The role of war in deep transitions: exploring mechanisms, imprints and rules in sociotechnical systems

This paper explores in what ways the two world wars influenced the development of sociotechnical systems underpinning the culmination of the first deep transition. The role of war is an underexplored aspect in both the Techno-Economic Paradigms (TEP) approach and the Multi-level perspective (MLP) which form the two key conceptual building blocks of the Deep Transitions (DT) framework. Thus, we develop a conceptual approach tailored to this particular topic which integrates accounts of total war and mechanisms of war from historical studies and imprinting from organisational studies with the DT framework’s attention towards rules and meta-rules. We explore in what ways the three sociotechnical systems of energy, food, and transport were affected by the emergence of new demand pressures and logistical challenges during conditions of total war; how war impacted the directionality of sociotechnical systems; the extent to which new national and international policy capacities emerged during wartime in the energy, food, and transport systems; and the extent to which these systems were influenced by cooperation and shared sacrifice under wartime conditions. We then explore what lasting changes were influenced by the two wars in the energy, food, and transport systems across the transatlantic zone. This paper seeks to open up a hitherto neglected area in analysis on sociotechnical transitions and we discuss the importance of further research that is attentive towards entanglements of warfare and the military particularly in the field of sustainability transitions

Occupying Ukraine: Great Expectations, Failed Opportunities, and the Spoils of War, 1941–1943

This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The attack against the Soviet Union was ideologically motivated, but the timing owed a great deal to military and economic considerations. German hopes largely focused on Ukraine, which was expected to be both a giant breadbasket and a reservoir of essential minerals. But plans for the economic exploitation of Ukraine were flawed from the beginning and remained inconsistent throughout the war. Substantial reconstruction efforts only began belatedly and were accompanied by brute force that combined economic logic with ideological zeal. The Nazi policies of racist repression and mass murder were, then, both a means of and an obstacle to exploitation of the East. Yet, they were also successful: without the raw materials obtained from Ukraine, the Nazi war machine would have likely ground to a halt well before 1945. The cost of sustaining the German war effort was consequently borne, to a large extent, by the local population, which labored under appalling conditions both in the Reich and in Ukraine itself.Dass der Angriff des nationalsozialistischen Deutschlands auf die UdSSR im Sommer 1941 den „Weltanschauungskrieg“ eröffnete, ist bekannt. In seinem Schatten haben lange die engeren militärischen und vor allem ökonomischen Erwägungen gestanden, die „Operation Barbarossa“ motivierten, insbesondere die Erwartung, einen autarken Großwirtschaftsraum zu schaffen. Im Zentrum dieser Erwartungen stand die Ukraine, die einerseits deindustrialisiert werden, andererseits Nahrungsmittel und Rohstoffe im Überfluss liefern sollte. Als diese Hoffnungen unerfüllt blieben, setzte ein verspäteter Kurswechsel zum industriellen Wiederaufbau ein. Dieser implizierte jedoch keineswegs einen Sieg ökonomischer Rationalität über ideologische Prärogativen. Vielmehr verhielten sich industrielle Ausbeutung und rassistische Gewalt komplementär und sicherten der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft bis 1945 zentrale Ressourcen, ohne welche die Rüstungsproduktion zusammengebrochen wäre. Den Preis zahlte die lokale Bevölkerung, die unter brutalen Bedingungen vor Ort wie auch im Reich für die deutschen Besatzer schuftete.Peer Reviewe