Implementing transition management as policy reforms: a case study of the Dutch energy sector

By F. Kern, Michael Howlett. 2009

453 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Proposals to alter large-scale socio-technical systems through government actions in order to promote goals such as sustainability are highly uncertain policy projects. What is being proposed is the replacement of specific elements of existing policy ‘mixes’—the goals and means—by others, in the expectation of avoiding counterproductive or sub-optimal policy outcomes. While laudable, such efforts are fraught with risks; including the possibility of the creation of sub-optimal policy mixes or of failed reform efforts with resulting poor outcomes. This article develops a model and typology of policy regime change processes and outcomes following Thelen and others in arguing that complex policy mixes typically emerge through one or more of four processes, ‘drift’, ‘conversion’, ‘layering’ and ‘replacement’, and that the expected outcomes of these different processes in terms of their ability to meet initial expectations are linked to the manner in which policy goals and means are (or are not) combined in a consistent, coherent and congruent fashion. This propensity is illustrated through examination of the case of energy transition management as practiced in the Netherlands.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/90bf00ffe3442348ebdb1c38fd51d302436ffd3b

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In Global and Planetary Change

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Citations in the corpus

The parameters of policy portfolios: verticality and horizontality in design spaces and their consequences for policy mix formulation (2015, background): “The discussion thus contributes to efforts currently being made to assess the success or optimality of complex policy mixes (Del Río, 2014; Howlett and Rayner, 2013; Mandell, 2008) and advances the project of revitalizing policy design studies urged by Howlett and Lejano (2013).”
Patching vs Packaging in Policy Formulation: Assessing Policy Portfolio Design (2013, background): “Finally the idea of "congruence" or the ability of goals and instruments to work together in a uni-directional or mutually supportive fashion rounded out these three integrative dimensions proposed for a superior policy design [55].”
The effects of climate policy on the rate and direction of innovation: a survey of the EU ETS and the electricity sector (2012, background): “A breach of this order raises the risk of incongruent targets and instruments (Kern and Howlett, 2009).”
A Comparison of Energy Transition Governance in Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom (2014, background): “priorities were often inconsistent, incoherent, and incongruent with the mainstream energy policy mix [46].”
The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “In general, sustainability transitions face significant political challenges, as they typically require a reform of sectors long dominated by incumbent firms, typically with close relationships with state actors (Kern and Howlett 2009).”
Historical institutionalism and the politics of sustainable energy transitions: A research agenda (2017, background): “Kern and Howlett (2009) argue that this was the case in attempts to manage an energy transition in the Netherlands.”
Energy democracy: Goals and policy instruments for sociotechnical transitions (2017, methodology): “Further, a strategy of de-alignment and re-alignment implies inherent uncertainties regarding the best path forward [20], and may lead to ineffective combinations of policy instruments that fail to achieve the desired outcomes even if adopted [22].”
Policy Integration and Multi-Level Governance: Dealing with the Vertical Dimension of Policy Mix Designs (2017, background): “…and entire, eco-systems under conditions of global warming, for example, increasingly involves the development and implementation of arrangements of policy goals and instruments in ‘policy mixes’ (Kern & Howlett, 2009), and how best to design such mixes is an ongoing issue in the policy sciences.”
Conceptualizing energy democracy (2018, background): “Renewable energy support instruments, like feed-in tariffs and premiums, can too be seen as technologies of government, connecting the state and the individual (cf. Kern and Howlett 2009).”
The need for comprehensive and well targeted instrument mixes to stimulate energy transitions: The case of energy efficiency policy (2017, unknown): “In the policy studies literature, the understanding of policy mixes goes beyond instrument interactions and has been defined as “complex arrangements of multiple goals and means which, in many cases, have developed incrementally over many years” (Kern and Howlett 2009, p. 395).”
Reducing energy demand: A review of issues, challenges and approaches (2015, background): “However, an increasing number of researchers have taken up this challenge and developed ideas on ‘strategic niche management’ [84], ‘transition management’ [85] and related approaches [86] and have begun to apply these to specific policy areas.”