Abstract
Experimentalist forms of governance have burgeoned across policy areas and institutional contexts in recent years. Recognizing that experimentalist forms of governance can evolve along a plethora of distinct pathways, this paper inquires how the evolutionary nature of experimentalism can be explored in greater depth. Linking the framework of experimentalist governance to that of Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT), the paper identifies three driving mechanisms of contingency in experimentalism: governance being (1) self-referential, (2) rooted in observation, and (3) steered by dependencies. The paper then refers to recent efforts in the realm of energy transition governance in the Netherlands to illustrate how these contingency mechanisms can help to interrogate the variegated evolutionary pathways that experimentalist governance may have in practice. Building on this Dutch empirical context, the paper puts forward evolutionary path- and context-mapping as a fruitful tool for identifying and disentangling the myriad of pathways along which experimentalism may manifest itself.
Highlights
In recent years, experimentalist forms of governance have burgeoned as a means to enable decision-making under complex conditions
To support the theoretical arguments we put forward, we draw on empirical examples from experimentalist energy transition governance efforts in the Netherlands retrieved through desk research and document analysis. We argue that these empirical illustrations—by far, not constituting an exhaustive case study of Dutch energy transition governance—demonstrate that “evolutionary path- and context-mapping” can be a fruitful tool to identify and disentangle the evolutionary pathways along which experimentalist governance may manifest itself in practice
Our empirical analysis demonstrated that certain goal dependencies in energy transition governance may generate material dependencies that, in turn, trigger particular actors to call for revised, more balanced forms of governance (i.e., Dutch distribution system operators (DSOs) pleading for more “integral” infrastructure planning in the Regional Energy Strategies (RES))
Summary
Experimentalist forms of governance have burgeoned as a means to enable decision-making under complex conditions. Several studies have namely identified that experimentalist forms of governance can unfold along different pathways, each with their own starting points, causal mechanisms, and levels of operation [1,2,3]. We do so by examining experimentalism through an analytical lens attuned to illuminating the evolutionary nature of governance: Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT). EGT considers governance to be “radically evolutionary” in the sense that decision-making structures never stop evolving [4,5]. According to EGT, systems of governance transform continuously over time and in relation to the context they are situated in. Every governance system is conceived to evolve along an inherently contingent pathway
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