Micro-dynamics in regional transition paths to sustainability - Insights from the Augsburg region
Introduction
In light of the global acceleration of anthropogenic climate change, the increasing resource scarcity and social fragmentation, cities and regions are confronted with the challenge to develop in a more sustainable i.e. nature and human compatible direction. This requires a fundamental change towards more sustainable social practices and a transformation of their socio-technical infrastructure (cf. Bulkeley et al., 2011, Hodson and Marvin, 2010). Researchers from the field of urban studies therefore increasingly refer to Geels's (2004) prominent multilevel perspective (MLP), which offers a tool to capture socio-technical change processes in their entirety, and the related approaches of strategic niche (SNM) and transition management (TM). At the same time spatial aspects have received more attention in the sustainability transition literature after some seminal contributions (e.g. Coenen et al., 2012, Raven et al., 2012, Truffer and Coenen, 2012) pointed out the influence of the spatial institutional environment on socio-technical transitions and their multi-scalar character (cf. Wolfram & Frantzeskaki, 2016). Both research streams - sustainability transitions and urban studies - recognize the need for new forms of governance activities that involve a diversity of societal actors to solve the complex sustainability challenges mentioned above (cf. Bulkeley et al., 2014, Loorbach, 2010, McCormick et al., 2013). With more management oriented approaches researchers try to deliberately initiate and steer these governance processes at the regional or sectoral level (cf. Loorbach and Rotmans, 2010, Loorbach, 2010). Based on their involvement and experiences over the past ten years in transition management, Loorbach and Rotmans (2010: 243) emphasize that “every transition project is unique in terms of context and participants and therefore requires a specific contextual and participatory approach”. They conclude that there is no “standard recipe” for how to manage transition projects. This is in line with evolutionary theory that regards regional development as a contingent and path dependent process. The long-term outcome of transition processes is hard to predict, as they are shaped by both purposeful and unintentional mechanisms.
Empirical studies have also shown that urban and regional transition processes are based on complex dynamics on the micro-level. However, a largely open question is how these micro-dynamics are connected with long-term transition processes at the aggregated urban or regional system level. To gain insights into this connection we suggest an evolutionary institutional framework to identify the endogenous unfolding of regional transition processes. We therefore introduce the notion of regional transition paths to sustainability (RTPS) and examine three important aspects that have not been explored in depth in the above mentioned research streams that focus explicitly on the geography of sustainability transitions. First, by shifting the focus to RTPS, the implementation and integration of new sustainable solutions in many different regimes is acknowledged. The focus of most transition studies on specific socio-technical regimes, primarily from the utility sector, does not fully encompass the thematic breadth of sustainability in a regional transition process. In particular, the social dimension of sustainability is rarely recognized. Second, it is argued that change does not only develop in protected, deliberately created spaces but that regional paths offer actors opportunities to initiate change from within. Regional paths are characterized through the overlap of institutional settings, multi-regime dynamics and place specificity and thus provide diverse possibilities for adjustment and recombination of existing institutions. Third, although transition scholars have emphasized the long-term character of transitions (cf. Loorbach & Rotmans, 2010), many empirical studies focus on the initial stage of a transition process (cf. Brown et al., 2013, Hansen and Coenen, 2015) and thus do not capture the outcome of micro-dynamics at later points in time. If and how changes are stabilized is not considered in depth.
In agreement with scholars from institutional theory, we argue that we need to acknowledge the “contingent and emergent nature” of institutional change and “adopt a broad, processual understanding of strategy” in order to better understand the interplay of actors and structure in RTPS (Gertler, 2010, Lawrence and Phillips, 2004: 708). In the empirical part of this paper, a longitudinal and process-oriented approach is followed to reconstruct the dynamics actors induce with their activities and what outcomes these activities have in the long run. For this purpose a transition topology is developed, which captures the RTPS of the Augsburg region across different institutional fields over a time-span of more than 30 years. The transition topology establishes a link between major institutional and organizational changes over time and thus brings dynamics to the fore which have remained largely hidden in transition research so far. Our framework and analysis show how social agency is shaped by the place-specific institutional environment and in turn how agency maintains, modifies and shapes this institutional environment in regional paths. It not only contributes to the newly emerging field of the geography of sustainability transitions (cf. Hansen & Coenen, 2015), but might also be informative for policy-makers and public actors as well as actors from civil society who want to initiate a transition in their city or region.
The article is structured as follows: Section 2 specifies our concept on RTPS and possible sources of change on the micro-level. In the focus of section 3 is the methodological procedure and the development of a transition topology to chart a RTPS. The empirical results are presented in section 4, followed by a discussion and an outline of further research issues.
Section snippets
Sources of organizational and institutional change in regional transition paths to sustainability
Sustainability transition research has highlighted the need for a radical transformation of existing socio-technical regimes in order for society to develop in a more sustainable direction (cf. Geels, 2004, Geels, 2011).1 From a regional or urban perspective it is the challenge to implement and integrate multiple new sustainable solutions in different socio-technical regimes and adapt them to the
Methodological procedure
A qualitative research design with a mixed methods approach was applied, in order to track the transition dynamic over time and to gain insights in the research questions. In a first step, a document analysis was conducted in order to set up a data basis, which collects the most important organizational and institutional changes in the regional transition process and their connections over time. Afterwards, two narrative and ten problem-centered interviews with actors from different
Actors and micro-dynamics in Augsburg's transition path towards sustainability
Through the analysis of the empirical material, three different phases in Augsburg's transition process could be identified that are characterized by a different degree of institutionalization of sustainable practices. In the pre-institutionalization or pre-formation phase (1) there is no broad understanding for sustainability and environmental protection yet. The semi-institutionalization or formation phase (2) is characterized by the emergence of the main actor groups and an increasing
Discussion
With the aim to understand how micro-dynamics are connected with long-term transition processes at the aggregated urban or regional system level, in the following, the three questions developed in the conceptional part are discussed: (1) How do actors use the plasticity given in the regional path to enact organizational and institutional change towards sustainability? (2) How do they overcome the barriers in sustainable innovation processes given by competing institutional logics? (3) How do
Conclusion
In order to shed light on the micro-dynamics of RTPS, a longitudinal case study in the Augsburg region was conducted, in which a particularly broad transition process is taking place that spans many different regimes. A main aim of the study was to analyze how actors use the plasticity given in a regional path to initiate the development and diffusion of sustainable practices across multiple socio-technical regimes over time. For this purpose a transition topology was developed to chart a RTPS
Acknowledgements
We appreciate very much the discussions with colleagues at the conferences on ‘Global Economic Geography’ in Oxford and on ‘Geography of Innovation’ in Toulouse. We are also grateful for the cooperation of the actors in the Augsburg region and the very helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers.
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