The Prologue establishes the author’s personal journey of discovering Nordic capitalism as a transformative lens for understanding market economies. Through firsthand experiences living and working in Nordic countries, it reveals how encountering their universal social services, tax systems, and union participation challenged fundamental assumptions about capitalism formed as an American MBA student and corporate employee. The chapter positions Nordic capitalism as a practical alternative to American neoliberalism when mounting sustainability challenges demand new paradigms, likening the present moment to a potential Kuhnian “scientific revolution“ and paradigm shift away from neoliberal ideology. It introduces key features distinguishing Nordic capitalism, including democratic accountability, stakeholder cooperation, and market alignment with sustainability goals. The Prologue frames the book’s investigation of Nordic capitalism not as a pursuit of utopian ideals, but as a pragmatic exploration of proven approaches for evolving capitalism toward sustainability, an approach that provides hope in a challenging world.

Despite the neoliberal wave solidarity capitalism has remained important in Europe. Since it was impossible to tame capitalism globally, promoters of solidarity turned to the European Union, and strove to strengthen its ‘flanking’ welfare state. The early 1990s brought a first peak of international awareness regarding environmental protection and interest in social Europe, but that was shattered by a neoliberal reaction from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s. Since then, social and environmental policies have been on the rise again, only to be challenged by the Russo-Ukrainian War. Three expressions of solidarity will be examined. The first deals with the legal regulation of globalisation through social legislation and trade regulation. The second involves financial redistribution towards the neediest, with transfers to poor regions (cohesion policy), and later with specific measures during the Covid-19 crisis (2020–21). The third addresses the rising importance of environmental regulation in general (air and water pollution, biodiversity, etc.), especially with regard to climate change (Kyoto Protocol, 2015 Paris Agreement), despite the lobbying of the ‘Merchants of Doubts’.

In Greek and Latin literature roughly contemporaneous with Paul, the Galatians were often depicted as people who were liable to quickly swerve off course and to betray their allies. This chapter argues that Paul utilized these stereotypical notions about the Galatians in service of his rhetorical purposes in his letter to the Galatians.

The rise of community capitalism since the mid-2010s is reflected in the return of protectionism, authoritarianism, nativism, and violent conflict. European capitalism was forced to adapt by being more assertive. Europeans have embraced solutions that were previously refused as too protectionist, such as European preference, free trade contingent on adhering to social and environmental norms, subsidies to industry for strategic reasons, and competition policy decisions based on reciprocity. Some of these ideas were long defended by France. Germany previously criticised them, but has embraced some in trade since 2016, and others in foreign policy since 2022. The management of Brexit has reaffirmed the basis of European soft power, which depends on the unity of the Single Market. The Covid-19 pandemic (2020–21) forced the Union to adopt protectionist and interventionist measures. The Russo-Ukrainian War has led to very strong sanctions packages, as well as the Union’s foray into military matters. But the Europeans still remain heavily dependent on the US for defence. Donald Trump’s return to power in 2025 has forced Europe to think harder about organising community capitalism.

Accelerating sustainability transitions is crucial for addressing complex challenges and meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement’s climate targets. This chapter examines the role of time in sociotechnical change, emphasizing the urgency of action across energy, agriculture, and manufacturing to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. While acceleration drives innovation, social equity, and economic resilience, it also risks unequal resource distribution and marginalising vulnerable populations. The chapter explores how stakeholders advocate for different timescales and technologies, highlighting the political nature of transitions. It introduces timescapes to capture the dynamic interplay of temporal dimensions shaping transition processes. Historical energy transitions illustrate the complexities of speed, duration, and acceleration, underscoring the need for interdisciplinary approaches. By addressing political and social dynamics, the chapter promotes transparency, equity, and justice in climate action. Future research should integrate diverse methodologies and critically examine temporal frameworks to support more effective and inclusive sustainability policies

Pressing environmental and societal challenges, such as the climate crisis and social inequality, demand policy interventions to steer and accelerate sustainability transitions. This chapter highlights four key intervention areas: providing direction to transitions (directionality), fostering innovation (niche support), phasing out unsustainable practices (regime destabilisation), and coordinating transition processes (coordination). We outline their theoretical rationale in transition studies and offer interdisciplinary insights from policy research. Based on a comprehensive literature review, we present 15 concrete policy interventions to transform production and consumption systems. Evaluating these interventions with empirical findings from leading transition journals, we highlight research opportunities at the intersection of public policy and sustainability transitions. Given the resistance and contestation around transformational policies, we aim to foster interdisciplinary exchange on how to accelerate sustainability transitions.

In an exceptional phenomenon in world history, eleven European countries, among the richest in the world, freely decided to create a monetary union in 1992, doing so during a powerful neoliberal shift. How to explain this, and what connection is there between European monetary integration and neoliberalism? This chapter argues that monetary union cannot be reduced exclusively to its neoliberal dimension, as forging such a union was devised by European leaders before the neoliberal turn, and had numerous justifications including ones more consistent with the solidarity and the community governance of capitalism. While the literature on the history of the European Monetary Union is extensive, additional archival research conducted for this book has shed new light on two neglected factors: the importance of projects for monetary cooperation devised in the 1950s and 1960s within the framework of the EEC (before the neoliberal turn); and the crucial importance of concerted stimulus in 1978, followed by German balance of payment difficulties in 1980–1981, which explain the convergence towards stability-oriented policy.

Sustainability transitions can be understood as the transformation of socio-technical systems towards the sustainable provision of societal functions. Socio-technical systems are held together by formal and informal rules, also called institutions. For sustainability transitions to materialise, the formal and informal rules of socio-technical systems need to change. Institutional change is often driven by coordinated collective efforts - typically in the form of coalitions - that mobilise actors, shape policies, and influence socio-technical environments to favour sustainable innovations. The chapter defines coalitions and related concepts such as alliances, social movements, and networks, and reviews their roles within established sustainability transition frameworks, including the multi-level perspective, technological innovation systems, strategic niche management, and transition management. The chapter also introduces theoretical strands that use different types of coalition concepts and discusses how they can be applied to sustainability transitions, and finally highlights valuable avenues for future coalition-related research in the field of sustainability transition studies.