Flatpack democracy: Power and politics at the boundaries of transition

Abstract

AbstractThis paper seeks to critically assess how “radical” sustainability approaches that challenge “mainstream” development trajectories—and politics—are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche–regime dynamics. In our in‐depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an “independent” group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non‐partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its “Flatpack Democracy” model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche “protagonists” through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche–regime interface, which helped to create a community‐level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within “liminal transition spaces”, interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio‐political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross‐purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much‐needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.