This inability to change course is often linked to deliberate resistance against more profound change by vested interest of the complex and inert nature of the institutions we develop. Much less attention has been given to the nature of how we organize change in society. The argument put forward in transition management is that the way policy and markets work is by definition supporting stabilization and gradual change. In other words: policy and business seek stability and to prevent disruptive change. Perhaps also because policy and incumbent business has established interests in the status quo, they have developed and incremental innovation logic that seeks to maximize control and minimize risks.
The multi-actor perspective (Avelino and Wittmayer 2015) distinguishes these three logics: policy, markets and community. The first two have been dominating the past decades, often at the expense of the community logic. The policy and market logics are in some ways quite different, but also share a number of core characteristics, such as their focus on risk-reduction, on implementing solutions, on predictability and control, on (technological) innovation and on improvement. This development logic certainly has strong advantages in that it facilitates societal stability and continuing progress. That is, until it becomes increasingly difficult and costly to make any further progress of efficiency gains while external pressures for change keep increasing. Such was also the experience of car manufacturers like Volkswagen in delaying a shift to electric mobility until the external pressures forced them into a very disruptive and chaotic transition.
From a transition governance perspective, this dominant logic in policy and markets creates a number of problems that stand in the way of a more proactive approach to future transitions (Feola 2020; Thomann et al. 2016; Wittmayer et al. 2021):
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Implementation illusion especially in policy, a lot of effort is invested in the policy-making process to generate legitimate outcomes. As society become more complex and policy more and more scrutinized by public and media, policy-making itself is often a complicated process to develop plans that need to be accountable, legitimate and precise in identifying solutions to solve specific problems. It creates the illusion for participants that something is changing in the real world and that somewhere someone in the future will actually implement these plans. However in the context of transitions, the pace of societal change often makes policy plans come after the fact and ‘solutions’ that are found outdated or generating new problems.
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Risk paradox the focus on risk management through target setting, monitoring and assessment often obscures the more systemic and structurally uncertain risks. Over time numerous strategies and approaches have been developed and are implemented with support of consultants to identify risks that threaten business as usual and ways to mitigate these. But structural uncertainties that cannot be identified or predicted at all such as the risk that a whole market or business as usual is disrupted, are ignored or remain unaddressed. Typical examples are from industries that did not see disruptive change coming (from car industry to photography) or political changes such as Brexit.
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Innovation trap linked to the first two is a focus on innovation and solutions for identified problems, often of a technological nature. Policy has developed innovation policies along with accompanying instruments. Business has established R&D departments, investment strategies and incubators. This leads to continuous innovation but in practice always added to existing systems: hardly ever are things removed, phased-out or scaled down deliberately. This leads to the pattern in which for example cars get smarter, more efficient, are built from high-tech materials but also become heavier, bigger and more expensive.
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Imagination deficit in many ways historical examples of transitions illustrate that incumbent actors did not see it coming. It is perhaps a result of having grown so accustomed to the status quo and how things are, but it is also human to expect the next day to be more or less similar to the present. Exponential growth is in general hard to understand or anticipate (as also the policy responses to COVID have shown). Combined with the historical stability a regime context provided it seems that many leaders in policy and business are unable to see the present as an historical coincidence and the future as inherently uncertain.
Now that pressures to accelerate transformative change rapidly increase due to inaction (and during COVID even massive public investments in saving or supporting unsustainable economic activities), these problems of the dominant policy and market logic will only become more and more apparent. The interesting paradox here is that the more policy and markets are unable to proactively explore desired futures beyond a transition but in doing so actually increase the chances that such a transition will occur and with more negative impacts because of the sudden, non-linear and disruptive character.
Transition management is one of the approaches that has sought to offer an alternative development logic. As explained, it assumes future transitions and their structural uncertainties as a starting point based on the premise that existing approaches are inadequate in dealing with the persistent (unsustainability) problems inherent to existing regimes. Based on that, it also assumes that people are also creative, entrepreneurial, engaged and inventive: in a context where existing systems and structures do not work they will start to explore alternatives. This ‘transformative social innovation’ (Loorbach et al. 2020, Avelino and Wittmayer 2017) encompasses new ways of thinking, doing and organizing that ‘challenge, alter or replace’ existing regime cultures, structures and practices.
It builds upon the multi-actor model (Avelino and Wittmayer 2015) which suggests that the traditional dichotomies created between ‘government’, ‘market’ and ‘community’ is flawed. It posits that individuals by definition have multiple identities and are part of all logics, depending on their actions (as consumer, voter or neighbor for example). This would also mean that individuals and/or groups of individuals can use different identities to influence the direction and speed of social development. The evidence is there: cooperatives (community), social entrepreneurship (market) or court cases (public) are examples of ways through which individuals are influencing transitions. However, the highly institutionalized nature of a specific policy and market logic as well as the public–private collaboration model is still far more dominant and crowds out alternatives.
So far the focus of transition management and governance therefore has been towards empowerment of niches and support for change-makers to contribute to regime-destabilisation. But now that we are arguably moving towards the actual phase of institutional shifts and chaotic emergence of alternatives, we can see the urgency and need for transformative change being acknowledged within policies and markets (Guterres 2021). As highlighted in the introduction: transitions are mainstreaming in the sense that existing institutions and business are adopting ‘transformative change’ and seemingly feel the sense of urgency to move to a more proactive strategy. But from our perspective of a locked-in development logic, it is most likely that the new sense of urgency will lead to policy and business strategies that primarily seek to accelerate improvement through technological innovation. To continue to push for more efficiency and growth to generate funds to invest in making this growth green. Such a strategy will crowd out existing niches that have developed but is also likely to extend the lifetimes of industries and societal regimes that are at least partially unsustainable on the longer term.
Transition management on the other hand embraces transformative change as the context within which alternatives that have developed and matured in niches (external or inside incumbent regimes) can become mainstream and institutionalize. To capitalize on this transformative momentum implies that transition management researchers much more directly and less reflexively engage with incumbent actors willing to support transitions to help institutionalize the emergent and potential just, sustainable futures. To, for example, work with the transitions in the food system to make sure it will be about switching to plant-based diets, regenerative production, and community supported models. To work with the possible transition in the built environment to ensure it supports a shift towards nature-positive and community based. To work with the emerging transition to electric mobility to guide it towards social, sustainable and healthy mobility prioritizing walking, cycling and sharing in urban contexts.
Inevitably this requires a strategy referred to as a ‘policy mix’ (Griffiths et al. 2021; Kern et al. 2019; Rogge and Reichardt 2016) but then dedicated to achieve transformational change. To do so implies combining strategies to support the emergence of radically new systems, the transformation of elements of existing systems that can be adapted and a proactive phase-out of unsustainable and undesirable elements. Where policy and business often prioritize innovation that supports and improves the existing, the starting point for a transition governance mix is the potential of a desired transition and hence prioritizes transformative innovation and a deliberate strategy destabilize existing and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Where such a strategy can be developed and who or what institution can support it however is unclear: transition management is often implemented by action researchers, entrepreneurial policy makers or social entrepreneurs and it is not (yet) and institutional strategy.
Transition management from the start has been an action-oriented type of transformation research (Hölscher et al. 2021) that is science-based (on evidence of unsustainability and transition analysis) and methodological (experimental, transparent, reflexive and systematic). In the described context of large-scale destabilization combined with the chaotic emergence of alternatives that opens up a period of power, conflict and disruption, the experimental agenda of transition management is on how to ‘institutionalise emergence’: finding strategies, tools and methods that make the radical alternatives that developed in niches the norm. Strategies that help change (economic, financial, political, cultural and regulatory) institutions to make the possible and desirable transitions a reality and an object of study for future historians. To help undermine and disempower established unsustainable cultures, structures and practices and help diffuse, mainstream and institutionalize truly sustainable alternatives.