Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations: lessons from the sociology of expectations

Lente, Harro van

doi:10.1080/09537325.2012.715478

Cited by 238 publications

(135 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…A glimpse of the future has in this paper been identified through the expectations of some representatives of the current Norwegian biosectors to further assist policy planning and transition management regarding the bioeconomy. While possible futures can be accessed through more formal exercises as e.g., foresight scenario development, more informal studies of expectations can potentially inform these foresight exercises [50] (p. 779) regarding both types of stakeholders to be included in the planning and which topics need particular attention. More research, innovation and business activities in the forthcoming years will tell us how these expectations are part of the future transformations needed in a socio-technical transformation of the economy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the explanations for such effects, lies in what Guice [53] calls the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy: By talking about an issue in a certain way, because of the assumptions and latent ideas in arguments, support is given to a particular way of seeing an issue and also defines the issue in the first place [54,55]. This gives expectations their "performative" character [50].…”

Section: Expectations Driving Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More explicitly, Van Lente [50] (p. 772) describes expectations as "statements about the future", which can be either be oral or written, and that circulate. They can take many forms, as positive promises or negative warnings and they might be concrete or rather abstract.…”

Section: Expectations Driving Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visions and Expectations for the Norwegian Bioeconomy

Hansen

Bjørkhaug

2017

Sustainability

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Developing a future bioeconomy has become critical for three main reasons: (1) The need for sustainability of resource use; (2) The growing demand for both food and energy; and (3) The need to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation. As Zilberman observes, a transition to bioeconomy "is a continuing evolutionary process of transition from systems of mining non-renewable resources to farming renewable ones". Hence, to meet the challenges created by a growing dependence on non-renewable resources, radical changes are needed that involve more than development of or changes within the individual bio-based sectors. In line with emerging attention to the bioeconomy in Europe and elsewhere, great expectations towards the bioeconomy have been launched in high level industry and policy fora, as well as in resource-based economies such as Norway's. Grounded in theories of transition and transition management, this paper discusses the Norwegian biosector's expectations regarding a bioeconomy. Analyses are based on empirical survey data from biosector representatives. Findings suggest that there are clear differences between sectors in motivation for a future bioeconomy. A transition into a complete bioeconomy will demand a system shift and more cross-sectoral integration between these regimes than currently exists.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Expectations Driving Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visions and Expectations for the Norwegian Bioeconomy

Hansen

Bjørkhaug

2017

Sustainability

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“…These narratives are treated by many of their tellers and hearers as continuing to retain some general explanatory or descriptive power, even after a number of the specific conventional wisdoms upon which they are based are understood to be subject to serious qualification [27] (p. 288). Closely connected to the notion of narratives, hype has been widely analyzed by scholars of the "sociology of expectations" [30,31] and refers to "extravagant claims" that can be deliberately misleading or deceiving; or "excessive publicity", due to the attention a subject receives, for example in the mass media [32]. By this definition, narratives may create hypes, and that the notion of hype itself has a negative undertone, implying the possibility of disappointment when the publicity drops.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Riding the Hype: The Role of State-Owned Enterprise Elite Actors in the Promotion of Jatropha in Indonesia

Simandjuntak

2014

Sustainability

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Within a few years following its ambitious promotion in 2006, the development of jatropha in Indonesia came to a halt. Claimed as a potential solution to problems in energy and poverty, the introduction of jatropha in Indonesia's energy policy had been triggered by the high oil prices in 2005. While studies by biofuel scholars have generally focused on what brought the end of the "miracle crop" hype by underlining various technical problems and the absence of market structure as the cause of its failure, few have examined jatropha as part of a policy-making trajectory, which began with, and was influenced by, the development narratives disseminated by individual actors. This article sheds light on the role of elite actors in the making of biofuel energy policy in Indonesia. Taking the case of the promotion of jatropha in 2005-2007, the article illustrates the role of the director of Indonesia's leading sugar state-owned enterprise (SOE), Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI), whose decision in promoting jatropha became influential in forwarding its narratives into the national energy and development policy in 2006. In order to discover why a specific elite actor decided to promote jatropha, the article relies on data, including the SOE's documents and interviews with key actor(s). The analysis is conducted using an actor-oriented approach, which underlines the discrepancy between the ideals and the operational practice of developmental goals.

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“…This literature often relates to the research area Sociology of Expectations (Borup, Brown, Konrad, & van Lente, 2006;Brown & Michael, 2003;van Lente, 2012;Van Lente & Rip, 1998) or draws on concepts such as sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009. These studies conceptualize visions, imaginaries and expectations about the smart grid as performative, in that future prospects influence the making of the future.…”

Section: Imaginaries Visions and Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling the Smart Grid: On the Mobilization of Imaginaries, Users and Materialities in a Swedish Demonstration Project

Wallsten¹

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Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations: lessons from the sociology of expectations

Cited by 238 publications

References 42 publications

Visions and Expectations for the Norwegian Bioeconomy

Visions and Expectations for the Norwegian Bioeconomy

Riding the Hype: The Role of State-Owned Enterprise Elite Actors in the Promotion of Jatropha in Indonesia

Assembling the Smart Grid: On the Mobilization of Imaginaries, Users and Materialities in a Swedish Demonstration Project

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