1. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
DOI 10.1007/s11077-009-9103-5
Designing long-term policy: rethinking transition
management
Jan-Peter Voß • Adrian Smith • John Grin
Published online: 21 November 2009
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2009
Abstract Long-term policy is enjoying something of a come-back in connection with
sustainable development. The current revival tries to avoid the pitfalls of an earlier gen-
eration of positivistic long-range planning and control approaches. Instead, this new
generation of policy design emphasises reflexive governance concepts. These aim at
inducing and navigating complex processes of socio-technical change by means of
deliberation, probing and learning. A practical expression of this move that is attracting
growing international attention amongst researchers and practitioners is the policy of
‘Transition Management’ (TM) in the Netherlands. This article takes stock of TM
implementation experience to date and discusses the critical issues it raises for long-term
policy design. The article provides a framework and synthesis for this Special Issue, which
comprises articles that address a range of those issues in more depth. We highlight three
critical issues: the politics of societal learning, contextual embedding of policy design and
dynamics of the design process itself. This leads us to propose a view on policy design as a
contested process of social innovation. Our conclusion considers implications for contin-
ued work on designing transition management in practice as well as the reflexive capacities
of democratic politics.
J.-P. Voß (&)
Innovation in Governance Research Group, Institute of Sociology/Center for Technology and Society,
¨
Technische Universitat Berlin (Secretariat ER 2-2), 10623 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: jan-peter.voss@tu-berlin.de
URL: Web www.innovation-in-governance.org
A. Smith
SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), Freeman Centre, Falmer, University of Sussex,
Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9QE, UK
e-mail: A.G.Smith@sussex.ac.uk
J. Grin
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, OZ Achterburgwal 237,
1012, DL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: J.Grin@uva.nl
123

2. 276 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
Keywords Policy design Á Sustainable development Á Reflexive governance Á
Transition management Á Socio-technical change Á Long-term planning Á
Deliberation Á Politics of learning Á Innovation in governance
Introduction
Long-term policy design is politically salient again. Substantive policy goals and policy
processes are re-emerging that seek to restructure radically key social systems in response
to a variety of social challenges. In the context of debates about sustainable development
there is growing policy interest in stepping away from incremental developments along
‘business-as-usual’ trajectories. Policy-makers increasingly consider how conventional
measures (such as environmental taxes and regulations aimed at reforming collective
behaviours, economic sectors and technologies) can be overlaid with a more integrated
package that delivers a ‘sustainability transition’ to radically more sustainable societal
systems over the long-term. Take our energy systems as a case in point. A commitment
taken by governments of the G8 in 2008 is an indication that a consensus is emerging on a
global target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050. Current energy systems
based in fossil fuels are currently responsible for a majority of these emissions. Given that
these energy systems underpin economic activity in other areas too, then meeting climate
change targets implies transforming our energy systems into radically decarbonised forms.
There is a growing body of academic work on the implications of such long-term
challenges for the concepts and practices of governance.1 A notable example of a new
generation of long-term policy design is the ‘transition management’ approach instituted
by the Dutch government since 2001 (see the article by Kemp and Rotmans 2009). The
development and implementation of this design are the focus of this special issue.
This interest contrasts sharply with the disrepute into which long-term policies had
fallen after the 1970s. Modernist conceptions of societal planning had reached a crisis
point. The not unconnected combination of an increasingly tarnished track record, an
apparent inability to rise to macro-economic problems and welfare crises, and the rise of
neo-liberal ideology, all contributed to a decline in long-range planning ambitions in
OECD governments and elsewhere. The collapse of the planned economies a decade later
confirmed this newly received wisdom. Long-term policy had become linked with long-
range, wide-scale and highly interventionist public planning. And that kind of planning no
longer had a good reputation.
This historical context prompts an intriguing question: whether interest in ‘transitions
towards sustainable development’ signals a return to long-range policy design? Does this
open space for more ambitious initiatives in sustainable development?
The collective urge to reflect, anticipate and intervene in societal development is a
recurring theme in the policy science literature (e.g. Mill 1862; Dewey 1927; Lindblom
1959/1969; Vickers 1965; and more recently, Elmore 1985; Fischer 1995, 2003; Schon and¨
Rein 1994; Bobrow and Dryzek 1987). Recent long-range policy ideas try to incorporate
1
This special issue is part of a larger cluster of activities in the context of an emerging research programme
on sustainability transitions. All papers have been presented in the context of a workshop series on System
Innovations for Sustainable Development which has been co-funded through the conCISEnet project by the
German Federal Minstry of Research and Education’s programme on Social-ecological Research
(www.sozial-oekologische-forschung.org) and through the Knowlewdge Network for System Innovations
and Transitions (www.ksinetwork.nl) by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the
Environment.
123

3. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 277
some of the painful lessons from past planning failures; failures which fed the neo-liberal
reaction. The current generation of long-term policy approaches appears more ‘reflexive’,
it avoids the notion of planning and is well aware of the limits to full knowledge in advance
and steering the course of history (Meadowcroft 1999). We consider how this reflexive
revival is panning out in the case of TM.
Transition management combines an orientation toward a long-term vision of ‘sus-
tainable development’ with short-term experimental learning to probe options and find
pathways to realise the vision. Its time horizon is 25–50 years. Over the course of the
process the vision may be adapted as learning about options proceeds. This, in turn, may
shift criteria for designing and evaluating experiments. This recursive cycle for meeting
substantive goals (e.g. reductions in carbon emissions, increases in resource efficiency,
enhancements in biodiversity) is a key characteristic of transition management. Another
characteristic is the mobilisation of ‘forerunners’ to become involved in ‘transition arenas’,
where visions are formulated and experiments are carried out. The concept envisages
procedural arrangements that catalyse innovation and societal learning for the sustainable
development of sectors like energy, mobility or agriculture. Whilst substantial goals drive
the process, transition management refrains from fixing specific measures and strategies
too early and too rigidly. At the core is the idea to modulate co-evolutionary dynamics that
already drive socio-technical change, and to bend them in ways that facilitate transfor-
mative innovation (articulating guiding visions and experimenting with options and
pathways). The general approach is one of nurturing and growing rather than planning and
controlling long-term societal change.
‘Transition management’ emerged from concerns for step-change sustainable devel-
opment. It has prompted experiments with policies aimed at transforming ‘socio-technical
systems’ of energy provision, agriculture, transport, housing and use of materials (Rotmans
et al. 2001). Parallel to these policy experiments, further conceptual work has developed
the approach into a general concept of governance (Loorbach 2007). As such it attracts
international attention amongst scholars concerned with socio-technical change, sustain-
able development and governance (Berkhout et al. 2004; Smith et al. 2005; Meadowcroft
2005; Shove and Walker 2007; Walker and Shove 2007; Smith and Stirling 2007). It is
time to give an account of the practical experiences to date, reflect on implications for the
continued development of more general governance concepts, and anticipate possible
future pathways for long-term policy design. With this in mind, the Special Issue aims to
contribute to continued policy learning in academic debate as well as in political practice.
A large part of the transition management literature stays on a conceptual and pro-
grammatic level. It tends to overlook the political processes through which transition
management is realised. Some notable exceptions in the literature have drawn attention to
the attenuating dominance of established policy institutions and political players, and have
identified some technocratic tendencies in the policy process (Hendriks 2008; Smith and
Kern 2009; Smith and Stirling 2007). We follow-up on these studies, but, unlike them,
contextualise transition management as an example of a new generation of long-term
policy design. This enables us to arrive at insights which may be relevant for other efforts
at designing reflexive governance for sustainable development. While acknowledging the
complexity of societal change processes in their subject domain, many of these concepts,
so far, lack an explicit concern for the work involved in realising new governance practices
in a context of prior policy paradigms. Crossing the gap between established policy par-
adigms and novel forms of experimental learning presumes radical innovation in gover-
nance practices. This difficulty is compounded by the well-known challenge of anticipating
implementation in policy design (Bardach 1977).
123

4. 278 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
Policy sciences in a Lasswellian spirit approach this challenge by engaging with
political processes, finding out about what works by testing it out in vivo, and learning
from the experience. In this vein, we take early experiences with transition management as
an occasion to reflect on some fundamental challenges of long-term policy design. We
draw lessons from this particular case for questions of more general importance: How do
transition management and other concepts for reflexive governance work in practice? How
is a succession or accommodation between existing and new forms of governance realised?
What are particular challenges for transformative long-term policy design?
In this introductory article, we first introduce the Special Issue by outlining the tran-
sition management concept and situating it in the broader literature on designing long-term
policy. Second, we discuss the key challenges that transition management meets in prac-
tice. Here we build on analyses in the contributing papers. We highlight three critical
issues: (1) the ‘politics of learning’, which may undermine aspirations for open deliber-
ation; (2) the ‘contextual embedding’ that is required to turn new governance concepts into
policy configurations that work; and (3) the dynamics of ‘design as process’, which sug-
gests approaching policy design as open ended processes of social innovation, and in which
both concepts and practices undergo change. In concluding the article, we consider
implications for continued work on designing transition management in practice.
Long-term policy design: from planning to reflexive governance
We understand long-term policy design as the development and implementation of policy
strategies that seek to change radically key societal structures.2 In transition management
terms, long-term policies innovate new socio-technical systems of provision, rather than
optimise and correct existing systems at the margins. The realisation of long-term policy
goals extends well beyond electoral cycles and management terms, even beyond a gen-
eration of civil servants. Over the course of long-term change processes, policies have to
interact with transformative changes as they unfold. Long-term policy design thus needs to
be flexible and adaptive; it has to cope with the inherent uncertainties of inchoate pathways
of societal change.3
Long-term policies address problems which require solutions with long gestation
periods. Such policies need to induce and guide social and technological innovations
capable of replacing established ways of doing things, as well as their structural embed-
ment. Sustainable development is a challenge that exhibits these characteristics (Grin
2006). Solutions require a re-configuring of complex socio-technical systems like energy,
agriculture, mobility and health. These systems comprise many interdependent components
(a need for ‘system innovation’) and they involve large investments over long periods
(often with low initial returns). Transitions to sustainability consequently imply a desta-
bilizing of existing socio-technical structures as well as nurturing alternative systems that
can fill the opportunities created by structural change.
2
There is also a literature on long-term policy design in economics. This is not so much about empirically
observable dynamics of the policy process, but more about optimality conditions and the modeling of
incentives for long-term investments. Recurrent themes are questions about how to discount (uncertain) pay
offs in the future to calculate present investments and questions about overcoming uneven distributions of
costs and benefits of political measures across generations.
3
We are not talking about political decisions with a temporal delay until they become effective (a law that
comes into force in 5 years time). We also exclude the setting of long-term objectives, if they are put up as
guiding posts without an accompanying programme for realisation (e.g. emission reduction targets).
123

5. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 279
Long-term policy design has a long intellectual history. Classical approaches address
the challenge as ‘planning’. A first generation of planning approaches was concerned with
building up infrastructures, administrative capacity and the welfare state, and was based on
a belief in the possibility of progress by use of forecasting, analysis and bureaucracy. There
is not space to recount this (well known and chequered) history (see Friedmann 1987;
Hillier and Healey 2008). A neo-liberal market orientation succeeded this first generation
into policy practice.4 Meanwhile, a second generation of (now marginalized) planners took
stock of their demise, revised ideas based in critical reflection, and suggested lessons for a
second generation of long-range planning.5
Second generation planning theory is concerned with precaution towards the unintended
side-effects of development plans, and is based on co-evolutionary understanding, par-
ticipation and learning (see, e.g. Beck 1994; Norgaard 1994). The linear, unilateral model
of rational planning has been reformulated into ‘forward and backward mapping’ between
¨
problem definitions and assessments of policy solutions (Fischer 1980; Schon 1983; El-
more 1985; Hoppe et al. 1987; Bobrow and Dryzek 1987; Forester 1984, 1999). Planning
has been renamed as long-term policy design, with policy design conceived as an inter-
active process of constructing and shaping political reality (Stone 1988; Schneider and
Ingram 1990, 1993, 1997).
Long-term policy design tries to turn the messiness of bottom-up implementation into a
productive dynamic (Wildavsky 1988). Instead of imposing theoretically defined optima it
organizes processes of interactive learning (Bobrow and Dryzek 1987; Schneider and
Ingram 1997), or seeks to induce such processes by a mix of policy instruments that
promote learning between societal actors and policy actors (Van de Graaf and Grin 1999).
Explorative scenarios, experimentation and learning gain prominence. The underlying
understanding is that policy making is deeply embedded in broader dynamics and takes
shape in non-linear, open-ended processes. Policy must engage effectively with long-term
societal change, introduce new practices, redirect trajectories of societal development and
untie existing socio-technical systems. This requires policies to build upon and employ the
existing dynamics of change. The orientation is one of ‘modulating’ ongoing co-evolu-
tionary processes, rather suppressing complex dynamics of change with linear analysis and
mechanical steering arrangements (Hillier and Healey 2008).6
4
This arose out of an ideological clash, theoretical contestation, plus evidence from implementation
research. While planning theory originally developed in context of the New Deal as ‘‘fourth power of
government’’ (Rexford Tugwell) and a necessary basis of open and free societies (Karl Mannheim), it was
soon contested as the arch-enemy of a free society (Hayek). Arguably of more importance than ideological
clashes, especially for the policy studies community, were detailed empirical analyses of policy imple-
mentation difficulties which challenged the feasibility of political planning in the sense of societal blue-
printing (Murphy 1971; Derthick 1972; Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Mayntz 1977; Mazmanian and
Sabatier 1989/1983; Hofferbert 1986). The primacy of planning suffered in the wake of the economic
turbulence, welfare state crises and apparent failure of planning in the 1970s, and compounded by glob-
alisation of the economy.
5
Prominent examples are Lasswell’s policy sciences (Lasswell 1951), Lindbloms’s incrementalism
(Lindblom 1969/1959, 1979), and Wildavsky’s ‘bottom-up politics’ (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973;
Majone and Wildavsky 1978).
6
Long-term policy design in the tradition of a revised planning theory has great relevance and affinity with
environmental and technology policy. There it goes under different labels such as ‘foresight’ (Renn 2002;
Weber 2006; Voß et al. 2006a), ‘adaptive management’ (Johnson et al., 1993; Lee 1994; Holling et al. 1995;
Gunderson and Holling 2002; Sendzimir et al. 2006), ‘learning’ (Grin and Van de Graaf 1996; Wals and van
der Ley 2007) or ‘directed incrementalism’ (Grunwald 2000). By the beginning of the 1990s sustainable
development supported these developments as a new political ‘Leitbild’and brings with it a re-legitimization
123

6. 280 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
A central feature in contemporary long-term policy design is awareness of the future as
fundamentally uncertain. This acknowledges arguments about the inherent uncertainty of
planning due to changing circumstances and the unanticipated effects of policies in real
world contexts, in the vein of authors like Vickers (1965), Lindblom (1959/1969, 1990),
and Wildavsky (1979).7 Since inherent uncertainties will be interpreted through plural
perspectives there is an additional acknowledgement in second generation planning about
the likeliness and implications of certain developmental pathways remaining contested.
The appraisal of specific risks and merits of long-term policy becomes a political process
(and not solely a technical calculation) and needs to be treated as such (Stirling 2003,
2006). An important consideration is that long-term policy is not only linked to positive
expectations of development and progress (planning to realise), but also to negative
expectations about unintended consequences and possible damage (planning to avoid).
This feature structures the politics involved in designing long-term policy for sustain-
ability. While long-term policy design for progress (first generation planning) is a game
where the fight is about the distribution of benefits, long-term policy design to avoid
environmental deterioration or technological hazards is a game where some may win and
others loose. Certain trajectories may not be continued and investments may become
stranded. While the first is a (prospective) distributive policy, the second is a (prospective)
re-distributive policy that, through inducing structural change, may change actors’ ‘dis-
positional power’ (Arts and Van Tatenhove 2005). The mobilization of interests and power
becomes characteristic (Lowi 1972).8 Long-term policy design is a highly political
endeavour. This reflection speaks to the argumentative turn in policy analysis (Fischer and
Forester 1993) and in the development of several approaches for participatory planning
(e.g. Dienel and Renn 1995; Joss and Durant 1995; Grin and van de Graaf 1996; Healey
1997; Forester 1999).
Recent long-term policy concepts have been grouped under the label of ‘reflexive
governance’. In a reflexive perspective, governing processes as well as policy analysis
are seen as shaping, interlinked with and open to feedback from broader social, tech-
nological and ecological changes, both in terms of innovative action and structural
change (Grin 2006; Grin and van Staveren 2007; Voß and Kemp 2006; Smith and
Stirling 2007). As such governance is a messy and controversial process of multi-level
institutional transformation. Each of the actors involved has only a limited view of the
whole—which may be incommensurable with constructions of others—and restricted
capacities to influence outcomes (Smith and Stirling 2007). Discussion of the implica-
tions of such an orientation of reflexive governance is picked up in the literature on
governance for sustainable development (Rip 2006; Voß et al. 2007; Hendriks and Grin
Footnote 6 continued
and re-vitalization of long-term transformative policy and new ideas about planning (Kenny and Mead-
owcroft 1999).
7
This literature was inspired by a recognition of the combined implications of the limits of central planning
(Hayek 1960; Lindblom 1965) and the limits of classical understandings of knowledge as were articulated
¨
through notions as the ‘crisis of expertise’ (Schon 1983), the ‘politics of expertise’ (Fischer 1990), the
decreasing trust in modern ‘abstract systems’ of expertise (Giddens 1991) and critiques of instrumental
rationality (Horkheimer and Adorno 1988/1969).
8
The other way around, structural changes may also help to overcome conflicts of interests. For instance,
the 2008 financial crisis may prompt a reconsideration of the role of government regulations in relation to
business interests, and thereby make issues like planning for sustainable development more palatable. It is
not simply a re-positioning of actors’ relative interests that can be prompted by wider change, but a re-
conceptualisation of what those interests are, and how they are best met.
123

7. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 281
2007; Meadowcroft 2007).9 Reflexive governance strategies recognise the inherent
ambivalence of policy goals, irreducible uncertainty about effects of alternative options,
distributed agency and power shaping the process of implementation, a dialectic relation
between policy design and societal context and the duality of structure and agency in
processes of long-term change (Voß and Kemp 2006; Meadowcroft 2009).
All reflexive planning approaches unavoidably face a dilemma. On the one hand, the
requirement is not to suppress diversity, but to nurture bottom-up spontaneous develop-
ments that are open to ambivalence and contestation, and to retain adaptability towards the
complex dynamics of change. On the other hand, there remains a requirement to achieve
coordination, to take a synoptic view on broader developments, to close down contingency,
to fix long-term goals for orientation and mobilization.10 In order to constructively deal
with this dilemma of long-term guidance and short-term contextuality, most approaches to
reflexive planning pragmatically combine top-down and bottom-up elements into more or
less sophisticated procedural designs for social learning. The focus of policy is towards
creating options and exploring paths of societal development, social innovation, as it were,
rather than planning and then implementation. At the same time it is acknowledged that
there must be closing down around options, and commitments to long-lived (infra-)
structures, that necessarily reduce flexibility owing to the path-dependencies they institute.
The discussion so far reveals a series of challenges in long-term policy design. Some
issues are practical. Key here is how concepts for dealing with uncertainty that are based in
adaptability and reflection, can be designed into concrete measures for appraising options
and making commitments. Some of the uncertainty derives from the sheer complexities
and contingencies of diverse real world contexts. A related practical issue is therefore how
to ensure adaptable long-term policy designs remain open to these contexts, and allow the
designs to stay true to the original policy goals in adapted ways, rather than buffeted and
distracted by events. Another practical challenge is presented by the desire to work with
the messiness of bottom-up implementation. Distributed agents may well be required to
deliver the strategic line, and the agency of each cannot do so alone. Yet, a few powerful
actors who are not in line with long-term policy goals may apply their agency to redirect or
disrupt the envisioned change process. Given the high-stakes, re-distributional qualities of
radical sustainable development, the interests of some actors to disrupt efforts are likely to
be considerable.
A deep theoretical issue is the extent to which long-range policy is fundamentally
characterised by problem-framing procedures, and the extent to which this demands
consensual social learning processes for any chance of success. If social learning is the
principle driver of reflexive long-term policy, then who is involved in that learning
becomes paramount; as does questions about whose voice and which lessons count. What
are appropriate institutional arrangements to make societal learning possible in practice?
9
To be sure, part of the response to the challenge of sustainable development have been planning
approaches which simply try to get back to first generation planning ideas as they try to overcome short
terminism by increasing planning capacities to force societal trajectories into a sustainable corridor. One
kind of such approaches focuses on the fixation of durable policy frameworks and on achieving political
commitment beyond the horizon of rationality that is in current institutions of political systems (Hovi et al.
2007). Another approach, partly inspired by new public management, calls for a clear definition of sus-
tainable development as a policy goal and articulation of indicators, monitoring and control (Steurer 2004;
¨ ¨
Janicke and Jorgens 2005).
10
Aspects of this dilemma have been articulated in many shades, e.g. as exploration and exploitation
(March 1991), as a conflict between engineering and ecological resilience (Holling 1996), as requirements of
long-term planning and short-term acceptance (Grunwald 2000), or as the efficacy paradox of governance
under conditions of complexity (Voß et al. 2006b).
123

8. 282 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
Here questions of fit and adaptation between new long-term initiatives and institutions
become important. There is also an issue about just how adaptable it is possible for these
novel arrangements to become in practice.
The challenge to learning is not simply institutional rigidities and priorities. As the
introduction to the reflexive governance literature mentioned above, knowledge politics
may well constrain aspirations for developing a shared problem framing. Consent may
derive instead from the way plural values are accommodated in the diverse commitments
being made by that process. This brings in issues of legitimacy and democracy in long-
range policy design processes. It also asks questions of whether the fluid networks char-
acteristic of reflexive governance can create direct democratic forms, and the ways they
may need reinforcing with links to more conventional institutions of representative
democracy. The quality of debate and commitment to sustainable development in those
broader political institutions becomes essential to more designed initiatives in reflexive
long-term policy for sustainable development. Arguably, it is the absence of strong support
for transition management amongst the broader polity that has left it incapable of really
getting to grips with these critical issues.
An emerging ‘transition management’ literature provides some imaginative ideas for
combining guidance with uncertainty, the long term with the short term, concern for the
whole and for the particulars, efficiency and resilience, closure and opening, top-down and
bottom-up, outside and inside, design and dynamics, structure and agency, private interests
and the common good. And yet, some of these are fundamental tensions which may
undermine confidence in the possibility of success. It is these tensions which we explore in
this Special Issue.
‘Transition management: an exemplary case?’ section describes how transition man-
agement seeks qualities of reflexive governance. ‘Critical design issues ‘section is more
critical about how they are working. Picking up on the theoretical issues mentioned above,
it raises three issues: politics, context and design as process. Politics refers to the challenge
of securing democratic legitimacy for the process and ensuring that learning-oriented
governance arrangements are not captured and attenuated by powerful interests. Context
refers to policy histories, institutional dynamics and the challenge of translating and
instituting designs into new configurations that work in practice. The third group, design as
process, refers to the societal interaction within the dynamics of the policy design process
itself. While politics issues are somewhat specific for long-term policy design (of the
second generation), issues under context and design as process are classic challenges for
policy design more generally, but become especially pronounced when the goal is the
transition to radically more sustainable socio-technical systems over the long term. Whilst
the contributions to this Special Issue shed light on those issues, they also raise new ones,
such as the way the language of long-range policy designs can alienate the very people they
seek to empower.
Transition management: an exemplary case?
In the following, we introduce specific tenets of ‘transition management’ as a recent long-
term policy design that contains the features and tensions noted for reflexive governance
above. Transition management builds on an analytical understanding of long-term societal
change from integrated assessment (Rotmans and van Vries 1997), complexity theory (in
ways explained in Rotmans 2005), evolutionary economics (Kemp 1994; Mulder et al.
1999) and the theory of socio-technical transitions (Kemp 1994; Geels 2001). The radical
123

9. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 283
transformation of socio-technical systems in energy, mobility, housing, food, etc. is con-
sidered necessary for dealing with persistent sustainability problems: problems which are
symptomatic of existing systems. These problems will only be resolved through a transi-
tion to new systems in which sustainability is centrally embedded.
The transition management framework
A key organising input for transition management comes from research on historical socio-
technical transitions, and in which a ‘multilevel perspective’ on the requisite transition
processes has developed (Rip and Kemp 1998; Geels 2001; Berkhout et al. 2004; Geels
and Schot 2007). Its claims may be summarized as follows (see the review in Grin 2008,
pp. 49–55):
1. The dynamics of sustainability transitions build up in interactions across different,
co-evolving levels: niches, regimes and landscapes.
2. Niches nurture novel socio-technical configurations for doing energy, housing,
transport, agriculture and so on in a new way.
3. Regimes constitute the dominant interplay of research, development, production, use
and regulation for the more established and mainstream socio-technical set-up.
4. Landscapes consist of broader societal patterns and developments that provide
structural gradients of possibility for socio-technical change.
5. Regime transitions occur through linkages and interaction between multiple devel-
opments on the three levels.
6. Strategic action plays a role for creating linkages between niches and between niche
and regimes, thereby helping induce a transition (Kemp and Loorbach 2006, p. 109).
This multi-level perspective on socio-technical change can be illustrated with recent
dynamics in electricity systems. Here, we see established regimes of centralised power
generation from fossil and nuclear sources being disputed by renewable energy sources
and decentralised power and load management in ‘intelligent’ distribution networks, and
which are becoming established in niches within the regime. At the same time, the regime
of power generation is coming under pressure as climate change and energy security gain
support on a broader socio-political landscape and shift the performance requirements for
social legitimacy. Challenge from within and pressure from above, however, do not lead
into an immediate and smooth transition. Due to the interconnectedness and comple-
mentarity of various elements of this complex technological system—such as the
institutional set-up of the industry, user routines and behaviour, economic production
chains, and the patterns of governance and political regulation—a new system of
electricity provision takes shape through a range of distributed innovation processes. Such
processes of ‘system innovation’ are not straightforward, but entail extended processes of
bricolage and probing.
Transition management builds on these findings by taking an ideal typical ‘purposive’
transition pattern consisting of four phases: a pre-development phase, a take-off phase, an
acceleration phase and a stabilization phase (Rotmans et al. 2001; Rotmans 2005). Tran-
sition management addresses both actors at the regime level and those involved in niche
experiments. A key feature and characteristic of transition management is its orientation
towards harnessing ongoing dynamics or ‘goal oriented modulation of co-evolutionary
processes’ (Kemp et al. 2007a). It seeks to provide an open framework for searching
sustainable development pathways in various sectors of society. Objectives should be
123

10. 284 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
flexible and adjustable at the system level. The complexity of the system is at odds with the
formulation of specific, quantitative objectives.
Insight into the dynamics of the system is essential to identify effective modes of
intervention. A core idea is to rely on evolutionary mechanisms to ‘breed’ and ‘grow’
sustainable systems from niches where alternative practices are nurtured and start to sprout.
In order to bring about sustainable development, ‘frontrunners’ are brought together to
develop a vision of sustainable future systems. The vision informs the choice of promising
niche developments and forms of support. In effect, the vision provides an alternative
selection environment compared to established socio-technical paradigms.
Policy design in transition management
Crucially, transition management departs from the definition of a set of persistent problems
that appear not to be resolvable through conventional policy approaches in the context of
incumbent structure. The particular approach to policy design in transition management
comprises five main components: (1) Establishing a transition arena, (2) developing a
vision, (3) pathway development through back-casting techniques, (4) experimenting with
pathway options and (5) monitoring, evaluation and revisions (Loorbach 2007). For each of
these components of the transition management process, a variety of societal actors are
supposed to participate and provide knowledge, competences, material resources and
viewpoints.
• Establishing a transition arena: The transition arena is a platform for transition-
oriented interactions amongst societal actors, related to the persistent problems. Arenas
facilitate creative interaction, knowledge exchange, learning and discussion among
‘frontrunners’—‘innovators and strategic thinkers from different backgrounds’ (Kemp
and Loorbach 2006, p. 113). The goal is that ‘those actors involved will adjust their
own problem definitions and perceptions because of a better understanding of the
nature of the problem and the perspectives held by other actors and accordingly their
behaviour (that is second-order learning)’ (Kemp and Loorbach 2006, p. 113).
• Developing visions: Within the transition arena general policy goals are translated into
specific visions that serve to guide the formulation of particular measures to overcome
the persistence of the problems and to mobilize public support. Visions are to be
fleshed out in the form of socio-technical scenarios (e.g. what a sustainable housing
system will look like in the future). They need to be ‘appealing and imaginative’ in
order to be supported by a wide range of different actors. They are ‘integral target
images, which evolve over time and are dependent on the required insights and learning
effects’ (Kemp and Loorbach 2006, p. 113).
• Backcasting of transition pathways: Strategies for realising the vision are identified
through backcasting techniques. Back-casting from the vision generates alternative
transition paths that link the future with the present (Quist 2007). ‘Transition paths (…)
reflect the necessary trend breaks and behavioural and institutional changes, the
uncertainties associated with the pathway and the barriers and chances for implemen-
tation’ (Kemp and Loorbach 2006, p. 114). The multi-level heuristic framework for
transitions, based on niche-regime-landscape interactions, provides transition manage-
ment with a heuristic for organising the conceptualisation, organisation and commit-
ments between actors to some of these pathways.
• Experimenting with options: Practical experiments, which go well beyond established
socio-technical patterns and practices, serve to explore particular transition paths.
123

11. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 285
Experiments are expected to inform visions and pathways, as well as wider policies
which may help to create the structural conditions for transitions. They should be
designed for learning purposes and not in an ad hoc manner, fostering ‘real use of new
technologies in society to learn from practice and facilitate processes of mutual
adaptation and institution building’.
• Monitoring, evaluation and revisions: The overall processes as well as specific
experiments are continuously monitored. Evaluation takes place within ‘development
rounds’ and may lead into revisions of the guiding visions. They are the starting point for
programming a next round of experiments. Also the transition management process itself
(participation, quality of process, conflict, etc.) is an object of evaluation and revision.
Since adopting this approach in its Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan in 2001, the
Dutch government has facilitated a range of ‘transition projects’ in sectors like energy,
agriculture, water management, mobility and biodiversity. These aim to shape Dutch socio-
technical trajectories over a period of 25–40 years.11 Recent studies show how transition
management policy design is changing in interaction with implementation (Kemp et al.
2007b). Analysts suggest the energy transition has become captured by incumbent energy
policy networks (Kern 2006; Smith and Kern 2009; Kern and Smith 2008), and suffers
from a democratic deficit (Hendriks 2008).
Further pitfalls and difficulties may be expected in the light of the lessons identified
above from the long-term policy literature. Indeed, the contributions to this Special Issue
do identify a number of challenges, as well as opportunities, for TM. In the following
section, we discuss these issues under the headings of politics, context and design as
process. They echo some of the earlier debate about planning, but now on a level of
designing procedural arrangements for societal learning. While substantial decisions and
strategies are left to be worked out and revised throughout the process, the transition
management experience underscores that there is a challenge not to fall back on techno-
cratic policy approaches when it comes to the design and implementation of the new
arrangements for reflexive governance. Here, as with the substantial issues of socio-
technical development, a self-reflective and learning-oriented approach is required to
develop new forms of governance that actually work into desired directions of societal
change, and within specific contexts of established political practices.
Critical design issues
Taking a close look at transition management practice, as the articles in this Special Issue
do, reveals critical issues with respect to designing long-term policy. We discuss these
issues under three headings: politics, context and design as process and pay particular
attention to the contribution by each of the articles in this Special Issue.
Politics
New forms of long-term policy design aim at inducing and instituting societal learning.
Design efforts do not assume particular goals and means, but focus instead on interactive
11
‘Away from fossil-fuels towards renewable sources’ in the energy sector, ‘away from exploitation and
degradation towards recycling and protection’ in the use of natural resources, ‘away from intensive farming
towards precision farming’ in the agricultural sector and ‘away from car-based transport towards customised
services’ in the mobility sector.
123

12. 286 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
processes that reveal them through the articulation of visions and construction of experi-
ments, and thereby find pathways towards those visions. A main point in the papers of this
special issue (especially Meadowcroft 2009; Avelino 2009; Hendriks 2009) and of some
earlier studies (Kern and Smith 2008; Smith and Kern 2009) is that asymmetries in the
political power of transition actors is not accounted for; and that this plays out detri-
mentally in the societal learning arrangements and legitimacy of transition management to
shape the future. The open-endedness of TM and lack of specific procedural provisions
actually makes this policy design vulnerable towards capture by powerful incumbents of
the status quo. This may well be a ‘reverse salient’ for the development of reflexive
governance forms more generally. It requires further elaboration of procedural designs to
increase their political robustness.
Evolution cannot substitute for politics
A critical issue is how the transition management concept implies evolution to be an
alternative to making difficult political decisions. James Meadowcroft (2009) elaborates on
different ways in which politics creep back into the allegedly neutral ‘evolutionary pro-
cess’ that is installed to shape socio-technical development. With the example of Carbon
Capture and Sequestration technologies he shows how actors engaged in transition
activities are bound to be concerned with their own place in future arrangements, and who
intervene strategically to settle questions of competing socio-technical pathways as well as
changing dispositional power. Selection, implementation and evaluation of experiments
with a view to explore pathways of a sustainable future thus remain political processes.
With her empirical analysis of two transition management projects in the area of sus-
tainable mobility, Avelino shows how these struggles are fought at the micro-level—and in
effect block the smooth working of transition projects (2009). She also finds that the
abstract technical language of transition management scares off practitioners who are
expected to adopt the concept and work with it. Following Grin (2008, p. 68) and Smith
and Stirling (2007), Meadowcroft (2009) criticizes abstract notions of ‘systems’ and
‘evolution’ for diverting attention from concrete problems of sustainable development and
the interests that are at stake. The establishment of priorities for socio-technical options
remains a matter of political struggle. It cannot be concealed by concepts which promise
open evolutionary processes that are politically neutral in determining superior paths of
societal development (see also Scrase and Smith 2009).
Democratic legitimacy of societal learning
Linked to this inevitable politics are concerns for the democratic legitimacy of learning-
oriented policy design. Policy design that seeks to institute societal envisioning and
experimenting has to be explicit about how decisions of collective concern are to be taken.
Early experience with arenas for societal learning as part of the transition management
process in the Netherlands suggests little formal reflection on its democratic content.
Science and big business are strongly overrepresented in the stakeholder networks that
constitute the process (Kern and Smith 2008; Hendriks 2008, 2009). The Chief Executive
Officer of Shell Oil Company has taken over the lead for the ‘energy transition’ project on
behalf of the Dutch government (Kemp and Rotmans 2009).
An in-depth study of a transition management project in the domain of transport shows
that weak stakeholders are not involved (Avelino 2009). The same study shows that
interactions within the arena are shaped by asymmetric power relations and weaker actors
123

13. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 287
‘were afraid to open their mouth’. It appears that ‘transition arenas’ are captured by
powerful incumbents. TM as a concept for policy lacks effective provisions for inclusive
participation and fair deliberation within ‘transition arenas’.
Picking up on this, Hendriks’ (2008, 2009) analysis reveals the inadequacy of the
democratic self-understanding of actors involved in transition management. None of the
‘democratic storylines’ by which transition actors legitimise their activity (when asked)
comes close to new theory in democratic network governance that the TM approach might
benefit from (Sorensen and Torfing 2007). Hendriks links this kind of disorientation up to a
broader debate about ‘democracy in flux’ and the need for combining new forms of
legitimisation beyond traditional reliance upon liberal democratic representation. Transi-
tion management could potentially open up democratic opportunities by fostering more
participatory, deliberative and plural forms of policy making, but ‘‘democratic attributes do
not surface on their own, particularly for highly complex, technical issues. Instead pro-
cedural matters need to be ‘designed in’’’ (Hendriks 2009).
One way to tackle the democratic deficit of transition management would be to con-
centrate on innovative ways to encourage participation and establish closer linkages with
institutions of representative democracy for deciding about what constitutes the public
interest, for enforcing rules and resolving distributional conflicts (Meadowcroft 2009). An
earlier case study indicates that it is often at the interfaces between transition projects and
other—formal and informal—spheres that legitimization struggles arise (Hendriks and
Grin 2007).
Transition management as an example of recent developments in long-term policy
design evokes more general reflection on deliberative arrangements. The difficulty to help
‘rational discourse’ to unfold and prevent it from corruption is of general interest when it
comes to enriching representative democracy; especially with a view to mitigate myopia
and sectoralization. Finding adequate ways to embed long-term policy design in a
(changing) framework of democratic institutions is an important area for future conceptual
and practical thinking.
Context
A second critical issue for long-term policy design is the problem of moving away from
existing governance patterns and working towards new reflexive policy practices. In a
study of two cases in which transition management became translated to Finnish policy
contexts, Heiskanen et al. (2009) note a ‘huge distance between the capacities for reflexive
governance (…) and the prevailing policy realities’. New governance structures are never
created in a void, nor can it be presumed that the required governance capacities will be
attained easily. Making new arrangements work presumes the reform and, in parts, the
‘creative destruction’ of established practices of socio-political governance (Meadowcroft
2009).
Interaction with policy histories and institutional dynamics
The ‘fit’ of new policy designs with existing governance patterns is a critical issue for
transition management and other long-term policy designs, especially in prevailing con-
texts of positivist policy-making, new public management or market-liberalism. Those
paradigms are deeply ingrained in policy discourse, institutions and practices including
tools like forecasting models, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting and controlling procedures
or project evaluation manuals. Avelino (2009) observes that traffic models which were
123

14. 288 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
embedded in established policy practice did not allow for radically alternative visions for
the future as promoted by the transition management policy.
Avelino points out that this dissonance may go all the way down to the capacity and
motivation of individual actors to engage in interactive learning. This may be due to a
restrictive professional environment and superiors or colleagues who require ‘concrete
results’ (2009). On the policy level, new designs co-exist, interact and sometimes compete
with both established approaches and parallel developments in policy: ‘(T)ransitions are
not the only game in town’ (Hendriks 2009). Transition management adds another layer
onto an already highly complex and dynamic institutional and political landscape; tran-
sitions must, as it were, be fleshed out amidst a heterogeneous set of structural changes
(Grin 2008). This is explicitly acknowledged in some policy practices in The Netherlands.
Provision is made for the ‘transitioning’ of existing policy programmes as a bridge
between old and new policy practice. Analysis of the actual processes pushed forward
under this strategy, however, shows that transitioning is not a one-way street. Imposing a
new conceptual framework and enforcing a change of course on existing policy processes
can just as easily prompt rejection, and may eventually undermine the transition initiative
(Avelino 2009).
Kern and Howlett (2009) present an analysis of the ‘problem of fit’ in form of a scheme
which distinguishes various pathologies of policy design. For the implementation of
transition management in Dutch energy policy they diagnose the way the existing policy
paradigm is deforming the original TM concept. The market liberalization paradigm,
anchored in the broader context of European Commission directives (see also Knill 1998;
Smith 2000), forces a short-termism that undermines the longer-term goals of TM. Yet, in
certain other respects, TM fits the Dutch policy context quite well. This is how transition
management builds on consensus-oriented negotiation as a policy practice which is typical
for Dutch political culture. After all, this is the context from which the design emerged.
Referring to the stereotypical characterization of the Dutch style of policy-making as the
‘polder-model’ (communal self-organization in the polder landscape) two of the key actors
involved in the design of transition management refer to it as a ‘super-polder-model’
(Kemp and Rotmans 2009).
A greater distance between design and reality is found in cases where the transition
management concepts travel beyond Dutch political culture and become part of policy
processes elsewhere in the world. A study of the transfer process to Finland, by Heiskanen
et al. (2009), elaborates the conflicts between transition management as a new management
model and dominant institutional logics which are the historical legacy of political inter-
actions within two different policy fields. Against the background of certain policy his-
tories, transition management appears to some as a model for the planned economy
(Gosplan) or as too demanding in terms of a cultural disposition for consensus oriented
deliberation, and which is absent in more oppositional political cultures. Other misfits are
of a more mundane nature and refer to the redistribution of institutional competences that
are anticipated to follow from the implementation of the new transition management policy
design. Heiskanen et al.’s case studies show how the transition management model either
‘bounced off’ or became hybridised with indigenous policy concepts and basically
re-invented through mutual adaptation.
‘Bottom-up’ dynamics and the irony of design
Well-known issues in the policy studies literature are the unforeseen dynamics and
unintended consequences that arise when policy designs developed in the heights of
123

15. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 289
governments (and scientific advisors) start interacting with processes ‘on the ground’ (e.g.
Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Yanow 1993). The ‘ground’ (or street-level; Lipsky 1980)
is where certain tasks that play a role for a new policy design are carried out as part of daily
practices, embedded in a web of complex connections with other practices. These highly
contextual and specific patterns are difficult to anticipate in general scientific theories and
models. It is impossible to predict precisely what will become of even the most neatly
designed policy artefact out in the ‘field’. The ‘irony of design’ is that even well-intended
and sophisticated policy designs can never be made fail-safe against the perverse effects of
implementation (Rip 2006). In interaction with specific policy contexts and their ongoing
dynamics they can take on a life of their own (Voß 2007b).
The ‘empowerment’ component of the transition management design, for example, is
actually found to lead to the disempowerment of some actors on the operational level of
project management. The imposition of alien transition management concepts that were
intended to empower, actually resulted in participants becoming dependent upon transition
experts to explain how to do it. Avelino considers this to be a ‘paradox of imposed
empowerment’ (2009). Hendriks shows how the orientation towards deliberation and
collective learning is undermined by the technocratic and elitist self-understanding
amongst leading actors in the transition process. The capture of transition arenas by
incumbent players with an interest in the status quo, or an unreflective assumption of what
is best for everyone, is quite a substantive example of the irony of a design that was
intended to strengthen outsiders and newcomers (Kemp and Rotmans 2009; Hendriks
2009; Avelino 2009; Kern and Howlett 2009). To this belongs the diminution of radical,
systems-wide sustainable development as a goal of transition management policies, and its
exchange for technology development, global competitiveness and economic growth on
the way to implementation (Kern and Howlett 2009; Avelino 2009; Heiskanen et al. 2009;
Meadowcroft 2009).
What does this mean in terms of policy design? Why are transition management pro-
cedures so easily decoupled from the original goal of systems-wide sustainable develop-
ment? Is this a consequence of it being a conceptually driven policy design; and an
expression of the fact that it has often been taken up as a new, primarily procedural,
governance concept? Has there been too much ‘technological’ fascination with policy
designs rather than a political analysis of the concrete problems of sustainability (Mead-
owcroft 2009)?
Design as process
A third critical issue emerging from the studies in this Special Issue is that the process of
designing long-term policies needs itself to be considered as a long-term process. Policy
design is an interactive endeavour and is itself part of and embedded in the political context
which it seeks to reconfigure. Policy design gives rise to processes with a life of their own.
The studies in the Special Issue all confirm two points that are central to the policy studies
literature. First, policy design is not a technical or scientific exercise that is detached from
politics. Second, policy design is not a one-off event that is completed and then followed
by policy implementation. Analysis and model-building are intertwined with policy
implementation and evaluation. Contextual dynamics feed back into the design process.
The establishment of novel policy arrangements that work in practice involves learning and
continued re-design in interaction with politics. This makes policy design part of the
political process. And it underlines requirements to consciously link up with institutional
123

16. 290 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
and ideational factors that influence how problems are handled in a particular policy field
(Meadowcroft 2009).
Distributed agency and politics of design
One aspect clearly appears from a close look at the transition management process: the
design as it became part of public policy is the result of distributed agency. There is no
single inventor, nor a single event of invention. The design took shape in an extended
interaction process which involved scientists and consultants, officials from public
administration and a broad range of stakeholders. In the course of this process shared
frameworks were worked out by going from abstract theoretical notions (e.g. niches,
regimes, transitions) to concrete constellations in policy fields and backwards again; all the
time trying out concepts that could accommodate the views of actors whose support was
needed to make the policy work (Kemp and Rotmans 2009; Smith and Kern 2009). A
concern to overcome persistent problems on the way to sustainable development was not
the only guiding orientation in this process, but also a struggle for dispositional power
amongst the actors involved.
In the Netherlands, transition management served the ministry of the environment to get
involved with the energy domain (traditionally a domain of the ministry of economic
affairs); and it served the ministry of economic affairs to become an active partner of
business and play a visible role in promoting innovation in sustainable energy. Gaining the
assent of the economics ministry meant a new emphasis in transition management fostering
international competitiveness in the Dutch economy (Smith and Kern 2009; Kemp and
Rotmans 2009). In studies of policy transfer to Finland, institutional politics played out as a
‘not invented here’ syndrome, and which made some policy actors reluctant to adopt
concepts for which they cannot pride themselves as creators (Heiskanen et al. 2009). In
both these cases, the original transition management concept got lost. This affected the
proposal to elaborate transition goals and visions by means of participatory processes and
define a transition pathway (e.g. for CO2-emissions) within which the transition process
could unfold (Kemp and Rotmans 2009). As a result, transition-management-in-practice
looks a bit more like policy-as-usual than would be recommended by transition-manage-
ment-in-theory. Nevertheless, transition management has succeeded in introducing
explicitly a discourse of system change into official policy circles, and that provides an
opening for more vigorous transition politics in the future (Smith and Kern 2009; Mead-
owcroft 2009).
Interpretive flexibility
One key mechanism that enables the alignment of diverse actors under certain policy
designs is their ‘interpretive flexibility’ (Pinch and Bijker 1987). Concepts such as tran-
sition management are able to accommodate a range of different interpretations as regards
meaning and effect of the respective policies. Various actors may each see their differing
perspectives reflected in the design. The word ‘transition’ (in Dutch: transitie) lends itself
to multiple interpretations; it evokes a sense of transformation without specifying what will
change or how (Kemp and Rotmans 2009).12 For business players, the energy transition
12
Kemp and Rotmans (2009) propose to understand the interpretive flexibility of transition management by
framing the notion of ‘transition’ as a ‘boundary object’ which is a common reference point for differing
perspectives and thus is able to bundle and align actor strategies (Star and Griesemer 1989).
123

17. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 291
opens up new markets; for technology developers it stimulates innovation and releases
funds; for the Dutch government it creates a clean, independent, and competitive energy
sector; for the various ministries it is a way to strengthen their institutional position; for
environmental groups it fosters sustainable energy; for policy scientists it is an interesting
experiment in reflexive governance; and for consultants it is a new business field (Hendriks
2009; Kemp and Rotmans 2009). While this ambiguity has aided the popularity of tran-
sition management as a policy design, it has also rendered it susceptible to capture (He-
iskanen et al. 2009; Smith and Kern 2009).
Towards reflexive design
We conclude this section with an outlook to reflexive design as an orientation for the
development of transformative long-term policy. From the analysis of transition man-
agement in practice, we see basic insights of policy studies confirmed.
Long-term policy design is not located outside target ‘systems’, but embedded in the
social and political processes it seeks to influence (Stone 1988). It concerns world views
and has distributive effects (Lowi 1972); and it is immediately related to questions of who
gets what, when and how from government (Schneider and Ingram 2005). As such it
involves ‘powering’ and ‘puzzling’ (Heclo 1974). Moreover, the design of long-term
policy is not separated from the implementation process, but is deeply intertwined with it;
it anticipates, frames, and structures activities of political actors (Bardach 1977; Kingdon
2003/1995), while it relies on testing designs in practice, it is forced to continuously reflect
on implementation experience, and undertake re-designs to respond to it (Majone and
Wildavsky 1978; Pierson 1993). It requires ‘inquiry’ in the sense Lindblom suggested:
probing as a mode of knowledge generation which does not aim at objective, universal
truth, but is action-oriented and, therefore, contextual in nature (Lindblom 1990). While
these are general points that are well understood and confirmed by studying transition
management, what is revealed in novel ways by transition management, and what does it
teach us for doing long-term policy design in the future?
Policy design as an innovation process
We propose that long-term policy design in context be understood as a process of inno-
vation. The notion of innovation overcomes the distinction between policy design and
implementation.
Long-term policy design is about the purposive negotiation and reconfiguration of
existing governing practices. It involves learning by and between policy makers, policy co-
producers and stakeholders (Grin and van de Graaf 1996) throughout the mutual adaptation
of plan (model design) and practice (real world dynamics) in a co-evolutionary process
(Voß 2007b, pp. 54–63).13 As such policy design is both shaped by, and co-shaping,
ongoing policy processes and broader structural change. This is what we know from
empirical studies of the long-term historical evolution of policy designs (Voß 2007b) and
literature on policy learning (Grin and Loeber 2007). Dynamics and results of the design
process itself are indeterminate. From this stems a concern for how designs develop and
13
This notion is in line with the reflective practice paradigm in general design theory (Kroes 2002, p. 289).
In this view of the design process ‘the problem space and the solution space co-evolve together, with
interchange of information between the two spaces’ (Dorst and Cross 2001, p. 434).
123

18. 292 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
change over time in co-evolution with broader political dynamics and how the promise of
designs can be fulfilled in practice (Voß 2007b, pp. 68–87).
A reflexive view on policy design as an innovation process entails systematic experi-
mentation with preliminary designs and evaluation of how they work out in practice—in
¨
order to re-design with respect to the ‘backtalk’ of the context (Schon and Rein 1994). This
assigns a key role for tinkering, probing and re-adjusting—anticipation of implementation
in action (Rip 2006). In dealing with transition management, we need to understand design
as a process of moving back and forth between conceptual analysis and practical experi-
mentation. Transition management is itself an experiment (Meadowcroft 2009).
In terms of innovation strategy, long-term policy design entails the requirement to
respond to changing context conditions, to anticipate and prepare for counter running
dynamics, look out for opportunities. It involves ‘smart manoeuvring’ (Kemp and Rotmans
2009) for ‘surfing’ political dynamics. In this respect, Heiskanen et al. (2009) in their study
of re-designing transition management in Finnish policy contexts, highlight the importance
of, timing’’, i.e. finding the right moment to use openings or link-up to ongoing devel-
opments in the broader policy context. Interacting with societal change in the course of
long-term policies requires learning within the design process itself (not only designs for
societal learning). This was partly reflected in the design process when general ideas and
design options were probed among a wider policy audience (Kemp and Rotmans 2009).
The experience of transition management revealed in this Special Issue suggests long-term
policy design has to be open for continued re-design, for adaptation and learning in the
course of implementation. Ideas are initially tried out in a confined space, in policy niches,
from where they can gradually broaden out (Kemp and Rotmans 2009; Loorbach 2007).
This is especially relevant for designs that represent radical innovation with respect to
established governance patterns.
(Re-)designing transition management?
So far, the (still relatively scarce) results of studies into transition management’s sub-
stantive policy outcomes remain ambiguous. Yet, we may be at a critical juncture where
the future development of this particular design for the reflexive governance of long-term
socio-technical change will be decided upon. The critical design issues appearing from the
papers in this special issue are reason enough to halt for reflection and take stock of what
has been achieved.
What can be witnessed is the slow emergence of new institutions and procedures for
producing and implementing long-term policies, like inter-departmental directorates, new
collaborative arrangements and concrete innovation projects (Dietz et al. 2008; Hendriks
2009). So far, however, these policy reforms take the form of ‘layering’ on top of earlier
paradigms, policy programmes and institutions, many of which appear to still be dominant
(Kern and Howlett 2009). Early lessons relate to incumbent actors and institutions learning
to live with transition management more than learning how to do transitions. More criti-
cally, transition management processes have been captured by incumbent policy and
business interests, and have a weak and unclear political standing. This indicates a need to
continue learning how reflexive governance can actually work out in practice and generate
actions that result in the kinds of radical structural change that diagnosis and prognosis of
sustainable development demands.
Viewing long-term policy design as an innovation process opens opportunities to build
on experiences and continue working towards envisioned changes in policy practice and
their promised results. It is necessary to take account of the fact that innovating policy
123

19. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 293
practice along the lines of the transition management concept will remain embedded in
broader institutional and discursive contexts. These will continue to function as a specific
selection environment for new varieties of long-term policy-design. It is thus important to
strategically engage with these broader contexts of governance, either by shaping them, or
by anticipating ongoing changes with a view to seizing future opportunities. An informed
learning by doing should be the focus of effort, rather than deliberations on idealised
theoretical constructions.14 With this end in view we highlight key lessons for the future
(re-)design of transition management, and for reflexive modes of governance, more
generally.
• Politics of learning: take care of democratic legitimacy! Include those actors who will
be affected by decisions, especially the marginalized (Hendriks 2008). Pluralize elite
institutions, empowering public debate and citizen engagement (Hendriks 2008).
Connect the public to issues (Latour 2005; Marres 2005; Warren 2001). Encourage
open public deliberation on all relevant issues (Hendriks 2009).15 Designs for
democratic participation meet their own particular difficulties, however. It may be
difficult to shift public attention away from immediate political concerns towards
longer term issues, particularly if they appear dry and technical matters, such as energy
(Hendriks 2009). Horizontal coordination is beset by the challenge of asymmetric
bargaining in which those without resources to offer in exchange loose out, and of
resulting in compromise solutions at the level of the lowest common denominator. One
solution could be to convene different transition arenas for dissenting voices, rather
than get everyone around the same table. Let the dissenting arenas propose their own
experiments, and fund some of them. Thereby opening out the diversity of options for
governments, businesses and citizens to consider and learn from.
• With all the necessary optimism there must be about sustainable development, sober
consideration of the limits to control of even procedural innovations in governance
must be borne in mind when looking for new approaches to the design of long-term
policy. Policy designs will take on momentum and undergo change which is beyond the
control of the originating actors. This has happened with transition management, which
has became more technology oriented over time and developed a somewhat impervious
conceptual language (Hendriks 2009; Meadowcroft 2009; Avelino 2009; Heiskanen
et al. 2009). More specifically, reflexive planning processes, being embedded in
traditional governance patterns, may easily fall back into more traditional, linear
planning practices and their orientation towards sustainable development may become
superseded by dominant discourses about economic growth and competitiveness
(Scrase and Smith 2009).16 It therefore seems central to strengthen and clarify
sustainable development as a policy problem that transition management is addressing.
14
However, there is a political dilemma here. Fictional certainties have their political uses (Rip 2006). In
not presenting transition management as a theory of governance that has all the answers, but as something
more modest, might it lack an ability to galvanize and mobilize support?
15
`
Consider transition management more as a process of phronesis than techne, i.e. a process of prag-
matically synthesizing the resolution of situated and contextualised problems, with considerations pertaining
to the feasibility and acceptability of visions (Grin 2000; Flyvbjerg 2001).
16
While transition management discourse started from persistent problems, it has developed into a very
broad and general framework of evolutionary political steering. The precise character of transitions moves
into the background and with it the substantive challenges which it sought to deal with in the first place
(Meadowcroft 2009; Heiskanen et al. 2009). This makes the governance approach susceptible to abuse, as
well as difficult to keep on course at the same time as allowing for probing and adaptation in the design
process.
123

20. 294 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
As with the governance of socio-technical change, policy design for transition
management has to be clear about the vision and the goals for which experiments with
policy options are carried out. Otherwise policy innovation becomes all too easily
incorporated by the incumbent regime and instrumentalized for its purposes.
Table 1 provides a summary of these discussions. The recommendations of transition
management advocates are contrasted with the experience of practising transition
management as revealed in this Special Issue. In a third column we make some
recommendations of our own, drawing on the lessons from the Special Issue, and suggest
how some of the promise of transition insights might be made to work more fruitfully in
the future.
Conclusions
In conclusion, we come back to our question of how transition management as a design for
reflexive governance works in practice and how it crosses the gap between envisaged long-
term policy practices and existing governance patterns. We believe that transition man-
agement, both as a conceptual framework and a range of concrete policy experiments, does
open new avenues for long-term policy design. These could lead us out of some of the
conceptual dilemmas of planning and offer a real alternative to short-term oriented market-
liberalism. Our synopsis of the analyses of transition management experience in this
Special Issue has shown, however, that long-term policy design is an ongoing process,
embedded in broader political contexts, and with dynamics of its own. Transition man-
agement in its current form is not there, yet. Indeed, recent developments are disap-
pointing. They show a susceptibility of the transition management concept to the more
technocratic aspirations of policy makers and policy advisors, as well the possibility to
become instrumentalized for the goals and interests of particular powerful actors. Such
developments may pervert the original promise of the concept. Specifically, the probing of
transition management designs cautions against blind reliance in mechanisms of co-evo-
lutionary change and societal learning to bring about sustainable development. This should
be noted by advocates of reflexive governance more generally.
Transition management in practice is currently right in the middle of the trying to
extricate its envisaged design from established governance patterns. The coming years will
be crucial for shaping the pathway of transition management as an innovation in gover-
nance. The process may be drawn back into the power games, paradigms and institutions of
‘politics as usual’; or it may overcome teething problems and give shape to new actor
networks and reflexive governance practices that develop some robustness and promise. A
lot depends on how the design of transition management itself becomes adapted and
reinforced with a view to anchoring new governance practices in the context of established
democratic politics, whilst at the same time facilitating the transformative potential of a
new democratic politics.
A broader network of scholars and interested policy makers has emerged and engages
with the basic ideas of transition management. Within this broader constituency, the
shortcomings of transition management are being articulated and constructive work is
undertaken to overcome them. This Special Issue is itself part of this process. The
development of transition management will continue. Other, now dominant policy designs,
like ‘emissions trading’, for example, took more than 20 years to become stabilized and
more than 30 years to spread across the world. A change in broader policy discourse and
123

21. Table 1 Summary of transition management design and re-design issues
Design issue Transition management concept Transition management in practice Re-designing transition management
Goals Overcoming ‘persistent problems’ of The promotion of technological niches with Nurture broader societal discourse on
environmental policy, achieving transition commercial potential for the world market sustainable development, objectives of
in pervasive socio-technical systems transitions, and challenge the legitimacy of
towards sustainable patterns of production existing socio-technical systems
and consumption
Organisation of transition Visionary regime actors and innovative Dominance by regime incumbents with Establish principles and guidelines for
Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
arena newcomers vested interests selection of participants and moderation of
interaction processes to ensure broad
participation of actors who co-produce
new system and those who are affected
Role of visions Construction of visions by frontrunners Visions are constructed by incumbents and Construction of visions by participants to
informs and precedes strategy lack concreteness to inform strategies or make tension between normative desires
development and design of experiments select experiments and feasibility considerations productive
and generate creativity
Experimentation Real world experiments with portfolio of Evasion of political choices with respect to Procedures to select, design experiments to
options for alternative socio-technical public support for technological options secure linkage with public debate about
systems sustainability
Evaluation and learning Evolutionary selection process, options Evaluation by insiders according to narrow Evaluation criteria negotiated widely for the
prove their feasibility in real world techno-economic criteria broad societal implications of alternative
context, evaluation with respect to pathways to sustainable development,
potential to contribute to the vision learning from experiments and overall
process embedded in democratic
institutions
Sources of legitimacy The goal of sustainable development Economic and technological position and Inclusive participation, transparency and
expertise of participants publicity of choices, coupling with
established institutions of representative
democracy
Embedding in political Transition management is being Transition management is held up as an ideal Policy design as innovation process, work
context implemented by choice of government, concept while established institutions and towards realisation of objectives by
transition arenas recommend successive power constellations constrain continually designing in context
changes to political institutions implementation
295
123

22. 296 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
dominant paradigms towards privatisation and market liberalisation was supportive of this
‘innovation’ in environmental governance (Voß 2007a). The future pathways for transition
management will depend on a similar magnitude of contextual change. Whilst this involves
processes beyond advocates’ control, they can nevertheless develop political strategies to
grasp the opportunities presented by those processes.
With studying transition management in practice, we set out to learn for the future, how
to make reflexive governance work in the context of real world politics. There are some
particular challenges for transformative long-term policy design which could be identified
in studying this case. The most outstanding issues are linked to power, politics and
democratic legitimacy in societal learning. Against this background, important issues for
further research involve the interaction between transition management efforts and their
wider institutional context. To mention one crucial issue, the notion of reflexivity should be
refined so as to comprise attempts to anticipate and mitigate the capture of transitions in
that context. And it is crucial to understand that transition management processes cannot
and need not resolve these problems by itself: legitimization processes, for instance, seem
to take place especially at the interfaces between transition management arrangements and
a variety of other institutional practices (cf. Hendriks and Grin 2007, pp. 342–346).
Future efforts to develop transition management and related governance concepts need
to concentrate on the design of procedures for the selection of participants in vision
development and experimentation. Of equal importance is a procedural framework for
balancing asymmetrical power relations within those collaborative processes. These two
points can help to create democratic legitimacy of societal learning arenas by inclusiveness
and fairness of the process. They cannot completely substitute for the legitimacy of
institutions of liberal democracy when it comes to difficult decisions about trade-offs, e.g.
between competing socio-technological options that shall become part of portfolio of
experiments. An important area for future design work thus comprises linkage between
reflexive arenas and established institutions such as parliaments and public debate.
Our analysis also confirms that long-term policy design is an open-ended process and
that irony of design is endemic. There is no guarantee of success. With the articulation of
challenges, however, we seek to contribute to the possibility of developing new reflexive
forms of governance that help shape sustainable development. With framing policy design
as a challenge of innovating governance we suggest that contingencies can be taken up in a
reflexive manner while working towards envisaged changes in governance patterns.
Conceptual frameworks and model designs can play a role as guiding frames, not as master
plans, which means that they must co-evolve with implementation experience from con-
crete application contexts.
An important insight from studying transition management in practice is that substan-
tive policy goals can easily get out of sight when the concern for complex dynamics pairs
with the fascination for new technologies of governance. Policy analysts and designers
may be drawn into ‘tilting with systems’ (Meadowcroft 2009) instead of working towards
the solution or transformation of concrete policy problems. This may be a point of more
general relevance with respect to reflexive governance approaches that put procedure up
front and refrain from fixing detailed targets and measures at the outset of the process. In
order not to loose direction transition management needs to keep ‘sustainable develop-
ment’ in view, also in practice, and let the search for solutions be guided by reflection on
how they contribute to cope with this policy challenge (Meadowcroft 2009). This may
require activities to stimulate public debate about the goal of ‘sustainable development’ as
part of the design process. Only by keeping radical goals clearly in view can transition
management overcome incrementalist shortcomings; envisioning radical changes in the
123

23. Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302 297
long-term whilst recognizing that current structures and dynamics will influence the ability
to get to that future.
Broad and open discussion of issues and procedures of socio-technical change that are
part of transition management may, in the end, stimulate debate about concepts of dem-
ocratic legitimacy. New reflexive forms of governance which seek to involve a diversity of
societal actors in interactive learning processes still require further development of our
understanding of democracy (Hendriks 2009). Such broader debate initiated through
engagement with new designs for ‘reflexive governance’ may remind us of the original
ideas and principal virtues of the basic institutions of democracy. One may even note that
democratic politics actually is a form of reflexive governance already taken up in the
constitution of modern nation states: Democratic polities provoke the articulation of future
visions, allow for novel socio-technical practices to prosper, grant space for a plurality of
constituencies to advocate diverse solutions, and provide for their contestation in public
controversy to sort out differences, construct compromises, build coalitions and finally
make decisions about trade-offs. Democracy as we know it may thus be recognized as an
already well established design for the governance of complex change. One may argue,
that it struggles to keep pace with rapid changes such as technological change, demo-
graphic transformations, knowledge society, globalising markets, etc. And it shows some
weaknesses to deal with the requirement for re-distributive transformative changes like
sustainable development. Building on the potential of existing institutions with a view to
revive and where necessary rethink democracy on a broader level of political systems may
still be a complementary way to engage with long-term development: improve existing
practices of democratic governance with a view to enhance the articulation of alternative
long-term pathways of societal development, strengthen capacities of diverse groups to
engage with these future images, and support marginal groups as challengers to established
systems in order to increase political diversity. Reflexivity in governance for sustainable
development could then be understood primarily as a property of the governance system as
a whole, not as something that can just be added by specifical social designs.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Carolyn Hendriks, Toddi Steelman and the two anonymous
referees for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
References
Arts, B., & van Tatenhove, J. (2005). Policy and power: A conceptual framework between the ‘‘old’’ and
‘‘new’’ policy idioms. Policy Sciences, 37(3–4), 339–356.
Avelino, F. (2009). Empowerment and the challenge of applying transition management to ongoing projects.
Policy Sciences, 42(4), 369–390.
Bardach, E. (1977). The implementation game: What happens after a bill becomes a law. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Beck, U. (1994). The reinvention of politics: Towards a theory of reflexive modernization. In U. Beck,
A. Giddens, & S. Lash (Eds.), Reflexive modernization (pp. 1–55). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Berkhout, F., Smith, A., & Stirling, A. (2004). Socio-technical regimes and transition contexts. In B. Elzen,
F. W. Geels, & K. Green (Eds.), System innovation the transition to sustainability. Theory, evidence,
and policy (pp. 48–75). Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
Bobrow, D., & Dryzek, J. S. (1987). Policy analysis by design. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Derthick, M. (1972). New towns in-town. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. New York: Holt.
Dienel, P., & Renn, O. (1995). Planning cells: A gate to ‘fractal’ mediation. In O. Renn, T. Webler, &
P. Wiedemann (Eds.), Fairness and competence in citizen participation (pp. 117–140). Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
123

24. 298 Policy Sci (2009) 42:275–302
Dietz, F., Brouwer, H., & Weterings, R. (2008). Energy transition experiments in the Netherlands. In J. C. J.
M. van den Bergh & F. Bruinsma (Eds. in association with R. Vreeker & A. Idenburg), Managing the
transition to renewable energy: Theory and macro-regional practice (pp. 217–244). Cheltenham, UK:
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: Co-evolution of problem-solution. Design
Studies, 22, 425–437.
Elmore, R. F. (1985). Forward and backward mapping. In K. Hanf & D. Toonen (Eds.), Policy imple-
mentation in federal and unitary systems (pp. 33–70). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Fischer, F. (1980). Politics, values and public policy. The problem of methodology. Boulder, Col.: Westview
Press.
Fischer, F. (1990). Technocracy and the politics of expertise. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Fischer, F. (1995). Evaluating public policy. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Fischer, F. (2003). Reframing public policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, F., & Forester, J. (1993). The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forester, J. (1984). Bounded rationality and the politics of muddling through. Public Administration Review,
44(1), 23–31.
Forester, J. (1999). The deliberative practitioner. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Friedmann, J. (1987). Planning in the public domain: From knowledge to action. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Geels, F. W. (2001). Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: A multi-level
perspective and a case-study. Presented at the conference ‘‘The Future of Innovation Studies’’,
organised by ECIS (Eindhoven Centre of innovation Studies) Eindhoven.
Geels, F. W., & Schot, J. W. (2007). Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy,
36(3), 399–417.
Giddens, A. (1991). Consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (2009). The politics of climate change. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Grin, J. (2000). Vision assessment to support shaping 21st century society technology assessment as a tool
for political judgement. In J. Grin & A. Grunwald (Eds.), Vision assessment: Shaping technology in
21st century society. Towards a repertoire for technology assessment. New York: Heidelberg; Berlin:
Springer Verlag.
Grin, J. (2006). Reflexive modernisation as a governance issue, or: Designing and shaping re-structuration.
In J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable development
(pp. 57–81). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Grin, J. (2008). The multi-level perspective and the design of system innovations (Chap. 3, pp. 47–80). In
J. C. J. M. van den Bergh & F. Bruinsma (Eds. in association with R. Vreeker & A. Idenburg),
Managing the transition to renewable energy: Theory and macro-regional practice. Cheltenham, UK:
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Grin, J., & Loeber, A. (2007). Theories of policy learning: Agency, structure, and change. In F. Fischer, G. J.
Miller, & M. S. Sidney (Eds.), Handbook of public policy analysis (pp. 201–219). London: Taylor &
Francis.
Grin, J., & van de Graaf, H. (1996). Implementation as communicative action. An interpretive understanding
of interactions between policy actors and target groups. Policy Sciences, 29(4), 291–319.
Grin, J., & van Staveren, A. (2007). Werken aan systeeminnovaties. Lessen uit de ervaringen van Inno-
vatieNetwerk en andere praktijkorganisaties. Assen: Van Gorcum.
Grunwald, A. (2000). Technology policy between long-term planning requirements and short-ranged
acceptance problems. New challenges for technology assessment. In J. Grin & A. Grunwald (Eds.),
Vision assessment: Shaping technology in the 21st century society. towards a repertoire for technology
assessment (pp. 99–148). Berlin: Springer.
Gunderson, L. H., & Holling, C. S. (2002). Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural
systems. Washington: Island Press.
Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative planning. Shaping places in fragmented societies. Houndsmil &
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Heclo, H. (1974). Social policy in Britain and Sweden. New Have, CT: Yale University Press.
Heiskanen, E., et al. (2009). Designed to travel? Transition Management encounters environmental and
innovation policy histories in Finland. Policy Sciences, 42(4), 409–427.
Hendriks, C. (2009). Policy design without democracy? Making democratic sense of transition management.
Policy Sciences, 42(4), 341–368.
123