With chaos rampant in energy systems across Europe, dominant governance approaches are failing to deliver the transformations that are so urgently needed. Over the past decades, transition management has emerged as an alternative way to organise governance, embracing complexity, uncertainty, and collaboration with social innovation. This dissertation explores the phenomenon of ‘capture’ dialectics, which occur when social innovations move back and forth between radicality and co-optation by established actors. Through transdisciplinary research in seven European cities and across social innovation in energy in Europe, this work highlights four dynamics of capture: instrumentalisation, delegitimisation, (dis)empowerment, and strategic capture. Offering innovative tactics such as developing transition legitimacy and creating a Transformative Power Lab, it proposes new ways forward for navigating just energy transitions.<br/
