On patterns and agency in transition dynamics: Some key insights from the KSI programme

By John Grin, Jan Rotmans, Johan Schot. 2011

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The transition perspective on promoting sustainable development recognizes a need for not merely new societal practices, but changes in the structures in which these practices are embedded, and which have co-evolved with earlier practices (‘the regime’). This article presents insights on the dynamics of sustainable transitions, developed within the context of the Dutch KSI programme, and identifies issues for further research. Two perspectives, the sociotechnical approach and the complex adaptive systems approach, have yielded typologies of transition trajectories. We discuss similarities of, and differences between, these. Third, the governance perspective has generated insights about the agency involved, including powering and legitimization. While the latter offers some response to scholarly criticism that earlier transition theory too much ignored aspects of power and legitimacy, more research is obviously needed.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management Science and Operations Research, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a2d99c336fba1c41b4795bf591bf4f6ca81a4d9a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. F. Kern
2. Karoline S. Rogge
3. Derk A. Loorbach
4. Niki Frantzeskaki
5. F. Avelino
6. Jan Rotmans
7. Michael Howlett
8. Benjamin Sovacool

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. F. Kern
2. F. Avelino
3. Niki Frantzeskaki
4. Derk A. Loorbach
5. Karoline S. Rogge
6. Jan Rotmans

In Political Science and International Relations

1. Karoline S. Rogge
2. Niki Frantzeskaki
3. F. Kern
4. F. Avelino
5. Derk A. Loorbach
6. Michael Howlett

Citations in the corpus

• Sustainability Transitions Research: Transforming Science and Practice for Societal Change (2017, background): “, market, government, science, civil society) and that the shifting power relations and role constellations between different actors is inherent to any transition process (25, 26, 105).”
• Policy mixes for incumbency: Exploring the destructive recreation of renewable energy, shale gas ‘fracking,’ and nuclear power in the United Kingdom (2017, unknown): “…fields, political cultures, networks of agency or sociotechnical imaginaries whose distinguishing features may be at least as formative in shaping trajectories as any specific attributes of ‘the regime’ itself (Pesch 2014; Certomà & Tornaghi 2015; Grin et al. 2011; Fischer & Newig 2016).”
• Harnessing theories of the policy process for analysing the politics of sustainability transitions: A critical survey (2017, background): “Transition scholars have so far made relatively limited use of these theories in studies of the politics of transitions (Grin et al., 2011; Meadowcroft, 2011; Scrase and Smith, 2009), even though it is a commonplace to point to the importance of supportive policy instruments (Jacobsson and Bergek, 2”