Biting the bullet: Addressing the democratic legitimacy of transition management

Citizen energy lost in sustainability transitions: Knowledge co-production in a complex governance context

“…The transition arena method -bringing together a diverse group of actors concerned with societal challenge to develop vision, future pathways and actions -is based on transition management methodology that has been gaining popularity as an approach to reflexively govern persistent systemic challenges [58,59]. The transition management framework provides a systematic and reflexive methodology for constructing transition pathways in different governance contexts that are characterised by diversity, uncertainty, heterogeneity of society and decreased role of government [28,60]. The underlying aim is to accelerate sustainability transitions through providing space for 'frontrunners' to inform, and challenge, policymaking of the ambition and variability of future pathways [61].…”

“…Several shortcomings of transition management methodology have been pointed out. One challenge is whether the transition visions and pathways are legitimate and capture the 'discursive and 'agonistic' aspects of democracy that often become sanitised from transition lessons [60,67,68]. Further, a managerial approach and result-orientation might lead to disempowerment of stakeholders rather than mobilising the transformative action through creation of engaged communities [63].…”

“…Further, a managerial approach and result-orientation might lead to disempowerment of stakeholders rather than mobilising the transformative action through creation of engaged communities [63]. Finally, transition management has been criticized for its disconnection from the official decision-making processes [60].…”

“…The co-production of four illustrative midrange transition pathways captured the range of actions from top-down policy goals and bottom-up decision making with situated stakeholders. Despite the frictions in the knowledge bases, the combined mix of actions provides a heuristic pathway for connecting housing companies to the energy transitions [48,60,70]. The suggested policy-mix, therefore, combines centralised and decentralised solutions rather than actions relying on one side of the spectrum [1].…”

Gestão de transição:

“…A ideia central da gestão de transição é de que, para lidar com problemas sociais persistentes, são necessárias mudanças estruturais fundamentais de longo prazo, isto é, transições de sustentabilidade. Ela se posiciona fora das estruturas institucionais convencionais para definir ambições climáticas mais altas, envolver agentes de mudança, explorar inovações, colaborações e incentivar o compartilhamento de poder [32].…”