Trojan horses in System Innovation; A dialectical perspective on the paradox of acceptable novelty

Current and future sustainability challenges are increasingly acknowledged to be of a persistent and systemic nature. This gives rise to calls for likewise systemic solution strategies: Transformative system innovations instead of incremental system improvements, and societal transitions rather than procrastination on current locked-in trajectories. On these accounts, incremental change will not do. Still it proves difficult to achieve truly radical transformations. Insights from innovation theory, governance, sociology and critical theory help understand why radical transformation is unlikely to occur: Novelty, if it is to spread at all, should be acceptable to potential ‘adopters’, and should not be overly disruptive to existing practices. Initiatives should be radical enough to constitute transformative potential, but also shallow enough to be acceptable in current institutional constellations: This contradiction between transformation and non-disruption, the ‘paradox of acceptable novelty’, can be considered a key system innovation challenge. It is only paradoxical in its idealized form, however. System-innovative practices bring out various ways of dealing with the contradiction and its tradeoffs. This paper returns to the archetypical example of the more favorable case: The Trojan horse, the seemingly innocuous innovation with latent transformative force. Addressing its ambiguities, the concept’s practical relevance is elicited. Clever levers to systemic change may be devised, but inversely they may become ‘domesticated’ and neutralized. Based on a comparative case study on innovation attempts in the Dutch traffic management field, it is shown how these two faces can even alternate. The ‘incremental’ turn towards ‘network-oriented’ traffic management and the ‘radical’ call for the social sharing of space display an intriguing mixture of transformative and non-disruptive faces. Analyzed as sequences of ‘translations’, these cases help understand and deal with the ambiguities of Trojan horses. A dialectical approach to ‘acceptable novelty’ helps combine system-innovative idealism with Machiavellian agility

Interactive Metal Fatigue; A critical lens for the assessment of socio-technical reconfigurations in traffic

Interactive metal fatigue (IMF) is an elegant re-appreciation of the concept of ‘interpassivity’, describing how it develops through minifractures in subjects’ attempts to keep up with societal demands for interactivity. Other than the original art-philosophical and psychoanalytical understandings, this rather historical conceptualization opens up the ‘interpassivity’ notion to sociological and political research. Particularly promising, it will be argued, is its aptitude to diagnose and articulate the often so elusive (side-) effects of socio-technical ‘system innovations’. Currently these tend to be evaluated in terms of ‘sustainability’, but this notion seems insufficient to capture the multi-sidedness of the reconfigurations involved. Socio-technical innovations are known to be contested social changes. Yet what is it that makes them contested? How can their societal relevance be appreciated? And considering that assessment in terms of ‘sustainability impacts’ leaves certain problematic aspects underexposed, how could the notion of ‘interactive metal fatigue’ enrich our understanding of socio-technical innovations

Reconfiguring what network? (Road) network synchronization in Dutch traffic management

Current sustainability challenges are increasingly acknowledged to reveal systemic flaws in societal systems such as energy, mobility and agriculture. Adequate solutions then require system innovations and societal transitions. The quest for system innovation is notoriously hard, however: In a polycentric society systemic problems tend to be elusive, and solution strategies are contested. So whereas the quest for system innovation is typically backed by substantive analyses of system pathologies, polycentric perspectives emphasize that the intrinsic properties of an innovation attempt are hardly decisive. Innovation attempts need to be relevant to the targeted actors in the first place

System Innovation as Synchronization: innovation atempts in the Dutch traffic management field

Current sustainability challnges are increasingly acknowledged to be of a systemic nature. Instead of procrastinating further through incremental changes, societal systems (mobility, energy, agriculture) are therefore considered to be in need of system innovations and transitions. Thus far, system innovation has mainly been studied through synoptic bird's eye perspectives. This study responds to the calls for deeper investigation into system innovation 'in the making'. In a polycentric society, initiatives towards transformation are tentative, selected upon by diverse actors. Actors bend, modify and 'translate' innovation attempts. This interpretive study follows four sequences of translations in the Dutch traffic management field, and their intersections. Through 'translation dynamics' processes of system innovation can be better understood and navigated. Key dynamic is synchronization - the temporary attunement of translations that provides anchors to the translation game

Mobiliteitsbeleid als klimaatbeleid of watermanagement; zelforganisatie als aangrijpingspunt voor effectieve beleidsmatige interventies

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Diversifying deep transitions:Accounting for socio-economic directionality

The paper sets out to enrich the emerging debate on ‘deep’, transversal transitions. It does so by drawing attention to socio-economic developments neglected in the Deep Transition (DT) framework of Kanger and Schot, such as marketization, labour contracts becoming more individual and precarious, and changing human beliefs, aspirations, needs and wants as important developments. The framework of Deep Transition is criticised for neglecting tensions and contestations about progress, the socio-economic order and distributional issues. This paper aims to complement ‘deep transitions’ research with insights about socio-economic transformation processes. These are shown to be conflict-ridden and full of tensions, creating pressures on socioeconomic orders and institutional logics. Because of this, development does not follow a neat pattern of convergence. In addition to identifying neglected issues and conceptual blind spots, the paper also outlines the scope for conceptual bridging between socio-technical and socio-economic transformation perspectives through attention to institutional logics and dialectics of change. We make a plea for a broader DT research agenda that covers relevant socio-economic rules, metaregimes and institutional contradictions. Attention to directionality helps to deal with three weaknesses of the DT framework: the assumption of convergence, materialism, and insufficient attention to the multitude of value orientations and logics