Socio-technical transitions in farming: key concepts - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 28

artefacts, such as long-lived material infrastructures. Socially agreed rules of interpretation
and signification of the external world also build cognitive frameworks. These cognitive
frameworks are embodied in discourse and narratives through which people make sense of
their environment. Similarly, lifestyles are the embodiment of societal conventions and
values. Artefacts, cognitive frameworks and lifestyles tend to dampen, delay and raise the
stakes of attempts at rule reformulations.
Essentially, transitions involve changing the incentives for how individuals and
organizations behave, which in turn means changing institutions (Woodhill, 2009). Indeed,
incentives for behaviour themselves come from a complex and highly interconnected web
of institutional factors, not least of them belief systems (North, 2005).
Conclusion
This topic covers a variety of case studies. Some of these case studies are still 'novelties',
or niches in the process of establishment; others are niches that have matured and have
gained momentum. This diversity allows the analysis of various learning processes; how
niche and regime actors have navigated complexity and unpredictability and how they have
built (more or less) stable networks. In some cases, the values of a niche have become more
broadly accepted, and in the process their networks have become larger and now include
powerful regime actors that secure resources for the niche, and may convey legitimacy to
the solutions they propose to a sustainability problem.
The focus of the analysis is a better understanding of niche-regime interactions, rather
than reconstructing long-term transitional pathways. Indeed, whether or not a niche will
'break through' and 'take off', whether it will effectively initiate a transition, is outside the
scope of the analysis since it would require a longitudinal study; a historical retrospective.
The analyses emphasize technological, network and institutional anchoring processes. The
aim is to better understand learning processes, network dynamics and struggles between
niche and regime actors. This understanding will shed light on how niche (and regime)
actors take advantage of regime-internal tensions, how niche actors build linkages with
specific regime actors to support their niche, or how they create new relationships between
regimes.
The comparative analysis of case studies from several countries also allows the
identification of institutional arrangements, governance approaches and supporting
measures that have helped the niche to initiate change at regime level, taking into account
the specificities of the context, including pressures from the socio-technical landscape,
framing of persistent problems, involved actors, cultural traditions, and historical
developments. The analysis thus highlights the context-dependence and unpredictability of
change processes in farming.
References
Barbier, E. (2011) Transaction costs and the transition to environmentally sustainable development.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1, 58-69.