Abstract
When societies are faced with complex technological problems such as energy transitions, two basic approaches to governance are usually mobilized. On the one hand, there are methods that emphasize the need for enlarging the range of knowledge that is taken on board when decisions are to be made. On the other hand, there are methods that emphasize the enrolment of a broader range of actors. In practice, these approaches conflate uncritically, which fails to bring out the potential that each has for specific challenges. We investigate how these two basic approaches can be brought together more systematically, in such a way that their potential vis-a-vis specific challenges, including energy transitions, is maximized. The article offers a conceptual exploration. Building on existing approaches, we offer a novel conceptualization of how modes in the governance of complex technological problems can be classified, using energy transitions as a strategic research site. We offer a typology of strategies built along two axes: the degree of closure, i.e. the extent to which things can still be (re)negotiated and/or their actual implementation questioned, and the degree of inclusiveness, i.e. the extent to which processes are open to all people, as opposed to for example merely policymakers or technoscientific experts. Through the typology, we find four clusters spanned by these two dimensions, which each call for specific governance strategies and each inform specific connections between the actor base and knowledge base of intervention. Important potentials for the governance of complex technological problems are currently left untapped, if the actor and knowledge bases are unreflexively mobilized. The proposed framework helps realize more of these potentials, by offering advice for how modes of governance with different degrees of closure and inclusiveness can be mobilized.
Highlights
When societies are faced with complex technological problems such as energy transitions, two basic approaches to governance are usually mobilized
Lessons for governing complex issues Underlying the proposed argument is a recognition that the inclusion of knowledges as well as actors, when it comes to governance of complex problems such as energy transitions and others, has hitherto been assumed too uncritically
The field of modes of governance we proposed above helps operationalize the idea that the solution of complex problems requires that multiple perspectives are brought to bear on the very problem
Summary
When societies are faced with complex technological problems such as energy transitions, two basic approaches to governance are usually mobilized. There are methods that emphasize the enrolment of a broader range of actors These approaches conflate uncritically, which fails to bring out the potential that each has for specific challenges. We put together a conceptual framework that situates modes of governance into an ordered field This framework builds on two dimensions: the degree to which new actors and new knowledges can be mobilized, or the level of inclusiveness, and the degree to which knowledges, technological designs and institutional arrangements become stabilized, or the level of closure. These two dimensions span a field in which four basic quadrants can be identified. The following argument will contribute to the literature on governance of transitions—and complex problems at large—a further sensitivity for the specific constraints and affordances to which actors and their knowledge are subject
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