Unpacking the political in contemporary discourses on sustainability transformations: Agency, choice, and democratic pathways?

Workshop

Scoping a research area for applied social science
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ Leipzig / Germany
Nov. 10–11 2016

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Relevance and Context

In 2011, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) published its flagship report World in Transition and initiated an important and diverse debate about transformations towards sustainability (WBGU 2011).¹ Around the same time, various reports by international organizations and panels, such as the UN, OECD, WBCSD and IPCC, also used the term and called for fundamental changes in natural and human systems.² Natural and social scientific debate on the topic heated up,³ and international research programmes and related topics have emerged.⁴ As a result, ‘transformation’ has become an umbrella term that performs a function similar to ‘sustainable development’ in the 1990s: It puts ecological problems into their larger political, social, and economic context and brings together different research traditions and policy practices.⁵

Research on global environmental change and sustainability increasingly goes hand-in-hand with calls for deep social change. Understandings vary as to what sustainability transformations entail and require – especially in contrast to their more incremental counterparts, transitions – and little consideration has been given to the political dimension of the debate, i.e. how, why, and where ‘transformation discourses’ emerge. What role do different groups of actors (states and non-state actors such as experts or bottom-up movements) play in framing and enabling transformations? What political understandings underpin claims about transformation and what are the political implications of each? In the context of energy and climate policy, for example, the term transformation also stands for the recognition that current approaches are often too narrowly constrained around problems of fuel and carbon, energy production technologies and infrastructures, and their costs. Since energy systems are large socio-technical systems that are deeply embedded in broader patterns of social, economic, and political organisation, significant changes are increasingly accompanied by social, economic, and political transformations.⁶

This workshop aims to bring ‘the political’ back in by nurturing discussions about different dimensions of transformability, agency, and choice in current discourses. Thus, attention will be brought to questions such as the accountability for causes and impacts, the ascription of ‘responsible’ agency and choice for specific actors, and the constitution of their scope of action, as well as to other blind spots of the debate, from rare topics such as ‘personal transformations’ to more general – but nonetheless critical – issues, such as the fit between transformative policy and democracy. Such questions are important because addressing today’s grand challenges requires a better understanding of how real and enduring social transformations come about and how – if at all – they can be initiated, fostered or governed.⁷ 

Objectives of the workshop

Since the term ‘transformation’ has been widely diffused among academic and policy making circles, re-adapted and (con-)tested in many ways, it now has a range of largely de-politicised meanings. The objectives of the workshop are thus to rediscover ‘the political’ and:

• take stock of the discussions on transformations (assumptions, dimensions, characteristics and blind spots) in different social scientific disciplines and political contexts;
• question the meaning of ‘transformative’ and to ask to what extent radical change is indeed possible within and compatible with a democratic approach to change;
• explore the academic and practical value of transformation for guiding and integrating applied social science research as well as for informing political practice;
• take steps towards an integrative research agenda and concept of transformations;
• explore whether ‘transformation’ is used as a strategic concept to deal with grand challenges in an effective and socially desirable way,⁸ or if it is understood as an analytical concept to understand and explain the highly asymmetric and hierarchical characteristics of societies and their trajectories.

To achieve these objectives, we want to combine conceptual and empirical inputs and inquire how the radicalness of change that is often postulated to be necessary for transformations plays out in reality, by looking at empirical research within areas such as consumer policies, energy policy, or small group settings such as transition towns. How do different approaches attempt to deal with particular problems and to what extent could these be transformative?

Workshop format and guiding questions

The workshop aims at facilitating discussions between outstanding researchers from different disciplines. Participants will explore the leitmotif of the workshop in different working groups along agents of sustainability transformations, such as state actors, science and expertise, business, bottom-up social movements, individuals, … To tease out the political character of transformations, each working group will look at transformation from different sides: what does it imply, what is to be transformed, who says so, and how:

• What changes at individual, organisational, cultural, political and systemic levels would be regarded as transformative in different contexts? What are similarities and differences between different theoretical explanations and political practices of transformation? What are the epistemic implications, normative assumptions and political ends guiding the concept of transformation? Is the concept of transformation simply new wine in old bottles (such as Earth System Governance)? Or, how does it differ from other forms of radical social change (such as ‘transition’) and governance (Stirling 2015)?
• Who decides how on the object of transformation and to what end? Who are the potential agents of change, and what are their levers? What does the diagnosis of a need for transformation imply in terms of responsibilities and accountabilities of nation states, non-state actors such as experts and firms, as well as individuals?
• How are processes of transformation shaped and set up? How can changes at the different levels be realized in ways that are socially acceptable and politically legitimate? What types of decision-making processes are required to foster democratic processes of transformation and to overcome path-dependencies, entrenched self-interests, and unjust power distribution? How do powerful interests influence trajectories of change? How has the political played out in ‘real life’ transformation processes, and what lessons can be learnt?
• What effects do these processes have on the ground? Can or should they be measured through classical sustainability criteria?

Venue / Accomodation