Brede dialoog bleef beperkt

Als je van burgers wilt weten waar het met het Europese landbouwbeleid naar toe moet, kun je ze het beste uitnodigen om te komen praten over het landschap of over de vraag waar hun voedsel vandaan komt. Het is een van de aanbevelingen uit de evaluatie van de maatschappelijke dialoog die LNV voerde over het GLB. Nu schoven er vooral vergaderboeren aan

The value of theoretical multiplicity for steering transitions towards sustainability

Transition management, as a theory of directing structural societal changes towards sustainable system innovations, has become a major topic in scientific research over the last years. In this paper we focus on the question how transitions towards sustainability can be steered, governed or managed, in particular by governmental actors. We suggest an approach of theoretical multiplicity, arguing that multiple theories will be needed simultaneously for dealing with the complex societal sustainability issues. Therefore, we address the steering question by theoretically comparing transition management theory to a number of related theories on societal change and intervention, such as multi-actor collaboration, network governance, configuration management, policy agenda setting, and adaptive management. We conclude that these related theories put the managerial assumptions of transition management into perspective, by adding other steering roles and leadership mechanisms to the picture. Finally we argue that new modes of steering inevitable have consequences for the actual governance institutions. New ways of governing change ask for change within governance systems itself and vice versa. Our argument for theoretical multiplicity implicates the development of multiple, potentially conflicting, governance capacitie

De maatschappelijke dialoog rondom de Houtskoolschets en de vermaatschappelijking van de landbouw

In dit rapport zijn de resultaten beschreven van een studie naar de maatschappelijke dialoog die het ministerie van LNV eind 2008 heeft georganiseerd over de 'Houtskoolschets Europees Landbouwbeleid 2020' en de vermaatschappelijking van de landbouw. De studie betrof het ontwikkelen van een dialoogmonitor en het middels deze monitor volgen van het procesmatige en inhoudelijke verloop van de dialoogreeks. Het doel van de studie was om middels de monitor bij te dragen aan inhoudelijke verdieping en verbreding naar nieuwe spelers in de dialoog, valkuilen te signaleren in het proces en daarop te advisere

Understanding eco-industrial development processes through multiple change perspectives

Eco-industrial parks are receiving increasing attention in light of the sustainability discourse. Although the formation and development of eco-industrial parks have been investigated, these processes are difficult to grasp. In order to better understand and govern the trajectory of these processes, this chapter attempts to reveal some of their complexity. It addresses the formation of industrial parks from a change perspective, with a focus on the interplay between actors and context. We use two lenses to build a combination of change perspectives: transition management theories, and the episodic and continuous change concepts of organisational theory. Both of these lenses distinguish between change that is planned, abrupt and discontinuous, and change that is emergent, incremental and continuous. The main lesson of the paper is that actors’ perspectives of change and development affect possible governance strategies. Planned change assumes that actors are unable to adapt their underlying structures to the new demands for sustainable development and thus require interventions from the outside. In the case of continuous change, actors are seen as self-organising. This process calls more for facilitation and removal of possible stumbling blocks. In order to choose a good governance strategy applied to the circumstances, these perspectives need to be combined