The politics of deliberate destabilisation for sustainability transitions

Oers, Laura van; Feola, Giuseppe; Moors, Ellen H.M.; Runhaar, Hens

doi:10.1016/j.eist.2021.06.003

Cited by 51 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Processes of exnovation are moving into focus when existing socio-technological configurations are increasingly under pressure by being ‘societally framed as obsolete and undesirable, particularly in regard to their environmental externalities’ (David 2017 ). In addition, transition scholars have also started to address these dynamics in the context of identifying appropriate policy mixes to instigate and accelerate both the institutionalisation of more sustainable alternatives and the de-institutionalisation and phase-out of existing unsustainable practices (Kivimaa and Kern 2016 ; David 2017 ; Greer et al 2020 ; Oers et al 2021 ).…”

Section: A Societal Demand For Knowledge On Breakdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework

et al. 2022

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Sustainability transition research seeks to understand the patterns and dynamics of structural societal change as well as unearth strategies for governance. However, existing frameworks emphasize innovation and build-up over exnovation and break-down. This limits their potential in making sense of the turbulent and chaotic dynamics of current transition-in-the-making. Addressing this gap, our paper elaborates on the development and use of the X-curve framework. The X-curve provides a simplified depiction of transitions that explicitly captures the patterns of build-up, breakdown, and their interactions. Using three cases, we illustrate the X-curve’s main strength as a framework that can support groups of people to develop a shared understanding of the dynamics in transitions-in-the-making. This helps them reflect upon their roles, potential influence, and the needed capacities for desired transitions. We discuss some challenges in using the X-curve framework, such as participants’ grasp of ‘chaos’, and provide suggestions on how to address these challenges and strengthen the frameworks’ ability to support understanding and navigation of transition dynamics. We conclude by summarizing its main strength and invite the reader to use it, reflect on it, build on it, and judge its value for action research on sustainability transitions themselves.

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Section: A Societal Demand For Knowledge On Breakdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework

et al. 2022

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“…While the above have all represented steps towards a better understanding of the role of the regime in encouraging change, it has been suggested that limited attention has been placed on interest, asymmetries of power and the political nature of governance strategies (Meadowcroft, 2011;Avelino et al, 2017;Stirling, 2019). In recognizing how destabilization relies upon (and is shaped by) political and economic interests ( Van Oers et al, 2021), such an approach acknowledges that certain actors within a regime (typically large industrial actors and the government) have more power than others; it also allows for actors' relative power to be mapped and the strategies employed to promote or resist change to be analyzed (Normann, 2019;Van Oers, 2021).…”

Section: Reconceptualizing the Regime As A Locus Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Destabilizing the food regime “from within”: Tools and strategies used by urban food policy actors

Mattioni

Milbourne

Sonnino

2022

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

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“…Therefore, actors base their expectations and imaginations on relying on these stabilized architectures, as Barnes et al (2016) found in studying the livestock system. This architecture is complemented by longterm political-economic path dependencies 7 that apply to specific regions and sectors and influence the likelihood and scope of imagined change (e.g., Benoit and Patsias 2017) as well as by incumbent actors in the socio-technical regime who reproduce rather than transform current practices and structures of the capitalist system (e.g., Friedrich et al 2021a;van Oers et al 2021). In addition, specific actors, such as the German "Bauernverband" (farmers' association), exercise hegemonic discourse and cultural power in the German agrifood system (see Heyen and Wolff 2019).…”

Section: Theoretical Reflections and Implications For The Concept Of ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preservation, modernization, and transformation: contesting bioeconomic imaginations of “manure futures” and trajectories toward a sustainable livestock system

2022

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In discourses on sustainability, its underlying conceptualizations and meanings, the role of imaginations and their influence on concrete social practices and mutually dependent sociomaterial structures have been overlooked. Therefore, our article uses Adloff and Neckel’s (Sustain Sci 14(4):1015-1025, 2019) conceptual framework to explore the role of imaginations in generating different trajectories from a concrete environmental problem, namely issues attributed to manure surpluses in Germany, to assess the hurdles and conflicting goals of a transformation toward a sustainable livestock system. Our study builds on qualitative, semistructured, and problem-centered interviews with both new innovation actors and incumbent actors in the current system. Our results show that different trajectories of “manure futures” exist, as we identify “preservation”, “modernization” and “transformation” as trajectories representing ideal types of change. We discuss the results in light of the theory of imaginations and reflect on the usefulness of the concept of imaginations for analyzing environmental discourses and practices. Furthermore, we find that normative framings of problems rather than factual knowledge describe contesting imaginations as barriers to sustainability transformations, a point that must be acknowledged when developing a sustainable livestock system. We conclude that contesting imaginations could result in conflicts that must be moderated as drivers for change yet could also point to transformations that are already underway.

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The politics of deliberate destabilisation for sustainability transitions

Cited by 51 publications

References 66 publications

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework

Destabilizing the food regime “from within”: Tools and strategies used by urban food policy actors

Preservation, modernization, and transformation: contesting bioeconomic imaginations of “manure futures” and trajectories toward a sustainable livestock system

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