, institutions, markets, rules and routines with the (evolving) place frames and ‘selves’ of the users, firms and practitioners who will need to absorb them into their everyday actions (Murphy, Reference Murphy2015). Achieving such alignments is inevitably a contested, power-laden and contingent process that will vary significantly from place to place depending on whether the innovations and institutions associated with an emerging transition can be seen as legitimate and trusted; embedded in new, alternative place frames that reflect new identities or ‘senses’ of place. The geographically variegated outcomes of these processes ultimately produce uneven transition landscapes within and between communities, regions, cities and nation-states. Paying closer conceptual and empirical attention to their dynamics will thus generate critical insights to inform transition frameworks and policies.

21.3 Scale

Another general, oft criticised, tendency in transition studies, concerns an implicit assumption that transition processes play out (and can be analysed) within the boundaries of pre-given geographical scales such as ‘regions’ and ‘nations’ or seemingly fixed spatial categories such as ‘the global South’ or ‘the city’. Such an approach is problematic in that it fails to consider the fluidity, permeability and multi-scalarity of transitions processes.

Empirical research by GeoST scholarship has early on problematised these implicit spatial connotations. Adopting a relational and constructivist understanding of scale, economic geographers and transition scholars have explored the multi-scalarity of niche and regime structures (Fuenfschilling and Binz, Reference Fuenfschilling and Binz2018) with standards, rules and regulations institutionalised at supranational scales conditioning the variations of innovation processes at (sub-)national scales, noting at the same time that the configuration of ‘global’ structures often have an antecedent or formation at the local level (Binz and Truffer, Reference Binz and Truffer2017). Multi-scalar formations such as these can influence the direction and significance of transition processes by producing opportunity spaces for innovation and transformative change (Yap and Truffer, Reference Yap and Truffer2019; Chlebna et al., Reference Chlebna, Martin and Mattes2023) At the same time, overlooking essential cross-country relationships may lead to misinterpretations of actual transition dynamics. Quitzow (Reference Quitzow2015) for instance showed how the global shift of the photovoltaic industry around 2010 from Germany to China was less a consequence of Chinese government protection, but rather resulted from the strategies of German machine tool manufacturing to build up an export market for PV manufacturing equipment in China.

Central to a relational approach to scale is recognising that understanding actors’ behaviour requires understanding the influence of all of those scales (and relationships). This suggests to start from a network perspective and ‘following the network wherever it leads’ throughout its development over time (Coenen et al., Reference Coenen, Benneworth and Truffer2012) and using the relational properties of the actors to identify relevant places and scales of a TIS or regime a posteriori. Based on social network analysis of a co-publication dataset on innovative water reuse technology, Binz et al. (Reference Binz, Truffer and Coenen2014) illustrate that the spatial characteristics of collaborations in knowledge creation may vary greatly over relatively short periods of time. While the local scale may sometimes empirically be the most determining, this need not be the case a priori. Globally active actors develop particular dependencies on places with which they have key relationships (to which they are ‘structurally coupled’) to achieve their goals, yet they may also develop distinct strategies at supra-regional and -national scales, which largely diverge from any concrete territorial contexts.

Similarly, a constructivist notion of scale implies that scale is not something that exists ‘out there’, waiting to be discovered by objective researchers, but something that is constructed by social actors pursuing their goals through their relationships. A multinational electrical engineering company may have a renewable energy laboratory conducting R&D geared to global solutions while lobbying national governments around market regulation and price setting. Actors construct scales as they seek to look after their own interests within the networks most salient to them. The geographies of these networks are those that fit these actors – such as corporate structures – and not those convenient to either policy objectives or researchers studying those phenomena.

In sum, transition studies have started to develop concepts and methods that better account for the manifold ways in which apparently territory-specific processes are influenced by ‘distanciated’ policy interventions, narratives or institutional arrangements. Examples include works that examine the influence of multi-scalar ties on localised niches (Wieczorek et al., Reference Wieczorek, Raven and Berkhout2015; van den Heiligenberg et al. Reference van den Heiligenberg, Heimeriks, Hekkert and Raven2022), cross-scalar knowledge and legitimacy flows (Heiberg et al., Reference Heiberg, Binz and Truffer2020) or policy mobilities (Sengers and Raven, Reference Sengers and Raven2015). Moreover, multi-scalar approaches have been applied to studies of global innovation systems, regime-level dynamics, legitimation processes and the role that intermediary structures play in shaping transitions, (e.g. see Binz and Truffer, Reference Binz and Truffer2017; Heiberg et al., Reference Heiberg, Binz and Truffer2020; Bauer and Fuenfschilling, Reference Bauer and Fuenfschilling2019; Fuenfschilling and Binz, Reference Fuenfschilling and Binz2018; Späth and Rohracher, Reference Späth and Rohracher2012).

21.4 Final Reflections

The review above shows that GeoST constitutes a thriving and diverse field of study that promises key improvements and specifications to both human geography’s and transition studies’ conceptual and theoretical apparatus. A general tendency that can be observed in GeoST studies is that they layer geographic perspectives on scales and place ‘on top’ of existing theory in the transition literature, relying largely on concepts and frameworks related to MLP, TIS or SNM, while adding spatial and scalar sensitivity (Hansen and Coenen, Reference Hansen and Coenen2015; Sengers and Raven, Reference Sengers and Raven2015; Loorbach et al. Reference Loorbach, Wittmayer, Avelino, von Wirth and Frantzeskaki2020). This is problematic in that it may limit the scope of conceptual innovation, which could be achieved by more deeply engaging with related literature’s theorisations. Beyond the field of sustainability transitions, we find a growing literature grounded in alternative frameworks to study sustainability transitions that may challenge current theorisations of transitions geographies in more profound ways (Coenen et al., Reference Coenen, Hansen, Glasmeier and Hassink2021).

For example, Bridge et al. (Reference Bridge, Bouzarovski, Bradshaw and Eyre2013) suggest a conceptual language based on fairly traditional and well-known geographic terminology to explain and understand the spaces and places of energy transitions. Similarly, there is a burgeoning literature on urban sustainability transitions (Bulkeley et al., Reference Bulkeley, Broto, Hodson and Marvin2010; Frantzeskaki et al., Reference Frantzeskaki, Coenen, Castán Broto and Loorbach2017), see Chapter 22 for a more elaborate discussion. Such analyses often deal more explicitly and vigorously with aspects of power, governance and agency in instances of innovation and experimentation to produce particular transition outcomes and foreclose others in particular places (Bulkeley et al., Reference Bulkeley, Coenen, Frantzeskaki, Hartmann, Kronsell, Mai, Marvin, McCormick, van Steenbergen and Palgan2016; Grandin and Haarstad, Reference Grandin and Haarstad2021). This literature has also addressed a methodological limitation in (spatial) transition research geared to leveraging societal impact (Zolfagharian et al., Reference Zolfagharian, Walrave, Raven and Romme2019) by engaging directly with designing practical interventions, for example, through its focus on urban living labs (Bulkeley et al., Reference Bulkeley, Coenen, Frantzeskaki, Hartmann, Kronsell, Mai, Marvin, McCormick, van Steenbergen and Palgan2016). Last but not least, neo-institutional sociology provides a highly generative conceptual vocabulary to think through the multi-scalarity of transition processes and the manifold ways in which historically grown cultural-cognitive structures inhibit or support transformative socio-technical change (Fuenfschilling and Truffer Reference Fuenfschilling and Truffer2014; Miörner and Binz 2020).

Given these (and many other) highly promising conceptual trading zones with neighbouring social science disciplines, we would argue that our understanding and conceptualisation of the geography of transitions still stands at an early stage. Deepened and intensified dialogue between transitions and spatial scholarship will be highly relevant not only for scholarly advancements but also for improving the policy advice derived from transition studies conceived more broadly. In today’s world of increasing spatial inequalities, geopolitical tensions and shifts in value chains, having a solid grasp of the spatial and multi-scalar dynamics that condition transition dynamics is of ever more importance.

22.1 Societal Relevance of Urban Sustainability Transitions Research

Urban sustainability transition research has become a major field of study since the early 2000s. A rapidly growing number of scholars from a wide range of disciplinary strands engaging with urban change contributed to its emergence (cf. Frantzeskaki et al. Reference Frantzeskaki, Castán Broto, Coenen and Loorbach2017). Their shared concern for the urgent necessity to better understand and navigate transformative urban dynamics builds on the empirical observation that:

• § Urbanisation represents a global megatrend of the twenty-first century, fostering the expansion and sprawl of urban areas and proliferation of urban lifestyles in all societies (Brenner and Schmid Reference Brenner and Schmid2015),

• § Multiple sustainability problems and crises converge in urban areas (climate change, resource depletion, pollution, biodiversity loss, inequality, migration, etc.), creating massive pressure for change and investment in urban infrastructures and fabrics (Wolfram and Frantzeskaki Reference Wolfram and Frantzeskaki2016),

• § Urban areas form hotspots creativity and innovation (Florida Reference Florida2002) that concentrate knowledge diversity with great potential to initiate and accelerate systemic change,

• § Urban areas are characterised by institutional thickness (Amin and Thrift Reference Amin and Thrift1994), i.e. a high degree of the density, diversity, proximity and accessibility of their actors, institutions and networks, providing specific conditions that may in turn constrain or enable sustainability transitions.

This chapter summarises the historic development of the recent debates in this research field. In Section 22.2, we present the emergence of the field and provide basic definitions, epistemological entry points and methodological implications to study urban sustainability transitions. In Section 22.3, we outline very recent discussions and controversies in the field, while Section 22.4 gives an example of how urban sustainability transition research could be applied. Section 22.5 concludes with an outlook on further research topics and methodological prospects.

22.2 Introduction to Urban Sustainability Transitions Research

Since the formation of the field, sustainability transition research has largely overlooked spatial aspects, relegating them to the background. It was only in the late 2000s and early 2010s that a spatial perspective emerged within this community (Coenen et al. Reference Coenen, Benneworth and Truffer2012; cf. Chapter 21 on place and scale). Early critics argued that foundational frameworks like the Multi-level perspective (MLP) and Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) neglected the spatial configuration of institutional arrangements and niche–regime interactions, asserting that sustainability transitions play out differently in different locations. Later, other authors emphasised that cities would serve as geographical hubs where transitions across multiple sectors (e.g. mobility, energy, food) and dimensions (e.g. social, institutional, cultural, technological, ecological) intersect and influence one another (Frantzeskaki et al. Reference Frantzeskaki, Castán Broto, Coenen and Loorbach2017; Hoelscher and Frantzeskaki Reference Hölscher and Frantzeskaki2021). In this context, urban sustainability transitions are understood as place-based shifts within urban areas, emphasising the interplay between sustainability transitions and urban change to foreground the patterns and dynamics of local action in urban contexts (Bulkeley et al. Reference Bulkeley, Castán Broto, Hodson and Marvin2011; Torrens et al. Reference Torrens, Westman, Wolfram, Castán Broto, Barnes, Egermann, Ehnert, Frantzeskaki, Fratini, Håkansson, Hölscher, Huang, Raven, Sattlegger, Schmidt-Thomé, Smeds, Vogel, Wangel and von Wirth2021).

Pioneering work on urban sustainability transitions focused on single case studies, such as Berlin (Monstadt Reference Monstadt2007) and London (Hodson and Marvin Reference Hodson and Marvin2009), and specifically on low carbon transitions in cities (Bulkeley et al. Reference Bulkeley, Castán Broto, Hodson and Marvin2011). Some researchers drew on strategic niche management (Coenen et al. Reference Coenen, Raven and Verbong2010) or place-based experimentation (Nevens et al. Reference Nevens, Frantzeskaki, Gorissen and Loorbach2013) to underscore the significance of the urban dimension. Others explored the embedding of urban transitions in regional discourses (Späth and Rohracher Reference Späth and Rohracher2010) and multi-level governance systems (Späth and Rohracher Reference Späth and Rohracher2012). Some authors proposed a ‘second generation’ multi-scalar MLP explicitly incorporating spatial scale (Raven et al. Reference Raven, Schot and Berkhout2012), while Hansen and Coenen (Reference Hansen and Coenen2015) conducted the first systematic review of spatial aspects in sustainability transitions.

This foundational work on urban perspectives in sustainability transition research fuelled a growing number of empirical studies, especially in Europe. Examples include comparative studies on mechanisms to accelerate urban sustainability transitions (Ehnert et al. Reference Ehnert, Frantzeskaki, Barnes, Borgström, Gorissen, Kern, Strenchock and Egermann2018a and Reference Ehnert, Kern, Borgström, Gorissen, Maschmeyer and Egermann2018b) or the efficiency of local sustainability initiatives to address climate change (Celata et al. Reference Celata, Dinnie and Holsten2019), but also international single case studies that applied urban transition frameworks (Frantzeskaki et al. Reference Frantzeskaki, Castán Broto, Coenen and Loorbach2017). Reflecting on these and further studies, Hoelscher and Frantzeskaki (Reference Hölscher and Frantzeskaki2021) suggested three analytical lenses as a structuring approach for integrating knowledge about urban transitions: systemic change dynamics within cities (transformations in cities), systemic change outcomes for cities (transformations of cities) and systemic change driven by cities on global and regional levels (transformations by cities).

By 2019, a decade of research on urban sustainability transitions informed the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN) agenda, emphasising the importance of urban and regional visions and related politics (Köhler et al. Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Wieczorek, Alkemade, Avelino, Bergek, Boons, Fünfschilling, Hess, Holtz, Hyysalo, Jenkins, Kivimaa, Martiskainen, McMeekin, Mühlemeier, Nykvist, Onsongo, Pel, Raven, Rohracher, Sandén, Schot, Sovacool, Turnheim, Welch and Wells2019). Torrens et al. (Reference Torrens, Westman, Wolfram, Castán Broto, Barnes, Egermann, Ehnert, Frantzeskaki, Fratini, Håkansson, Hölscher, Huang, Raven, Sattlegger, Schmidt-Thomé, Smeds, Vogel, Wangel and von Wirth2021) outlined a more specific agenda for the coming decade, advocating for a focus on urban ecology, urban change politics and the roles of urban planning and governance while also calling for a less Eurocentric perspective on urban sustainability transitions.

Theoretical and conceptual contributions in urban sustainability transition research draw from multiple scientific fields concerned with spatial development and sustainability dynamics. Some of these fields have long conceptualised ‘transformation’ as whole-system change (esp. in social-ecological research), which is why both ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’ remain relevant in the literature (cf. Hölscher et al. Reference Hölscher, Wittmayer and Loorbach2017). However, for consistency, this chapter will use the term ‘transition’. Within the broad range of urban sustainability transition studies, at least four interconnected perspectives on urban spaces can be identified, each explicitly or implicitly guiding the research.

• § First, a biophysical view emphasises the complex interplay of built environments and ecosystems in urban settings shaping options and constraints for deep structural change (Pickett et al. Reference Pickett, Cadenasso, Grove, Boone, Groffman, Irwin, Kaushal, Marshall, McGrath, Nilon, Pouyat, Szlavecz, Troy and Warren2011). The particular geology and topography and green, blue and grey infrastructures, (e.g. green corridors, rivers, settlement patterns) establish systemic conditions for domains like mobility, energy, water and construction transitions (Schiller and Roscher Reference Schiller and Roscher2023). Such factors create synergies and trade-offs, with feedback loops that influence multiple sectors and systems within specific locations.

• § Second, following a social constructionist perspective, space and place are seen as co-constructed through discourses, institutions, policies and everyday practices (Lefebvre Reference Lefebvre1974). This view highlights the critical role of social networks, democracy, community building and belonging in urban governance (Healey Reference Healey2015). When rethinking socio-technical aspects like values, identities, justice or power, this approach underscores urban agglomeration and diversity as key drivers for technological and social innovations, through mechanisms like place-based experimentation and participatory co-design and empowerment (Avelino Reference Avelino2021, cf. Chapter 12 on power).

• § Third, a relational geography approach focuses on social interactions within broader social contexts beyond the historical formation and identity of places, emphasising political-administrative territories, interdependent spatial scales (local, regional, national, etc.) and network relations (e.g. trade, political alliances) (Jessop et al. Reference Jessop, Brenner and Jones2008). This is reflected in research on multi-level urban transition governance, where agency, institutions and networks play a pivotal role (Hodson and Marvin Reference Hodson and Marvin2010). Studies on emerging territorial innovation systems (Fastenrath et al. Reference Fastenrath, Tavassoli, Sharp, Raven, Coenen, Wilson and Schraven2023) explore the mutual influence of urban characteristics – infrastructures, connectivity, knowledge and resource flows – on transition dynamics (Binz and Castaldi Reference Binz and Castaldi2024; Castaldi Reference Castaldi2024). Urban areas are interpreted in terms of actors, groups, organisations, institutions and processes that imply strong path dependencies and incumbent patterns for forming powerful urban regimes (Stoker and Mossberger Reference Stoker and Mossberger1994) but can also create a breeding ground for developing transformative capacity (Wolfram Reference Wolfram2016).

• § Fourth, drawing their sociomaterial perspective from social-ecological and socio-technical systems theory, assemblage thinking, actor-network theory and feminist neo materialism (cf. Deleuze and Guattari Reference Deleuze and Guattari2004; Farias and Bender Reference Farías and Bender2011; Barad Reference Barad2007), some urban transition scholars focus on the continuous mutual shaping of human, natural and technological systems, sometimes attributing agency to ecosystems or materials. It has led to studies on urban resilience within multi-scalar urban social–ecological systems (Ernstson et al. Reference Ernstson, van der Leeuw and Redman2010) and the enduring nature of urban infrastructures as socio-technical systems (Hommels Reference Hommels2005). It includes work on and biophilia (love of life) place attachment and sense of place (Stedman Reference Stedman2003), human-nature resonance in urban policies and practices (Artmann Reference Artmann2023), and the emotional dimensions of urban transitions (Raymond et al. Reference Raymond, Stedman and Frantzeskaki2023).

Given the complexity, urban sustainability transition research demands and has established inter- and transdisciplinary methodologies (see Section 22.4) that incorporate one or more of these spatial perspectives, extending beyond changes in socio-technical systems. Furthermore, this field embraces transformative research, which carries far-reaching methodological implications, sparking a fundamental debate on the role of science and scientists as societal actors (Wittmayer and Schäpke Reference Wittmayer and Schäpke2014). While opponents of transformative research argue for scientific neutrality, contending that science should observe realities without normative or pre-established assumptions (Strohschneider Reference Strohschneider, Brodocz, Herrmann, Schmidt, Schulz and Schulze Wessel2014), proponents assert that science has never been entirely neutral and advocate for a transparent approach that acknowledges and clarifies the normative perspectives and assumptions that shape research (Schneidewind and Singer-Brodowski Reference Schneidewind and Singer-Brodowski2014).

22.3 Unpacking Recent and Emerging Debates in Urban Sustainability Transitions Research

Urban sustainability transitions research has been implemented in many policy fields (energy, food, transport, etc.) and has addressed a large number of topics (e.g. climate change, nature-based solutions, circularity in cities). While each such study offers domain and topic specific insights, many share three key aspects informed by transition thinking. These include, first, an actor and agency perspective to understand the role of different actors (e.g. civil society, public officials, policymakers, entrepreneurs, scientists) and their interactions (e.g. intermediation, partnerships, conflicts) in urban change. Second, urban governance approaches to specifically address systemic change (e.g. Transition Governance, Transition Management, Strategic Niche Management). Third and most recently, a debate on urban transformative capacities that societies must develop to be able to adequately address urban transitions. This section gives additional insights into these three debates.

22.4 Transition Governance in Practice: Experimentation and Exploration in Dresden

Insights from the above three main topics of urban sustainability transition studies – agency, governance and capacities – have informed numerous transdisciplinary research projects, including the ‘City of the Future’project (2015–2022) in Dresden (Germany). This section provides an illustration of governing urban sustainability transitions in Dresden (Germany), a city in the Global North that is shifting from a post-socialist framework towards a socio-ecological transformation. ‘Dresden – City of the Future: Empowering Citizens, Transforming Cities!’ (DCF) was a transdisciplinary research project that built on the co-creation of knowledge from multiple stakeholders in science and society. Funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education’s ‘City of the Future’ programme, the project encouraged local public officials to explore participatory governance and co-creation, in contrast to traditional top-down governance. DCF was structured around three phases: Visioning (2015–2016), Planning (2017–2018) and Experimenting (2019–2022) (see Figure 22.1).

Figure 22.1

In this transdisciplinary research process based on co-creation, citizens developed transformative urban visions and designed and implemented urban experiments as part of ‘Dresden – City of the Future 2030+’

(Source: Grit Koalick)

In the first phase, citizens envisioned the Dresden’s future for 2030 and beyond. Over 800 citizens participated in barcamps, where they developed urban sustainability visions (see Figure 22.1, up), hosted in collaboration with local institutions such as the public energy provider, the public transport company and a housing association. To broaden engagement, two city trams were repurposed for a day, allowing citizens to post their wishes and ideas for a sustainable city in over 700 notes on the windows of the trams (see Figure 22.2, down). These visions were synthesised into a unified vision, ‘Dresden – City of the Future 2030+’,Footnote ¹ emphasising themes such as local action, global responsibility (though the Sustainable Development Goals), resilience, a local action framework, local cycles of production and consumption, community building and participation.

Figure 22.2

Impressions from the 25 barcamps (up) and the re-designed city trams (down), which gathered ideas and wishes from citizens who might not usually engage in city-led participatory formats

Source: Team Project Zukunftsstadt

Building on this vision, citizens proposed transition experiments in the planning phase, which were finally implemented in the experimenting phase, covering a broad range of social innovations such as edible cities, car-free districts, sustainable business models, nature education, participatory governance within districts and the circular economy. An ‘Office of City of the Future’ was established in the Mayor’s Office to coordinate the overall project, acting as a mediator between the citizen-led initiatives and the municipal bodies.

The DCF project demonstrates the potential of bottom-up governance to cultivate alternative visions of sustainability, moving away from economic growth-centred paradigms and ecological modernisation towards sufficiency and the common good. However, this often competed with Dresden’s dominant political focus on economic development. DCF also provided a space to experiment with different forms of intermediation in transformative governance. ‘Transition intermediaries’ play critical roles by bridging innovative niches and dismantling entrenched regimes (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019), fostering cross-sectoral cooperation and partnerships. Whereas ‘regime intermediaries’ are connected to the established regime through institutional ties, ‘niche intermediaries’ advocate for grassroots innovations (Kivimaa et al. Reference Kivimaa, Boon, Hyysalo and Klerkx2019; Sovacool et al. Reference Sovacool, Turnheim, Martiskainen, Brown and Kivimaa2020). Adopting an exploratory approach, the project studied both types of transition intermediaries to examine niche–regime interactions and their distinct roles in urban experimentation processes.

Empirical findings reveal that the DCF office, e.g. along with the ‘Material Mediation’ and the ‘Food Bin’ experiments, played a prominent role in mediation and translation. Project teams advancing these transition experiments functioned as niche intermediaries, acting as visionaries, knowledge brokers and advocates of change. By contrast, the DCF office operated as a regime intermediary, guiding and facilitating the process, establishing an institutional infrastructure and coordinating local activities (Ehnert Reference Ehnert2023a). The office fostered networks, resolved conflicts and mediated between the municipality, project teams and broader urban society, promoting new cross-sectoral collaboration. It had to bridge the gap between the hierarchical, rule-based culture of the administration and the open-ended, experimental and exploratory nature of the projects. Given its limited strategic connections and the lack of sustainability as a mandatory municipal responsibility (per the Saxon Municipal Code), the office had to actively mobilise support for the project and advocate for an administrative culture more open to co-creation and institutionalisation of sustainability initiatives within the city structures (Frantzeskaki and Bush Reference Frantzeskaki and Bush2022), posing the risk that real-world experimentation could remain fragmented and episodic (Evans Reference Evans2016; Karvonen et al. Reference Karvonen, Evans and van Heur2014; Torrens and von Wirth Reference Torrens and von Wirth2021).

In contrast, niche intermediaries like ‘Material Mediation’ and ‘The Food Bin’ played stronger roles in envisioning and advocating for sustainability, facilitating learning and mobilising support for change. Envisioning change, ‘Material Mediation’, for example, critiqued consumer culture, promoted resource cycles within a circular economy framework and also advocated for the common good, with resources and knowledge being shared rather than privatised. Through workshops on resource cycles and re-using materials (see Figure 22.3), it sought to redefine waste as a valuable resource and foster a do-it-yourself ethos, empowering consumers as opposed to established industry actors. The initiative also helped establish a national network of similar initiatives to support knowledge transfer and local innovation. However, it struggled and failed to secure municipal support for a civic–public partnership for a shared communal waste management infrastructure.

Figure 22.3

(left): ‘Material Mediation’ storage place

(Source: Lukas Klinkenbusch)

Similarly, the ‘Food Bin’ experiment aimed to raise awareness around food waste and to encourage regional, seasonal food consumption. Through educational workshops and cooking events, the ‘Food Bin’ engaged participants in both cognitive and emotional learning processes (see Figure 22.4), creating a space for shared emotional experiences around foods, including the senses of optics, taste and haptics. Like ‘Material Mediation’, it sought to empower individuals to become independent of the food industry, teaching them to cook with leftover and regional foods. The Food Bin cultivated a network of diverse community members, shifting from indoor events to novel forms of outreach including mobile formats involving a cargo bike, cooperation with neighbourhood cafés and churches and events held in public spaces to reach broader audiences.

Figure 22.4

(right): ‘Food Bin’ neighbourhood cooking event

(source: Stefanie Nünchert)

In conclusion, DCF created a valuable space for experimenting with governance innovations such as participatory co-creation formats, intermediary actors and structures, and the social innovations generated by the transition experiments. However, it also revealed how the culture of experimentation, entailing openness and learning-by-failing, clashed with the accountability and rule-based orientation of public administration (Bulkeley et al. Reference Bulkeley, Marvin, Palgan, McCormick, Breitfuss-Loidl, Mai, von Wirth and Frantzeskaki2019; Farrelly and Brown Reference Farrelly and Brown2011; Nevens et al. Reference Nevens, Frantzeskaki, Gorissen and Loorbach2013). Mediation is thus essential to reconcile traditional governance structures with experimental approaches, facilitating the integration of change agents into urban governance processes.

22.5 Conclusions and Outlook

A spatial perspective, and particularly the focus on urban environments, has become a critical corner stone in sustainability transitions research in the last decade. While the full ontological and epistemological potential of a spatial, urban lens is yet to be fully developed, existing studies have already made significant contributions. Reflecting on the current state of the art of urban sustainability transition research, several promising directions may help advance both the scientific field and the practical implementation of urban sustainability transitions.

Firstly, scientific discourse on urban sustainability transitions could benefit significantly from viewing urban spaces not only as contexts but as levers for transformation, leveraging various ontological and epistemological understandings of space (see Section 22.2). This dual perspective could strengthen collaboration between urban and transition scholars, fostering new and robust heuristics for comparative studies on urban sustainability transitions. It would also offer urban practitioners new entry points to initiate and accelerate transformative change on the ground, potentially enhancing existing urban development strategies, processes and instruments.

Secondly, typifying urban experiments beyond sectoral categories could clarify the relationship between experiment design (purposeful objectives) and the way they influence their context, driving urban transitions. There is still limited understanding of how experiment-based innovations are embedded within urban governance structures (Hodson et al. Reference Hodson, Evans and Schliwa2018), how they facilitate learning at individual, collective and institutional levels, how they interact with and impact power dynamics, either enabling or obstructing empowerment, leading to a reconfiguration of urban systems.

Thirdly, urban sustainability transition research could further explore how urban transitions are affected by recent societal trends, including societal polarisation, post-factual narratives and opposition to liberal democratic systems. Questions of legitimacy and governance decision-making in urban transition are critical, particularly as transition governance approaches such as transition management are sometimes perceived as bypassing local democratic processes (de Geus et al. Reference de Geus, Wittmayer and Vogelzang2022). While this is seen positively when existing mechanisms are deemed inadequate for urgent transitions to sustainability, it also raises concerns about societal stability and the legitimacy of democratic institutions, particularly given opposition from both right- and left-wing extremists. Therefore, research is needed on how urban transition governance can better align with democratic frameworks without losing its effectiveness in promoting urban sustainability transitions.

Fourthly, there is significant potential in bridging socio-technical systems (STS) and socio-ecological systems (SES) research within urban contexts. As local governments work to improve urban ecosystems to address climate, biodiversity and pollution challenges, research could investigate how people-nature connections and investments in ecological infrastructure (such as nature-based solutions) facilitate urban sustainability transition. Further investigation is also warranted into how urban ecosystem investments and nature-driven place transformations may either stall or accelerate various urban transitions. This aligns with calls for integrated social–ecological–technological systems (SETS) frameworks (Andersson et al. Reference Andersson, Lennerfors and Fornstedt2024; McPhearson et al. Reference McPhearson, Cook, Berbés-Blázquez, Cheng, Grimm, Andersson, Barbosa, Chandler, Chang, Chester, Childers, Elser, Frantzeskaki, Grabowski, Groffman, Hale, Iwaniec, Kabisch, Kennedy and Troxler2022), well-suited to the complexity of urban sustainability transitions.

Fifthly, incorporating decolonial perspectives could enhance future research on urban transitions by guiding the design, evaluation and objectives of urban governance for more equitable futures. Decolonial thinking can help identify key actors outside traditional sectoral categories, scrutinise narratives and frames guiding urban transitions and propose alternative interventions for transformative change through a decolonial lens. This perspective is also critical for urban regeneration initiatives, ensuring they do not inadvertently reinforce neo-colonial narratives or path dependencies that undermine sustainability.

Sixthly, current impact evaluation frameworks often focus on short-term impacts of experimentation due to project design and funding (Torrens and von Wirth Reference Torrens and von Wirth2021). To capture the medium- (15–25 years) and long-term impacts of urban sustainability efforts, research should investigate the lasting institutional integration of lessons learnt. This points to a need for fundamentally rethinking research project design and funding models. Urban real-world laboratories should be envisioned as long-term social research infrastructures (Schneidewind et al. Reference Schneidewind, Augenstein, Stelzer and Wanner2018) fostering sustained partnershipsFootnote ² between science, administration, policy, business, civil society and citizens to collectively experiment with and learn how to navigate transformative changes across multiple systems simultaneously.

23.1 Introduction

Sustainability transitions (ST), as an interdisciplinary field for studying societal change, has popularised globally since the early 2000s. The theory appeals to scholars and practitioners alike, as a systematic way of understanding shifts in technologies, policies, markets and culture, as well as provides useful heuristics for mobilising a variety of societal actors for taking action on climate change mitigation (IPCC, 2023) and just transitions (Swilling, Reference Swilling2020; Avelino et al., Reference Avelino, Wijsman, van Steenbergen, Jhagroe, Wittmayer, Akerboom and Kalfagianni2024). Although in recent years, it has impressively become a globally known research field, the conceptual origins and dominant focus in empirical study remain confined in the European context. Even when other parts of the globe are visited, the theories and frameworks continue to have what is called a ‘Western bias’ (Köhler et al., Reference Köhler, Geels, Kern, Markard, Onsongo, Wieczorek and Wells2019, Ramos-Mejia et al., Reference Ramos-Mejía, Franco-Garcia and Jauregui-Becker2018; Ghosh and Schot, Reference Ghosh and Schot2019). When studying transitions in contexts outside of Europe, especially in the so-called ‘Global South’, it is argued that ‘many of frameworks’ implicit theoretical assumptions do not hold’ (Feola, Reference Feola2020). A useful starting point is therefore to understand why and how contexts differ between Global South and Global North and in what ways ST theories could be sensitive and meaningful as a theory of change in Global South contexts.

Historically, the term ‘Global South’ has been popular as an alternative to the notions of ‘third world’, ‘poor nations’, ‘least developed countries’ or ‘developing countries’ (UNCTAD, 2022). Each of these terms are problematic as they carry a misplaced value judgement of a countries’ core versus peripheral position in a world dominated by neoliberal developmental ideas (e.g. GDP growth is a major indicator of development), ignoring the vast social diversity, environmental and cultural values and practises (Chant and Mcllwaine, Reference Chant and McIlwaine2009). In regions such as Latin America, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, decades of colonial rule have shaped the local infrastructures, institutions and aspirations in line with the ‘rules’ of capitalism and industrial modernity, such as encouraging growth through mass production, maintaining supplies at the cost of extraction and overconsumption, and disconnecting from nature as a symbol of progress and modernity (Kanger et al., Reference Kanger, Tinits, Pahker, Orru, Tiwari, Sillak and Vaik2022).

History books tell us how countries that are currently seen as developing and poor were attacked and plundered by colonising nations, drawing out treasures and natural resources (which fuelled their growth) at the cost of the colonised nations left as a ‘corpse’ even after independence [See ‘The Anarchy’ for a harrowing history of the British colonising India (Dalrymple, Reference Dalrymple2019)]. Such histories invite reflection on how development has been done, should be done, by whom, at whose cost and what it means to develop in the first place. In the current context of climate crisis, inequality, migration and wars, development often becomes a burden for the previously colonised nations (Kothari, Reference Kothari2005; Arora and Stirling, Reference Arora and Stirling2023). In order to counter such colonial developmental agendas, Global South as a category enables a fairer appraisal of socio-economic marginalisation and ‘resistance against global hegemonic power’, recognising and repairing the historic injustices and colonial oppressions experienced by the majority of countries in the Southern Hemisphere [see Haug et al., (Reference Haug, Braveboy-Wagner and Maihold2021); Menon (Reference Menon2018); Kloß, (Reference Kloß2017) for recent insights on Global South as a category].

At present, there are high levels of persistent inequalities in the Global South owing to institutional and economic privileges of the few, relying on exclusive provision systems that reproduce social exclusion (Ramos-Mejía et al., Reference Ramos-Mejía, Franco-Garcia and Jauregui-Becker2018). Exclusions are structural causes of poverty, which is a major issue in these contexts owing to (capitalist) structures that maintain and regularise the ‘anti-social’ exploitative economic processes (Baulch and Hoddinott, Reference Baulch and Hoddinott2000; Mitchell, Reference Mitchell2024). There are diverse ‘patterns of poverty reproduction’ (Ramos-Mejía et al., Reference Ramos-Mejía, Franco-Garcia and Jauregui-Becker2018). Limited statehood, especially in conflict or post-conflict areas (Risse, Reference Risse, Leibfried, Huber, Lange, Levy, Nullmeier and Stephens2015), and a lack of political freedom and capabilities for development on their own accord (Sen, Reference Sen1999) entrench socio-economic marginalisation. Democratic struggles in ensuring justice for all, in highly unequal contexts, obstruct people’s visions and capabilities to forge new and common directionality of change and lock them into pursuing ‘development’ (Escobar, Reference Escobar1995) in a way that often leads to a dead end. Transitions in the Global South are therefore a pursuit to rethink development trajectories and understand and appreciate local challenges and opportunities in a way that is sensitive to local cultural histories and diverse social realities (Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh, Ramos-Mejía, Machado, Yuana and Schiller2021; Preuß et al., Reference Preuß, Galvin, Ghosh and Dütschke2021).

Transitions in the Global South are inherently linked to ST in the Global North (Wieczorek, Reference Wieczorek2018). As the impacts of global environmental change are increasingly manifested, the agendas to transition to sustainability currently pursued by the Global North, for example, decarbonisation, serve as impetus for careful attention to the impacts these have on Global South contexts, for example, the creation of sacrifice zones (Sovacool et al., Reference Sovacool2021; Almeida et al., 2021). For example, the decarbonisation agenda may lead to green extractivism, which perpetuates underdevelopment in the South while reinforcing injustice, that is, decarbonisation by dispossession (Andreucci et al. 2021) and delay ST in the Global South. Given these continuing colonial impulses, it is therefore essential for studies of transitions in the Global South to be accompanied by decolonial sensibilities (Avelino et al. Reference Avelino, Wijsman, van Steenbergen, Jhagroe, Wittmayer, Akerboom and Kalfagianni2024; Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh, Ramos-Mejía, Machado, Yuana and Schiller2021) and imaginaries of just sustainable futures for all (Mguni et al., Reference Mguni, Herslund and Abrams2025).

Reimagining Global South as a relational category (Berger, Reference Berger2021) further implies that it is more than just a ‘geographic imaginary’ (Haug, Reference Haug, Braveboy-Wagner and Maihold2021), but a relational ‘subversive practise’, that is ‘created, imagined, invented, maintained, and recreated by the ever-changing and never fixed status positions of social actors and institutions’ (Kloß, Reference Kloß2017). Such practises and relationality can exist in the geographical Global North, implying ‘Global South’ to be a much more nuanced epistemological category than simply constituting countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Given the socio-economic heterogeneities in these countries, relationality representing the Global North can be found in some Southern geographies, for instance in the megacities (Ghosh and Schot, Reference Ghosh and Schot2019). Therefore, Global South within Global North and Global North within Global South should be understood as a yin and yang relation, and not as two separate geographical frames.

A key research question addressed in this chapter is: how could we analyse and enact ST in the Global South contexts, in a way that transcends the historical challenges of colonial modernity and undesired modes and forms of development while pursuing just futures? By revisiting key transitions, concepts such as innovation, regimes and change, the aim of this chapter is to illustrate complex and multiple dynamics of transitions in the Global South.

23.2 Sustainability Transitions in the Global South: A Brief Account

Since the late 1990s, a scientific community started to emerge around the topic of ST (Vellinga and Wieczorek, Reference Wieczorek and Vellinga2004; Rip and Kemp, Reference Rip and Kemp1998). Broadly speaking, sustainability transition literature suggests that due to their unstructured, complex and global character, current problems such as climate change or loss of biodiversity can effectively be addressed by means of a radical change in interconnected socio-technical systems providing for human needs such as energy, water or shelter (Elzen et al., Reference Elzen, Geels and Green2004; Elzen and Wieczorek, Reference Elzen and Wieczorek2005). Every aspect of life, from technology, institutions and the economy to the socio-cultural sphere, must transform for a system change to be effective (Wieczorek and Berkhout, Reference Wieczorek and Berkhout2009, Grin et al., Reference Grin, Rotmans and Schot2010). Incremental, technical changes based on the end-of-pipe solutions such as cleaner products or eco-efficiency failed to address the new type of unstructured, complex and wicked problems that a socio-technical approach has the potential to address (Elzen & Wieczorek, Reference Elzen and Wieczorek2005; Geels et al., Reference Geels, Sovacool, Schwanen and Sorrell2017; Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh and Schot2019; Bhatia, Reference Bhatia2023).

Major transition frameworks such as multi-level perspective (MLP) (Geels, Reference Geels2005), strategic niche management (SNM) (Raven, Reference Raven2005), transition management (TM), (Loorbach, Reference Loorbach2007) and technological innovation systems (TIS) (Bergek et al., Reference Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, Lindmark and Rickne2008; Hekkert et al., Reference Hekkert, Suurs, Negro, Kuhlmann and Smits2007; Wieczorek and Hekkert, Reference Wieczorek and Hekkert2012) have originally been used to clarify and motivate socio-technical transitions in mainly Global North contexts. However, many scholars started using these frameworks in the Global South in the 2000s, especially in Africa (e.g. van Eijck and Romijn, Reference Van Eijck and Romijn2009; Byrne, Reference Byrne2011; Swilling & Annecke, Reference Swilling and Annecke2012) and in Asia (e.g. Berkhout et al., Reference Berkhout, Angel and Wieczorek2009, Reference Berkhout, Verbong, Wieczorek, Raven, Lebel and Bai2010, Reference Berkhout, Wieczorek and Raven2011; Hansen and Nygaard, Reference Hansen and Nygaard2013; Amankwah et al., Reference Amankwah, Klerkx, Oosting, Sakyi-Dawson, Van der Zijpp and Millar2012). In the past decade, the geographical and conceptual breadth of ST has remarkably expanded, for example, in Asia (Yang et al., Reference Yang, Schot and Truffer2022; Yuana et al., Reference Yuana, Sengers, Boon, Hajer and Raven2020; Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh and Schot2019; Raven et al., Reference Raven, Ghosh, Wieczorek, Stirling, Ghosh, Jolly and Sengers2017; Jolly et al., Reference Jolly, Raven and Romijn2012), Africa (Ting and Byrne, Reference Ting and Byrne2020; Mguni et al., Reference Mguni2015; Swilling & Annecke, Reference Swilling and Annecke2012) and Latin America. Various aspects of transitions, beyond the transitional MLP analysis, are now increasingly discussed, for example, conflicts (Yuana et al., Reference Yuana, Sengers, Boon, Hajer and Raven2020), regime resistance (Ting and Byrne, Reference Ting and Byrne2020), informal occupations (Dutt, Reference Dutt2022) and relationality (Nagarajah, Reference Nagarajah2023).

Lately, the literature has also taken a ‘decolonial turn’, underlining the risks of ‘failing to challenge the reproduction of colonially accumulated power and privilege’ and the consequences of further deepening cultures of domination, toxic extraction and controlling imaginations that constitute key tenets of colonial modernity (for a detailed account, see Arora and Stirling, Reference Arora and Stirling2023). Ghosh et al. (Reference Ghosh, Ramos-Mejía, Machado, Yuana and Schiller2021) argue that there are at least three pragmatic ways in which transitions studies can be decolonised: by recognising everyday struggles as sources of enhanced capacity for resilience and change; by recognising local nuanced dynamics of inequality-induced power asymmetries; and through participatory research that is empowering and non-extractive. Decolonial perspectives are observed in studies highlighting ‘disempowerment effects in empowerment initiatives’ (Jayaweera et al., Reference Jayaweera, Rohracher, Becker, Nop and Waibel2023); ‘hybrid co-existence’ of socio-technical regimes that embodies conflicts (Balanzó-Guzmán and Ramos-Mejía, Reference Balanzó-Guzmán and Ramos-Mejía2023); ‘religious repertoires approach’ to ST (Stacey, Reference Stacey2024) and ‘multiplicity of pasts that lead to diverse presents and futures’ (Terry et al., Reference Terry, Castro, Chibwe, Karuri-Sebina, Savu and Pereira2024). Such perspectives are woven into this chapter, as we have tried to build our arguments based on (and therefore cite) as many Global South scholars as possible as a way to recognise their valuable contributions to ST literature.

In Section 23.3, we aim to take the reader through a journey of discovering the unique characteristics, dynamics of transitions and methodological diversities found in the literature of pursuing transition-oriented research and action in all these contexts.

23.3 Key Characteristics of Transitions in the Global South: Five Themes

In a systematic literature review, Wieczorek et al. (Reference Wieczorek2018) discussed major insights for ‘sustainability transitions in developing countries’, namely: niche formation, experiments and upscaling, change agents and factors, transnational linkages, regime uniformity, stability and change, power, path dependence, normative orientation and system framing. Research on each of these areas has advanced, resulting in integrated framings and newer topics emerging from further empirical studies. For instance, research on niches has evolved into unpacking the variety of innovations, including experimentation and learning (Raven et al., Reference Raven, Lindsay, Lane and Reynolds2024; Dutt, Reference Dutt2023; Schiller et al., Reference Schiller, Klerkx, Centeno and Poortvliet2023). Understandings of regimes have evolved through differentiated understanding of the stability of systems, the role of regime actors as change agents, power asymmetries and path dependencies (Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh and Schot2019; van Welie, Reference Van Welie, Cherunya, Truffer and Murphy2018; Guma, Reference Guma2021). These distinctive characteristics and dynamics of niches and regimes have implications for the theory of socio-technical change (transitions) in the Global South through the plurality of pathways. Normative orientations of transitions are now extensively considered through justice and decolonising debates (Avelino et al., Reference Avelino, Wijsman, van Steenbergen, Jhagroe, Wittmayer, Akerboom and Kalfagianni2024; Kumar et al., Reference Kumar, Höffken and Pols2021; Ghosh et al., Reference Ghosh, Ramos-Mejía, Machado, Yuana and Schiller2021). The methods of transitions have also evolved from identifying and analysing socio-technical systems into considerations of plural knowledges, co-design and empowering storylines (Velasco et al., Reference Velasco, Ghosh, Boni, Schiller and Winkler2024; Rusca et al., Reference Rusca, Sverdlik, Acharya, Basel, Boyd, Comelli and Messori2024). Extending from Wieczorek (Reference Wieczorek2018)’s insights and incorporating the new directions of transitions in the Global South research, we suggest organising this review around five key themes, namely niches, regimes, change, justice and knowledge diversity (methods) (see Figure 23.1).

Figure 23.1

Key themes of research in sustainability transitions in the Global South

23.4 Conclusion and Ways Forward

Ahmed (Reference Ahmed2023)’s provocative title ‘The Future of Human Civilization is African’ highlights the urgency and importance of engaging with transition dynamics in the Global South. In the beginning of this chapter, we explained what we mean by the Global South and its interconnectedness with the Global North, inviting the reader to think deeply about these concepts beyond mere geographical categories. In this section, we underline several reasons why looking closely at the ST dynamics in the Global South bears some merit, given the histories of coloniality, challenges as well as opportunities of confronting the climate and social crisis, and legacies of colonial modernity. On one hand, the Global South is disproportionately disadvantaged by the impacts of climate change (Batista-Pritchard, Reference Batista-Pritchard2024), yet on the other hand, innovative solutions for sustainable living, heterogenous ideas of sufficiency and coexistence of natures and cultures constitute important epistemologies in the Global South, which are worth unpacking.

The research question posed in the beginning of the chapter is how could we analyse and enact ST in the Global South contexts, in a way that transcends the historical challenges of colonial modernity and current undesirable modes and forms of development while pursuing just futures? We answer this question along five themes or topics that we argue encompass the key debates in Transitions in Global South literature. These are understandings of niches, regimes, change, justice and knowledge diversity. We found that considerations of varieties of innovation, experimentation, dynamic stability of regimes and relational materiality in change processes are promising avenues to transcend ill impacts of colonial modernity such as concentration of privileges, degraded nature, a changing climate, cultural hierarchies and comprehensive superiorities. In our view, justice as directionality and plurality of knowledges are prominent ways to avoid unjust and singular (thereby undesired) modes and forms of development.

Research on transition in the Global South could go deeper along these five themes, combine and extend beyond them, to materialise decolonial pathways for transitions that pressures of colonial modernity have suppressed for decades. For instance:

1. (1) In order for niches to develop and accelerate for just futures in the Global South, one could ask what kind of socio-political, economic and cultural conditions are required? How could we recognise and integrate diverse emotions, future visions and storylines in experimentation? What are the current logics of niche formation and survival in GS contexts?

2. (2) For regimes, key questions could be: what are the logics configuring current socio-technical regimes in the Global South, what are the institutional barriers for addressing inequality and historic injustices, and what new methods can be developed to overcome these barriers through policy, investments and prefigurative politics?

3. (3) For mapping, managing and monitoring change through plural pathways in the Global South, transition scholars could look beyond substitution and replacement of whole systems and more into adaptation, resilience and coping strategies in response to crises, such as heat extremes, flooding and so on, already experienced in these contexts. What can be learnt from these experiences for better anticipatory policies?

4. (4) Understandings of justice as directionality could be deepened through analysing heterogenous choices, expectations and conditionalities that accompany socio-ecological and socio-technical change in the Global South.

5. (5) Finally, to acknowledge the diversity of knowledges that abound, future transition research methods could combine data science and social science, qualitative and quantitative, ‘western-scientific’ and indigenous methods of producing and implementing actionable knowledges.

Researching socio-technical change, innovation and justice, in and with Global South communities with such explicit intention of co-producing a ‘more pluralistic body of knowledge’ (Zolfagharian et al., Reference Zolfagharian, Walrave, Raven and Romme2019) could enrich ST literature as a whole.