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.

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

Technology-focused literature on socio-technical transitions shares some of the complex systems sensibilities of social-ecological systems research. We contend that the sharing of lessons between these areas of study must attend particularly to the common governance challenges that confront both approaches. Here, we focus on critical experience arising from reactions to a transition management approach to governing sustainable socio-technical transformations. Questions over who governs, whose system framings count, and whose sustainability gets prioritized are all pertinent to social-ecological systems research. We conclude that future research in both areas should deal more centrally and explicitly with these inherently political dimensions of sustainability.

/pdf/the-politics-of-social-ecological-resilience-and-sustainable-2ez98ayik6.pdf

The politics of social-ecological resilience and sustainable socio-technical transitions

https://www.transitiepraktijk.nl/files/Rotmans%20and%20Loorbach%20_%202009_the%20pracitice%20of%20transition%20management.pdf

The practice of transition management: Examples and lessons from four distinct cases

Scholars and policy makers are becoming increasingly interested in the processes that lead to transformations toward sustainability. We explored how resilience thinking, and a stronger focus on social-ecological systems, can contribute to existing studies of sustainability transformations. First, we responded to two major points of critique: the claim that resilience theory is not useful for addressing sustainability transformations, and that the role of "power" in transformation processes has been underplayed by resilience scholars. Second, we highlighted promising work that combines insights from different theoretical strands, a strategy that strengthens our understanding of sustainability transformations. We elaborated three research areas on which such combined perspectives could focus: innovation and social-ecological-technological systems interactions, patterns of transformation, and agency and transformation.

/pdf/sustainability-transformations-a-resilience-perspective-531pxs3r7f.pdf

Sustainability transformations: a resilience perspective

textThis article presents a framework, transition management, for managing complex societal systems. The principal contribution of this article is to articulate the relationship between transition management and complex systems theory. A better understanding of the dynamics of complex, adaptive systems provides insight into the opportunities, limitations, and conditions under which it is possible to influence such systems. Transition management is based on key notions of complex systems theory, such as variation and selection, emergence, coevolution, and self-organization. It involves a cyclical process of phases at various scale levels: stimulating niche development at the micro level, finding new attractors at the macro level by developing a sustainability vision, creating diversity by setting out experiments, and selecting successful experiments that can be scaled up.

/pdf/complexity-and-transition-management-43rw9807ym.pdf

Complexity and Transition Management

Recent research suggests that transitions toward adaptive water management regimes are needed because current water management regimes cannot adequately respond to uncertainty. The pivotal question is how to understand and manage such transitions. The literature on adaptive management addresses this question in part, but must now move beyond the descriptive toward a prescriptive management framework. Transition management theory could help in meeting this challenge. The similarity of the theoretical starting points yet different applications offer fertile conditions for cross-pollination. We investigate three central concepts from the transition management literature for their potential contribution to adaptive management. In particular, the notions of arenas and shadow networks merit further study through joint research.

https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss2/art33/ES-2007-2227.pdf

Rutger van der Brugge

Papers

Facing the Adaptive Management Challenge: Insights from Transition Management