Storylines and imaginaries of wastewater reuse and desalination - The rise of local discourses on the Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland

Increased pressure on existing freshwater resources has given rise to interest in new raw water sources. Wastewater reuse and desalination are two alternatives that are frequently compared and discussed in the literature. In this study, local discourses in the form of storylines and imaginaries were identified on the Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland. These local storylines and imaginaries were then compared to those found in the literature on wastewater reuse and desalination; in the process, overlaps and variations were identified. On Gotland, a controversy over desalination was observed where arguments were raised for and against 'natural' (nature-based and therefore 'good') solutions and 'unnatural' or engineered solutions (desalination). Such a controversy was not observed on Öland. The controversy on Gotland arose out of competing imaginaries of the future. Such discourses can affect the transitions of water systems. Understanding local discourses may thus be crucial to our understanding of the larger transitions underway in the water sector and may figure importantly in the acceptance of new water sources

A dynamic model of socio-technical change : institutions, actors and technologies in interaction

Many of today’s societal problems, such as climate change, resource scarcity or environmental degradation call for some sort of radical social and often also technological change. Especially utility sectors like water, energy or transportation are increasingly pressured to transition to a more sustainable mode of operation, as for instance seen in the recent political efforts in Switzerland and Germany to introduce a transition in the energy sector from fossil and nuclear to renewable energy sources (‘Energiewende’). However, the transformation of existing, highly institutionalized social structures and technologies has proven to be a rather challenging societal undertaking. Utility sectors are particularly demanding, since they provide essential services for society, which are often critical for public health and which affect multiple value-laden areas of life. Moreover, infrastructures are heavily comprised of technical as well as social elements that are highly intertwined and have co-evolved over a long period of time, which leads to a significant amount of path-dependency and inertia. Therefore, the questions of how socio-technical change unfolds and how a transition from one socio-technical configuration to the next can be achieved have become crucial in politics and academia alike. Scholars from different disciplines have picked up this question of social and technological change and generated important insights into the typical features and crucial aspects of such transformation processes. In science and technology studies, for instance, theoretical approaches like large technical systems or literature on socio-technical transitions have conceptualized the interdependence, co-evolution and rigidity of technological and social elements in a system, such as actors, regulations, norms, cognitive mindsets and technologies, and have drawn conclusions for technological innovation and change processes. Approaches from institutional theory, on the other hand, have addressed questions of societal change without a specific focus on technology, instead emphasizing the influence of institutional structures like norms, values or cultural-cognitive frames on the behavior of actors and the development of practices as well as the analysis of the creation, persistence and destabilization of institutions. The dissertation at hand shall be understood as a contribution to these discourses. The purpose of the thesis is to increase knowledge of socio-technical change by elaborating the relevance of a dynamic understanding of institutional structures, as brought forward in institutional theory, without ignoring the role of technologies, as stressed in science and technology studies. Socio-technical transitions are thus conceptualized as processes of institutional change with a particular awareness for technological specificities. The co-evolutionary processes between institutions and technologies are put forward. Literature on socio-technical transitions, institutional logics and institutionalization build the basis to identify and analyze institutional structures in an organizational field, assess their degree of institutionalization and demonstrate their effect on the development and transformation of the field. In addition, the question of institutional change will be further highlighted by elaborating more closely on the dialectic relationship between structure and agency. Drawing on the concept of institutional work, an embedded agency perspective is presented that contributes to the understanding of change and/or persistence of prevailing institutional logics in a field, including the development and diffusion of certain technologies. The overall goal of this dissertation is thus to contribute to an understanding of socio-technical change by presenting a framework that incorporates a) the description and analysis of prevailing institutional structures and their influences on actors and practices, b) a conceptualization of agency that bridges the gap between micro-individualistic and macro-structural approaches and c) a socio-technical perspective, that accounts for the coevolution of technology and society. Empirically, this dissertation is based on an extensive study of the urban water sector in Australia. Maltreated by severe water scarcity as well as flooding problems, this water sector has been put under a lot of pressure, which resulted in a big public and political debate regarding future arrangements and changes. This state of turmoil makes it an interesting case study object. The empirical analysis focuses on the identification of institutional logics in the water sector since the 1970ies, applying a particular focus on changes in field logics through institutional competition and contradiction, general uncertainty and the role of agency processes. The results suggest that a transformation is visible from the traditional Hydraulic Logic based on the logics of the state and the engineering profession towards a more hybrid variant including a Water Market Logic as well as a Water Sensitive Logic, increasingly incorporating elements of the market, corporation and community logics. However, the degrees of institutionalization of the logics highly differ and therefore also their influences on the direction of field level change. This aspect is analyzed in more detail through an in-depth study of the diffusion of seawater desalination plants around Australia. The diffusion of the technology can be understood as a result of prevailing institutional logics and specific types of institutional work and interpreted as leading to an entrenchment of traditional structures, thereby probably impeding a transformation to alternative development pathways

Neoliberalism and sustainable urban water sectors: A critical reflection of sector characteristics and empirical evidence

Urban water sectors in industrialised countries are increasingly facing a diverse range of challenges. Aging assets, environmental concerns and economic issues put pressure on the current governance and organisation of these sectors. In recent years, a plethora of neoliberal reforms have been initiated in various countries as efforts to counteract these developments. While rather successful in infrastructure sectors, such as energy or telecommunication, neoliberal reforms have proven difficult in many industrialised, urban water sectors. The article argues that this is related to distinct characteristics of the water sectors. Specificities include large-scale technologies, high externalities and the nature of the good. This article analyses these key characteristics of urban water sectors and shows their implications and challenges for neoliberal reforms by drawing on the privatisation of the English water sectors. The results show key trade-offs between economic and environmental issues, and less with social goals

Global socio-technical regimes

This paper addresses the question why socio-technical transitions followsimilar trajectories in various parts of the world, even though the relevant material preconditions and institutional contexts vary greatly between different countries. It takes a critical stance on the implicit methodological nationalism in transition studies’ socio-technical regime concept and proposes an alternative ‘global’ regime perspective that embraces the increasingly multi-scalar actor networks and institutional rationalities which influence transition dynamics beyond national or regional borders. By drawing on globalization theories from sociology and human geography we show that socio-technical systems often develop institutional rationalities that are diffused via international networks and thus become influential in various places around the world. In so doing, we shed light on the multi-scalar interrelatedness of institutional structures and actors in socio-technical systems and elaborate on the implications for the conceptualization of transition dynamics. The paper illustrates this with the case study of an unsuccessful transition in the Chinese water sector. Recent studies indicate that key decisions on wastewater infrastructure build-up were not only influenced by path-dependencies stemming from China’s national context, but equally (or even more critically) by an import of the dominant rationality of the water sector’s global socio-technical regime. We conclude by discussing the contours of a new research agenda around the notion of global socio-technical regimes

An Institutional Logics Perspective on the Gig Economy

We witness rising tensions between online gig-economy platforms, incumbent firms, regulators, and labor unions. In this chapter, we use the framework of institutional logics as an analytical lens and scheme to understand the fundamental institutional challenges prompted by the advent of the online gig economy. We view gig-economy platforms as corporations that organize and self-regulate markets. In doing so, they span two parallel markets: the market for platforms competing to provide intermediation services and the market for the self-employed competing on platforms to provide peer-to-peer services. Self-regulation by platforms also weakens the traditional roles of the state. While the corporation and market logics empower the platform, they weaken self-employed suppliers as platforms’ design constrain suppliers to grow into a full-fledged business by limiting their entrepreneurial freedom. At the same time, current labor law generally does not classify suppliers as employees of the platform company, which limits the possibility to unionize. The current resolutions to this institutional misalignment are sought in “band aid solutions” at the level of sectors. Instead, as we argue, macro-institutional reform may be needed to re-institutionalize gig work into established institutional logics

How global socio-technical regimes affect the success of low carbon innovation – The case of the industrial heat pump

This paper analyzes the impact of globalized industries on the diffusion of promising radical low carbon innovations. We do so by studying the interplay of global socio-technical regimes and technological innovation systems (TIS). Building on institutional theory, we develop a theoretical framework for TIS-regime interaction and apply it to the case of the industrial heat pump (IHP) in the Netherlands. Based on a qualitative, historical analysis over the past 30 years, we show how the heat pump TIS is at odds with the global process industry regime and identify several mechanisms through which the regime’s coercive, normative and mimetic institutional pressures influence TIS dynamics. We furthermore discuss how actors respond to and strategically deal with these pressures. We show that the institutionalization of a new logic in the global regime can outpace the rate of technological development of the radical innovation, causing it to become less attractive over time even though the technology’s performance increases. The paper thus provides a better understanding of the effects of global sectoral structures on radical low carbon innovation in particular places and industries. It offers valuable insights into the dynamics of sustainability transitions, especially in regard to the (limits to) effectiveness of policy interventions geared towards a particular TIS at the national level

An Institutional Logics Perspective on the Gig Economy

We witness rising tensions between online gig-economy platforms, incumbent firms, regulators, and labor unions. In this chapter, we use the framework of institutional logics as an analytical lens and scheme to understand the fundamental institutional challenges prompted by the advent of the online gig economy. We view gig-economy platforms as corporations that organize and self-regulate markets. In doing so, they span two parallel markets: the market for platforms competing to provide intermediation services and the market for the self-employed competing on platforms to provide peer-to-peer services. Self-regulation by platforms also weakens the traditional roles of the state. While the corporation and market logics empower the platform, they weaken self-employed suppliers as platforms’ design constrain suppliers to grow into a full-fledged business by limiting their entrepreneurial freedom. At the same time, current labor law generally does not classify suppliers as employees of the platform company, which limits the possibility to unionize. The current resolutions to this institutional misalignment are sought in “band aid solutions” at the level of sectors. Instead, as we argue, macro-institutional reform may be needed to re-institutionalize gig work into established institutional logics

How global socio-technical regimes affect the success of low carbon innovation – The case of the industrial heat pump

This paper analyzes the impact of globalized industries on the diffusion of promising radical low carbon innovations. We do so by studying the interplay of global socio-technical regimes and technological innovation systems (TIS). Building on institutional theory, we develop a theoretical framework for TIS-regime interaction and apply it to the case of the industrial heat pump (IHP) in the Netherlands. Based on a qualitative, historical analysis over the past 30 years, we show how the heat pump TIS is at odds with the global process industry regime and identify several mechanisms through which the regime’s coercive, normative and mimetic institutional pressures influence TIS dynamics. We furthermore discuss how actors respond to and strategically deal with these pressures. We show that the institutionalization of a new logic in the global regime can outpace the rate of technological development of the radical innovation, causing it to become less attractive over time even though the technology’s performance increases. The paper thus provides a better understanding of the effects of global sectoral structures on radical low carbon innovation in particular places and industries. It offers valuable insights into the dynamics of sustainability transitions, especially in regard to the (limits to) effectiveness of policy interventions geared towards a particular TIS at the national level

Endogenous regime change : Lessons from transition pathways in Dutch dairy farming

Sustainability transitions are commonly considered impossible without regime change. Theoretical work on regime change has mainly focused on niches and landscapes and less on change ‘from within’. Empirical analysis helps theorising endogenous regime change. Conceptualising regimes as semi-coherent entities composed of multiple ‘institutional logics’, we analyse the endogenous regime change in Dutch dairy farming. Practices in this sector have become more and more market-driven. This dominant logic however was increasingly challenged by institutional logics centring round cultural identity and sustainability. Tensions particularly centred round the increased indoor housing of cows. The contestation of this practice eventually led to a first ‘crack’ in the regime, as it weakened the dominance of the market logic and enabled opportunities for more sustainability. Our case study shows that the presence of alternative institutional logics is necessary to crack the regime, but opportunities to patch it back together are similarly crucial to enable sustainability transitions