Regime Resistance against Low-Carbon Transitions: Introducing Politics and Power into the Multi-Level Perspective

By Frank W. Geels. 2014

1,439 citations recorded by the source corpus.

While most studies of low-carbon transitions focus on green niche-innovations, this paper shifts attention to the resistance by incumbent regime actors to fundamental change. Drawing on insights from political economy, the paper introduces politics and power into the multi-level perspective. Instrumental, discursive, material and institutional forms of power and resistance are distinguished and illustrated with examples from the UK electricity system. The paper concludes that the resistance and resilience of coal, gas and nuclear production regimes currently negates the benefits from increasing renewables deployment. It further suggests that policymakers and many transition-scholars have too high hopes that ‘green’ innovation will be sufficient to bring about low-carbon transitions. Future agendas in research and policy should therefore pay much more attention to the destabilization and decline of existing fossil fuel regimes.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/46709d3c124cdb9a4bcbf812499b0b4dfaa3ab1c

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Citations in the corpus

Bringing Technology into Social-Ecological Systems Research—Motivations for a Socio-Technical-Ecological Systems Approach (2019, background): “A final challenge to highlight from previous literature is that, despite the priority given to policy-oriented analysis, engagement with stakeholders [43,50,94,95], and similarities in governance approaches [6,29,96–99], both fields still struggle to recognize the politics and conflicts inherent to ”
Applying institutional theory to the low-carbon energy transition (2016, neutral): “interests within the regime play critical roles in setting the policy agenda, shaping the discourse and framing, supporting or suppressing niches, or just lobbying to obstruct or promote legislation [15,32,34,35].”
Systemic perspectives on scaling agricultural innovations. A review (2016, background): “Although some authors (e.g. Diaz et al. 2013; Geels 2014; Papachristos et al. 2013) have recently suggested adaptations of the original model, it still revolves around these levels, and the studies mentioned above in relation to agriculture use it in this way.”
Revisiting carbon lock-in in energy systems: Explaining the perpetuation of coal power in Japan (2020, background): “Even when diverse actors are involved, change can be suppressed by skewed power balances if the voices and actions of some are more powerful than others [52].”
Varieties of coal-fired power phase-out across Europe (2019, background): “The lower prices for coal made utilities more interested in coal in the periods of 1999-2006 and 2010–2012 (Geels, 2014), causing two coal ‘revivals’ (Fig.”
The politics of sustainability transitions (2016, neutral): “Not surprisingly, there is already a substantial body of literature on the politics of transitions (e.g. Avelino, 2009; Fuenfschilling & Truffer, 2014; Grin et al., 2010; Geels, 2014; Hess, 2014; Hoffman, 2013; Jhagroe, 2016; Kern, 2011; Paredis, 2013; Späth & Rohracher, 2010; Voß, Smith, & Grin, 20”
Policy mixes for incumbency: Exploring the destructive recreation of renewable energy, shale gas ‘fracking,’ and nuclear power in the United Kingdom (2017, positive): “Despite their differences, a shared feature of all these approaches are the aims of understanding and promoting ways in which new sustainable innovations and infrastructures can be nurtured by policy in order to destabilise unsustainable technological regimes (Kemp et al. 1998).”
The mineral foundation of the energy transition (2018, background): “These areas also have direct relevance to the energy transition (e.g., O’Sullivan et al., 2017; Meadowcroft, 2009; Geels, 2014; Späth and Rohracher, 2014).”
The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “Studies have for example focused on the way in which ideas are presented (Kern, 2011; Scrase and Smith, 2009), the role of coalitions (Hess, 2014, 2015; Markard et al., 2015), power relations (Avelino and Rotmans, 2009; Avelino, 2011; Geels, 2014), and policy networks (Normann, 2017).”
Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain (2018, methodology): “Even though the MLP approach was initially proposed for the assessment of technological transitions, it has also been applied to such sociotechnical transitions as the so-called “green”, “sustainable” or “low-carbon transitions” (Doci et al., 2015; Geels, 2014, 2010, 2002; Smith et al., 2005).”
Harnessing theories of the policy process for analysing the politics of sustainability transitions: A critical survey (2017, background): “Also Geels (2014) draws on Hajer’s work to conceptualise how regime incumbents can resist challenges by social movements and other groups by forming powerful discourse coalitions with policymakers.”
Modelling the dynamics of technological innovation systems (2016, background): “…an existing regime responds to an emerging innovation system by stepping up its efforts to lobby against an emerging TIS (Smink et al., 2013; Geels, 2014) and increase innovative efforts on the dominant socio-technical configuration, for instance through a renewed wave of innovation in the…”
Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions (2016, neutral): “Struggle, conflict, negotiation and strategic behaviour are also important in transitions, including resistance to change from powerful social and business interests 39,43 .”
The role of renewable energy policies for carbon neutrality in Helsinki Metropolitan area (2018, background): “The discussion of carbon neutrality should not just focus on promoting renewable energy but also on preventing the use of fossil-fuel and non-renewable energy sources and adoption of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) (Geels, 2014).”