Survey The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions : Responses to seven criticisms

The multi-level perspective (MLP) has emerged as a fruitful middle-range framework for analysing socio-technical transitions to sustainability. The MLP also received constructive criticisms. This paper summarises seven criticisms, formulates responses to them, and translates these into suggestions for future research. The criticisms relate to: (1) lack of agency, (2) operationalization of regimes, (3) bias towards bottom-up change models, (4) epistemology and explanatory style, (5) methodology, (6) socio-technical landscape as residual category, and (7) flat ontologies versus hierarchical levels. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Transitions to sustainability Contemporary environmental problems, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and resource depletion (clean water, oil, forests, fish stocks, etc.) present formidable societal challenges. Addressing these problems requires factor 10 or more improvements in environmental performance which can only be realized by deep-structural changes in transport, energy, agri-food and other systems (Elzen et al., 2004; Van den Bergh and Bruinsma, 2008; Grin et al., 2010). These systemic changes are often called ‘socio-technical transitions’, because they involve alterations in the overall configuration of transport, energy, and agri-food systems, which entail technology, policy, markets, consumer practices, infrastructure, cultural meaning and scientific knowledge (Elzen et al., 2004; Geels, 2004). These elements are reproduced, maintained and transformed by actors such as firms and industries, policy makers and politicians, consumers, civil society, engineers and researchers. Transitions are therefore complex and long-term processes comprising multiple actors. ∗ Tel.: +44 01273678171. E-mail address: f.w.geels@sussex.ac.uk 2210-4224/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2011.02.002 F.W. Geels / Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1 (2011) 24–40 25 Transitions towards sustainability have some special characteristics that make them different, in certain respects, from many (though not all) historical transitions. First, sustainability transitions are goal-oriented or ‘purposive’ (Smith et al., 2005) in the sense of addressing persistent environmental problems, whereas many historical transitions were ‘emergent’ (e.g. entrepreneurs exploring commercial opportunities related to new technologies). Private actors have limited incentives to address sustainability transitions, because the goal is related to a collective good (‘sustainability’), which implies free rider problems and prisoner’s dilemmas. Public authorities and civil society will be crucial to address public goods and internalize negative externalities, to change economic frame conditions, and to support ‘green’ niches (Elzen et al., 2011). Because sustainability is an ambiguous and contested concept, there will be disagreement and debate about the directionality of sustainability transitions (Stirling, 2009), the (dis)advantages of particular solutions and the most appropriate policy instruments or packages. A second characteristic that makes sustainability transitions unique is that most ‘sustainable’ solutions do not offer obvious user benefits (because sustainability is a collective good), and often score lower on price/performance dimensions than established technologies. It is therefore unlikely that environmental innovations will be able to replace existing systems without changes in economic frame conditions (e.g., taxes, subsidies, regulatory frameworks). These changes will require changes in policies, which entails politics and power struggles, because vested interests will try to resist such changes. A third characteristic relates to the empirical domains where sustainability transitions are most needed, such as transport, energy and agri-food. These domains are characterized by large firms (e.g., car manufacturers, electric utilities, oil companies, food processing companies, supermarkets) that possess ‘complementary assets’ such as specialized manufacturing capability, experience with largescale test trials, access to distribution channels, service networks, and complementary technologies (Rothaermel, 2001). These complementary assets give incumbent firms strong positions vis-a-vis pioneers that often first develop environmental innovations. Although large incumbent firms will probably not be the initial leaders of sustainability transitions, their involvement might accelerate the breakthrough of environmental innovations if they support these innovations with their complementary assets and resources. This would, however, require a strategic reorientation of incumbents who presently still defend existing systems and regimes. These considerations imply that sustainability transitions are necessarily about interactions between technology, policy/power/politics, economics/business/markets, and culture/discourse/public opinion. Researchers therefore need theoretical approaches that address, firstly, the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability transitions, and, secondly, the dynamics of structural change. With regard to structural change the problem is that many existing (unsustainable) systems are stabilized through various lock-in mechanisms, such as scale economies, sunk investments in machines, infrastructures and competencies. Also institutional commitments, shared beliefs and discourses, power relations, and political lobbying by incumbents stabilize existing systems (Unruh, 2000). Additionally, consumer lifestyles and preferences may have become adjusted to existing technical systems. These lock-in mechanisms create path dependence and make it difficult to dislodge existing systems. So, the core analytical puzzle is to understand how environmental innovations emerge and how these can replace, transform or reconfigure existing systems. This paper is about one particular approach, namely the multi-level perspective (MLP). On both of the above aspects (multi-dimensionality and structural change), the MLP goes beyond studies of single technologies (such as wind turbines, biofuels, fuel cells, and electric vehicles), which dominate the literature on environmental innovation. The technological innovation system approach (Hekkert et al., 2007) is multi-dimensional (although cultural and demand side aspects are under-developed), but does not address structural change (how emerging innovations struggle against existing systems). The disruptive innovation (Christensen, 1997) and technological discontinuity (Anderson and Tushman, 1990) literatures do look at interactions between new entrants and incumbents, but tend to focus only on technology and market dimensions. Both approaches also have a technology-push character, with ‘eras of incremental change’ being punctuated by new technologies into ‘eras of ferment’. While the MLP allows for technology-push substitution as one kind of transition pattern, it also distinguishes other transition patterns in which regime destabilisation precedes technical substitution (see Section 26 F.W. Geels / Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1 (2011) 24–40 “Bias towards bottom-up change models” below). Long-wave theory on techno-economic paradigm (TEP) shifts (Freeman and Perez, 1988) is multi-dimensional and addresses structural change. TEPs refer to configurations of pervasive technologies, methods of productions, economic structures, institutions and beliefs that are stable for long periods. Early explanations of TEP shifts (Freeman and Perez, 1988) had deterministic overtones with techno-economic forces doing the initial acting and the socioinstitutional framework doing the subsequent reacting. Freeman and Louçă (Freeman and Louçă, 2001) subsequently distinguished five interacting sub-systems (science, technology, economy, politics and culture), and emphasized the alignments between sub-system dynamics: “It is essential to study both the relatively independent development of each stream of history and their interdependencies, their loss of integration, and their reintegration” (Freeman and Louçă, 2001:127). While this conceptual refinement brings TEP closer to the MLP, there remains a difference in scope, with TEP focusing on entire economies and MLP focusing on concrete energy, transport, agri-good systems etc. TEP-work therefore gives more attention to aggregate processes, while MLP-work focuses in more detail on the various groups, their strategies, resources, beliefs and interactions. While there are various approaches to transitions, with different strengths and weaknesses, the remainder of this paper focuses on the MLP. The emergence of the MLP as a fruitful approach has been accompanied by various criticisms. This paper aims to respond to these criticisms, qualify them, and, where possible, translate them into productive suggestions for future research. The paper is organized as follows. Section “The multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions” briefly describes the MLP. Section “Criticisms, responses, and suggestions for future research” addresses seven types of criticisms. Section “Concluding comments” concludes. 2. The multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions The multi-level perspective (MLP) is a middle-range theory that conceptualizes overall dynamic patterns in socio-technical transitions.1 The analytical framework combines concepts from evolutionary economics (trajectories, regimes, niches, speciation, path dependence, routines), science and technology studies (sense making, social networks, innovation as a social process shaped by broader societal contexts), structuration theory and neo-institutional theory (rules and institutions as ‘deep structures’ on which knowledgeable actors draw in their actions, duality of structure, i.e. structures are both context and outcome of actions, ‘rules of the game’ that structure actions). These theoretical