Power in Transition: Empowering Discourses on Sustainability Transitions

This is a book about power and transformative change. It explores how groups of people who are trying to transform the mobility system are affected by notions of change and power, and how they deal with the dilemmas of power. Academic literature on power and transitions offers concepts to grasp phenomena in practice. And visa versa, observing these practices allows us to gain new understanding of power in relation to transformative change. More specifically, this book is about power in relation to transition studies, a new research field which has the ambition to both understand and foster societal transformation. It is also about the role of power in transition management, a new prescriptive governance model for sustainable development

Transformative innovation and translocal diffusion

This paper develops a conceptual understanding of transformative innovations as shared activities, ideas and objects across locally rooted sustainability initiatives that explore and develop alternatives to incumbent and (perceived) unsustainable regimes that they seek to challenge, alter or replace. We synthesize empirical work from two European research projects (TRANSIT and ARTS), in which initiatives and networks were empirically studied, to develop a broader conceptual understanding of the emergence of transformative innovation. The development of initiatives can occur through growing, replicating, partnering, instrumentalising and embedding. This is supported through translocal networks that connect initiatives by sharing ideas, objects and activities across local contexts. This translocal characteristic of transformative innovations harnesses an enormous potential for sustainability transitions, but requires further understanding a

Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics

Renewable energy (RE) prosumerism comes with promises and expectations of contributing to sustainable and just energy systems. In its current process of becoming mainstream, numerous challenges and doubts have arisen whether it will live up to these. Building on insights from sustainability transitions research and institutional theory, this article unpacks the mainstreaming by considering the range of institutional arrangements and logics through which these contributions might be secured. Taking a Multi-actor Perspective, it analyses the differences, combinations, and tensions between institutional logics, associated actor roles and power relations. Firstly, it unpacks how mainstreaming occurs through mechanisms of bureaucratisation and standardisation (state logic), marketisation and commodification (market logic), as well as socialisation and communalisation (community logic). Secondly, it highlights the concomitant hybridisation of institutional logics and actor roles. Such hybrid institutional arrangements try to reconcile not only the more known trade-offs and tensions between for-profit/non-profit logics (regarding the distribution of benefits for energy activities and resources), but also between formal/informal logics (gaining recognition) and public/private logics (delineating access). This institutional concreteness moves the scholarly discussion and policy debate beyond idealistic discussions of ethical principles and abstract discussions about power: Simplistic framings of ‘prosumerism vs incumbents’ are dropped in favour of a critical discussion of hybrid institutional arrangements and their capacity to safeguard particular transformative ideals and normative commitments

Power in Transition: An Interdisciplinary Framework to Study Power in Relation to Structural Change

This article conceptualizes power in the context of long-term process of structural change. First, it discusses the field of transition studies, which deals with processes of structural change in societal systems on the basis of certain presumptions about power relations, but still lacks an explicit conceptualization of power. Then the article discusses some prevailing points of contestation in debates on power. It is argued that for the context of transition studies, it is necessary to develop an interdisciplinary framework in which power is explicitly conceptualized in relation to change. Subsequently, such a framework is presented, with reference to existing literature on power. Starting with a philosophical and operational definition of power, a typology is developed of the different ways in which power can be exercised, explicitly including innovative power and transformative power. Finally, the presented power framework is applied to transition studies, redefining pivotal transition concepts in terms of power and formulating hypotheses on the role of power in transitions. By doing so, the article not only offers an interdisciplinary framework to study power in the context of transition studies, but also contributes to power debates more generally by including innovation and transformation as acts of power, and thereby proposes a re-conceptualization of the relation between power and structural change

The Critical Turning Points Database : Concept, Methodology and Dataset of an International Transformative Social Innovation Comparison (TRANSIT Working Paper # 10, July 12th 2017)

[Abstract] This working paper presents the TRANSIT open-access online database on Critical Turning Points (CTP) in Transformative Social Innovation. It specifies the contents of the database, comprising qualitative accounts of more than 450 ‘critical’ episodes in the evolution of social innovation initiatives in 27 different countries. Providing the theoretical-methodological context to these data, the paper also describes the theoretical background of the CTP concept and the methodology though which the CTP accounts have been reconstructed through interviews with members of SI initiatives. The paper concludes with reflections on the open access CTP database as a knowledge infrastructure, discussing its significance in terms of mapping, dissemination and framing of social innovation.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 61316

Shifting Power Relations in Sustainability Transitions: A Multi-actor Perspective

This paper contributes to understanding transition politics by conceptualizing (shifting) power relations between actors in sustainability transitions. The authors introduce a Multi-actor Perspective as a heuristic framework for specifying (shifting) power relations between different categories of actors at different levels of aggregation. First, an overview is provided of how power and empowerment have been treated in transition research, and remaining questions are identified on who exercises power and who is empowered by and with whom. It is argued that theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses in transition studies lack precision when it comes to distinguishing between different types and levels of actors. In response, a Multi-actor Perspective (MaP) is developed, which distinguishes among four sectors (state, market, community, third sector), and between actors at different levels of aggregation: (1) sectors, (2) organizational actors, and (3) individual actors. The paper moves on to specify how the MaP contributes to understanding transition politics specifically in conceptualizing shifting power relations. Throughout the paper, empirical illustrations are used regarding public debates on welfare state reform, civil society and ‘Big Society’, as well as more specific empirical examples of community energy initiatives

Agroecological transformation for sustainable food systems : Insight on France-CGIAR research

This 26th dossier d’Agropolis is devoted to research and partnerships in agroecology. The French Commission for International Agricultural Research (CRAI) and Agropolis International, on behalf of CIRAD, INRAE and IRD and in partnership with CGIAR, has produced this new issue in the ‘Les dossiers d’Agropolis international’ series devoted to agroecology. This publication has been produced within the framework of the Action Plan signed by CGIAR and the French government on February 4th 2021 to strengthen French collaboration with CGIAR, where agroecology is highlighted as one of the three key priorities (alongside climate change, nutrition and food systems)