Transition management as a model for managing processes of co-evolution towards sustainable development

Abstract

Sustainable development requires changes in socio-technical systems and wider societal change-in beliefs, values and governance. In this article we present a model for managing processes of co-evolution: transition management. Transition management is a multilevel model of governance which shapes processes of co-evolution using visions, transition experiments and cycles of learning and adaptation. Transition management helps societies to transform themselves in a gradual, reflexive way through guided processes of variation and selection, the outcomes of which are stepping stones for further change. It shows that societies can break free from existing practices and technologies, by engaging in co-evolutionary steering. This is illustrated by the Dutch waste management transition. Perhaps transition management constitutes the third way that policy scientists have been looking for all the time, combining the advantages of incrementalism (based on mutual adaptation) with the advantages of planning (based on long-term objectives).

Transition Thinking Incorporated: Towards a New Discussion Framework on Sustainable Urban Projects

“…Firstly, the plea for radical transformations of (urban) systems speaks up for a strong interpretation of the contested concept "sustainable development". Although transition theories argue for goal oriented modulation [11], they also underline that a sustainable future requires a fundamental change of existing structures, cultures and practices, at least in the long term [12]. Secondly, strategic niche management [13] emphasized the importance of mature "niches" for sustainability transitions, of course, when linked up to ongoing processes at regime and landscape levels [14].…”

Co-Evolution, Sustainable Tourism and Protected Areas

“…This trend seems to have supported the developing policy focus on the socio-economic wellbeing of the Park's local communities, and also to have encouraged sustainable tourism and sustainable development as organising frameworks. These policies were reciprocally inter-related and mutually constituting, and they appear to have co-evolved [5].…”

“…More specifically co-evolution may be viewed as a series of relationships which involve different sub-systems which are reciprocally inter-related and mutually constituting [5]. Such co-evolution processes have been noted by researchers between varying sub-systems and scales, such as between actors and structures by Giddens (1984), between technology and governance by Von Tunzelmann [7], and between ecology, economy and society by Norgaard [6].…”

“…2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Co-evolution and governance, sustainable development Co-evolutionary perspectives provided interesting grounds for exploring sustainable development and its governance [5], [6]. Norgaard [6, p. 161] suggests in a biological context, coevolution refers to "reciprocal responses" between species however he asserts that the "same concept can be broadened to encompass any ongoing feedback process between two evolving systems, including social and ecological systems".…”

Water Management and the Procedural Turn: Norms and Transitions in Alberta

“…TM uses a threefold characterization of multi-level institutions where strategic, tactical and operational scales of decision making have respective (though not isolated) tasks of setting the vision, agenda and experimental goals (Kemp et al 2007). Sensitivity to cross-scalar dynamics is designed to link TM with a general account of complex systems and to facilitate sustainability by fitting socio-technical systems of governance to complex social-ecological systems (van der Brugge and van Raak 2007;Rotmans and Loorbach 2009).…”