Transition management for sustainable development: A prescriptive, complexity-based governance framework

This article introduces transition management as a new governance approach for sustainable development. Sustainable development is used here as a common notion referring to those persistent problems in (Western industrialized) societies that can only be dealt with on the very long term (decades or more) through specific types of network and decision-making processes. Based on interdisciplinary research into complex processes of long term, structural change in society, basic tenets for complexity-based governance are formulated. These tenets are translated into a framework that distinguishes between four different types of governance activities and their respective roles in societal transitions. This framework can be used for implementation of governance strategies and instruments. The approach and framework have been developed deductively and inductively in the Netherlands since 2000. This article presents the theoretical basis of transition management and will be illustrated by examples from transition management practice, especially the Dutch national energy transition program.

[1]  J. Grin,et al.  Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change , 2010 .

[2]  Rutger van der Brugge,et al.  Transition dynamics in social-ecological systems: The case of Dutch water management , 2009 .

[3]  Derk Loorbach,et al.  Policy innovation in isolation? , 2009 .

[4]  Derk Loorbach,et al.  Governance in the energy transition: Practice of transition management in the Netherlands , 2008 .

[5]  Rutger van der Brugge,et al.  Facing the Adaptive Management Challenge: Insights from Transition Management , 2007 .

[6]  Steve Rayner,et al.  Time to ditch Kyoto , 2007, Nature.

[7]  D. Loorbach.  Transition Management: New Mode of Governance for Sustainable Development , 2007 .

[8]  John Grin,et al.  Contextualizing Reflexive Governance: the Politics of Dutch Transitions to Sustainability , 2007 .

[9]  S. Nooteboom.  Adaptive Networks: The Governance For Sustainable Development , 2007 .

[10]  Barry G. Rabe,et al.  Beyond Kyoto: Climate Change Policy in Multilevel Governance Systems , 2007 .

[11]  Adrian Smith,et al.  The transitions discourse in the ecological modernisation of the Netherlands , 2007 .

[12]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  The ongoing energy transition: Lessons from a socio-technical, multi-level analysis of the Dutch electricity system (1960-2004) , 2007 .

[13]  R. Kemp,et al.  Transition management as a model for managing processes of co-evolution towards sustainable development , 2007 .

[14]  J. D. Haan,et al.  How emergence arises , 2006 .

[15]  Jan Rotmans,et al.  Towards transition management of European water resources , 2006 .

[16]  Arnold Tukker,et al.  Imagining sustainability: the added value of transition scenarios in transition management , 2006 .

[17]  Arnim Wiek,et al.  Functions of scenarios in transition processes , 2006 .

[18]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Insight, part of a Special Feature on Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Shooting the Rapids: Navigating Transitions to Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems , 2006 .

[19]  Derk Loorbach,et al.  MANAGING TRANSITIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT , 2006 .

[20]  Peter M. Senge,et al.  Bookshelf - High Output Management, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization , 2006, IEEE Softw..

[21]  J. Meadowcroft,et al.  Environmental political economy, technological transitions and the state , 2005 .

[22]  S. F. Spoelstra,et al.  Practices for reflexive design: lessons from a Dutch programme on sustainable agriculture , 2004 .

[23]  F. Geels.  Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study , 2002 .

[24]  Peter M. Allen,et al.  Knowledge, ignorance and the evolution of complex systems , 2000 .

[25]  A. Héritier,et al.  Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe: Escape from Deadlock , 1999 .

[26]  M. Gell-Mann.  Complex adaptive systems , 1999 .

[27]  O. Edenhofer,et al.  Procedural leadership in climate policy: a European task , 1997 .

[28]  Joop Koppenjan,et al.  Managing Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector , 1997 .

[29]  M. Castells.  The rise of the network society , 1996 .

[30]  Matthijs Hisschemöller,et al.  Coping with intractable controversies: The case for problem structuring in policy design and analysis , 1995 .

[31]  B. Wynne,et al.  Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. , 1994 .

[32]  J. Kooiman,et al.  Modern Governance: New Government-Society Interactions , 1993 .

[33]  H. Maturana,et al.  Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. , 1974, Currents in modern biology.

[34]  R. Ackoff.  Towards a System of Systems Concepts , 1971 .

[35]  Frank Bruinsma,et al.  Managing the Transition to Renewable Energy , 2008 .

[36]  Ulrik Jørgensen,et al.  Politics and governance in sustainable socio-technical transitions , 2007 .

[37]  René Kemp,et al.  An Example of a “Managed Transition”: The Transformation of the Waste Management Subsystem in the Netherlands (1960–2000) , 2007 .

[38]  J. Voss,et al.  Reflexive governance for sustainable development , 2006 .

[39]  J. Edelenbos.  Institutional Implications of Interactive Governance: Insights from Dutch Practice , 2005 .

[40]  L. Hooghe,et al.  Multi-Level Governance and European Integration , 2001 .

[41]  M. V. Asselt,et al.  More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy , 2001 .

[42]  J. Pierre.  Debating Governance: Authority, Steering, and Democracy , 2000 .

[43]  Erik-Hans Klijn,et al.  Politicians and Interactive Decision Making: Institutional Spoilsports or Playmakers , 2000 .

[44]  G. Midgley.  Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice , 2000 .

[45]  Rainer Eising,et al.  Introduction : Network Governance in the European Union , 1999 .

[46]  F. Scharpf.  Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? , 1999 .

[47]  J. Edelenbos,et al.  Design and Management of Participatory Public Policy Making , 1999 .

[48]  Héritier,et al.  Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe , 1999 .

[49]  J. Schot,et al.  Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation : the approach of strategic niche management , 1998 .

[50]  John H. Holland,et al.  Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity , 1995 .

[51]  E. Guba,et al.  Fourth Generation Evaluation , 1989 .

[52]  K. Boulding.  A Primer on Social Dynamics; History as Dialectics and Development , 1970 .