Politics and governance in sustainable sociotechnical transitions

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Politics and governance in sustainable
socio-technical transitions
Schloss Blankensee, Berlin 19-21 September
2007 John Grin, Adrian Smith and Jan-Peter
Voss Willkommen!
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Some numbers
76 abstracts received 16 papers accepted 365
pages written 128.000 words 37 participants 15
countries Systems analysts political
scientists sociologists STS historians
geographers engineers business studies Five
journals interested in producing a Special Issue
coherence and quality!
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Objectives

• Assumption Sustainability requires structural
  change to the socio-technical systems
  underpinning many domains of social practice
• An encounter between socio-technical analysis for
  governance and political analyses of governance
• Broaden dialogue in and around sustainability
  transitions literature and, through lively
  debate, try and develop mutual understanding and
  generate new insights
• Three themes
• Engaging with system innovations
• Building legitimacy for system innovations
• Institutional dynamics and system innovations

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Process
15-20 minutes per presentation Similar period
for discussion on each paper General discussion
on theme led by discussants Part of an ongoing
process, with more events in the future framing
the governance challenges more clearly and
mapping out future research
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Theme 1 Engaging with system innovations

• How do agents try to overcome the complexities of
  socio-technical transformations and deliver
  strategies for structural change?
• How does power and agency permeate
  socio-technical systems and their transformation
  how do actors seek to exercise counter-veiling
  power?
• How comprehensively do the dynamics of political
  systems and policy processes effectively
  construct the socio-technical system, determine
  problem definitions, and affect interventions for
  change?

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Theme 2 Building legitimacy for system
innovations
If new cross-cutting and interactive fora are
needed for integrated problem treatment, how do
these relate to established institutions of
democracy? How can deliberative processes
contribute to a more effective knowledge base for
systems innovation? What are the bases of
legitimacy for different knowledge claims about
socio-technical systems and for discourses about
pathways to sustainability?
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Theme 3 Institutional dynamics and system
innovations
If the introduction of new practices is mediated
by established institutions, how can these be
changed in order to allow for genuine policy
innovation? How do institutional
path-dependencies constrain more reflexive and
deliberative governance fora, and how might they
be overcome? What examples of institutional
innovation might offer appropriate lessons for
the sustainable governance of socio-technical
systems?
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Session 1 How did we get here?
Objective set the scene map out some
issues Introduction and reflections from some
pioneers Two cases of application Finland and
Flanders Some political considerations Dinner