Actor Constellations Research Articles

Multi-system interactions in hydrogen-based sector coupling projects: System entanglers as key actors

In advanced transition processes sector coupling becomes key to reach net zero objectives. The literature on multi-system interactions addresses the coupling of different systems by analysing how technologies, institutions, and actors connect. Our contribution zooms in on better understanding the concrete activities and characteristics of actors who work to integrate different systems. It is crucial to understand how actors realise the integration of sectors as the coupling represents a major bottleneck in accelerating transition processes. To identify their activities, we build on the recently established concept of transition work, which adapts the institutional work framework for use in the analysis of transition processes and link it to the concept of ‘system entanglers’. System entanglers are actors who connect different systems. Empirically, we apply our conceptual framework to three qualitative case studies of hydrogen-based sector coupling projects within mobility, heating, and industry in Germany. We find that for system entanglers cross-sectoral competencies and learning, as well as fostering between-system links, are key to connect different systems. We identify further key characteristics of system entanglers and discuss how the sectoral context, the constellation of actors in projects, and the self-perception of the respective actors matter.

Everyday politics in collaborative governance of (non)networked water infrastructures in rural and small towns of Ghana

Following the increasing failure of participatory governed planning interventions in attaining inclusive outcomes, critical governance scholars have articulated the need to pay attention to politics, especially in the global South. Motivated by this pertinent scholarly invitation, this study examines the politics in a state-community collaboration involving the provision, operations and maintenance of water infrastructures in rural and small towns of Ghana. By drawing on everyday politics and the qualitative case study, we explore the actors involved and their roles, the rules guiding the collaboration, the power relations, and how activities were performed; and offer a reflection on the implications for inclusive governance. We showed that though state-community collaboration holds the potential for joint deliberation towards the operations and maintenance of water projects, instead, it manifested more of a representation in practice, where rules and principles of the collaboration were pre-defined by state actors and served non-state actors in the implementation (provision of labour, financial/material inputs and meetings). These were shaped by the diverse interests and uneven power relations between state and non-state actors and among community-level representatives, including experts’ power of dominance by knowledge, and the quest for incentives in the collaboration. The findings suggest that the constellation of actors and the uneven power relations inherent in collaborative governance arrangements tend to empower actors with the “powers over” and “powers to” empower non-state actors. Therefore, we recommend that planners and policy-makers pay attention to power relations and dynamics among actors by conducting power dynamic mapping toward building partnerships for inclusive governance.

Towards a Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) approach, application for Dutch sustainable maritime shipping

This paper builds on the literature on mission-oriented innovation policy, governance, transition studies and innovation systems, and develops a structural-functional approach to formatively evaluate mission governance from a Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) perspective. Central to this MIS approach is the mission arena, a governance structure where actors formulate and govern the mission, by mobilizing and directing other, preexisting system components. Their goal is to meet the mission by developing and diffusing innovative mission solutions and destabilizing harmful practices. The MIS approach involves a problem-solutions diagnosis and an analysis of structural, functional, and systemic barriers. To provide formative mission governance recommendations, the systemic barriers are then contrasted with the mission arena’s governance tasks. To illustrate the value of the MIS approach, we use a case study of the Dutch mission for sustainable maritime shipping. This case study illustrates a mission arena striving to increase coherence amongst different innovation system structures in semblance of a MIS. The mission arena configuration of actors shaped the mission formulation and negotiated governance actions. Dominant industry networks negotiated green growth as problem direction and non-committal governance actions, which are likely ineffective for inherently transformative sustainability missions. The paper concludes by identifying directions for further developing the MIS approach and the mission arena concept.

Mapping energy citizenship in the south of Europe.

The adoption of new global approaches in the field of energy democratization requires inquiring into how people act to shape the energy system. This is where the concept of energy citizenship (ENCI) appears as a constellation of actors that enable and/or support citizens to became active participants in the debates and energy systems both in private and public sphere, or as a collective citizen that contributes to change (Pel et al., 2021). The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of ENCI in Southern Europe. Using a mixed approach, an extensive mapping of 43 ENCI initiatives in Spain (n = 29) and Portugal (n = 14) was conducted through desktop research, and a stakeholder consultation workshop (n = 7) was carried out through a focus group. Results revealed the major presence of collective ENCI types, with the citizen-based/hybrid one standing out (e.g., energy cooperatives). Most of them were motivated by the interest to contribute to energy transition or to produce and/or use renewable energy, and aimed at promoting energy saving, energy justice and reducing the carbon footprint. The general tendency is towards active participation (in Spain) and transformative forms (in Portugal). The possibilities for citizen control in the initiatives analysed is still limited. These results were confirmed by stakeholders who, additionally, pointed out the major political, social, economic, and geographical factors related to ENCI forms. In short, various types of ENCI could be validated in the Spanish and Portuguese context, showing a commitment to sustainability, democracy, and energy justice. Other non-evidenced forms may be raised as a challenge to further in-depth research on latent forms of ENCI in Southern Europe.

Satellites and the Changing Politics of Transparency in World Politics

This article explores the degree to which commercial satellite imagery has empowered non-state actors in the politics of transparency in world politics. This question has received renewed attention in the wake of the disclosure of China’s new missile silos in 2021 as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2022. The article contributes to research on this question by teasing out the competition over authority undergirding the politics of transparency. It does so in two steps: it conceptualizes the politics of transparency as involving a combination of state and non-state actors engaging in transparency efforts against another state or other states and it distinguishes four aspects of the empowerment of non-state actors in such constellations of actors: (a) the emergence of new or better disclosure devices that (b) bolster the expertise of some non-state actors, (c) giving them more influence over public debates, and (d) prompting changes in the policies of relevant actors. The article uses this framework to explore the factors that affected the degree of empowerment of non-state actors in the two cases of China’s new missile silos as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine. It highlights three factors: the interplay between state and non-state transparency makers, the polarization of public spheres, and the ability of states targeted by the transparency efforts to fragment public spheres.

Work and income: the challenge of implementing universal basic income in Brazil

The new configuration of global economic actors and the dampening of productive activity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought ideals like Universal Basic Income (UBI) to the forefront in the search for alternatives to national development. However, UBI faces resistance as it is associated with discouraging labor activity, which would affect the proper functioning of the economy. The objective of this research was to analyze the condition of work and income in Brazil based on data obtained from the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios Contínua – Divulgação Trimestral (PNADC/T), for the period 2012-2022, with the intention of delineating its current scenario and assessing whether UBI would bring about the negative impacts associated with it in the economy. The results demonstrate that the supply of work and income does not respond to job and income generation programs and tends towards precariousness and informality in the world of work, along with restricted access to income, which does not constitute an impediment to the adoption of UBI.

Technopolitics of future-making: The ambiguous role of energy communities in shaping energy system change

Implementing the EU Clean Energy Package (CEP) and its provisions for strengthening energy communities – the cooperative production and management of energy at local level by citizens, a concept emphasising citizen participation and empowerment – has opened a new arena for contestations over energy futures in Sweden. An aim of CEP is to contribute to just energy transitions through citizen participation and democratisation by using the potential of energy communities to reconfigure socio-material relations of the energy system. However, different actor constellations claim interpretative privilege about the role and importance of energy communities in a low-carbon future. To better understand political contestations over energy futures, we unpack broader discursive patterns and their socio-material enactments related to legally define and regulate the operation of energy communities in Sweden. Through the analytical lens of socio-technical imaginaries and technopolitics, we explore struggles over energy futures within conduits of institutionalised policymaking and attempts by energy communities to navigate technopolitical barriers in relation to grid infrastructure, power relations, actor constellations, rules and regulations and knowledge claims. We find that energy communities are not easily accommodated to the dominant socio-technical imaginary of Sweden’s energy future. What is at stake in processes related to the transposition of the CEP into national law is essentially different political ideas of how society should be organised.

Conflict shapes in flux: Explaining spatial shift in conflict-related violence

In contemporary armed conflict, the spatiality of violence and the constellation of actors involved in it change frequently, but how these changes affect one another remains poorly understood. What explains the spatial shift of areas affected by violence in multi-actor conflicts? We argue that the emergence of a new dominant conflict actor facilitates a shift in conflict-related violence. We theorize the causal mechanism as ‘low-risk/high-opportunity attraction’. It exists in territories where these actors can draw on a local support base and enhance capacities to engage in violence. To demonstrate our theory’s validity, we conduct two plausibility probes: on the conflict in Colombia paired with the conflict in the Lake Chad region, and on the conflict in the Afghan–Pakistani borderlands paired with the conflict in Iraq/Syria. We adopt a mixed-methods approach integrating visualizations, spatial analysis, network analysis and process tracing, drawing, inter alia, on interviews from remote regions of war-torn Colombia and Iraq.

Urban electricity governance and the (re)production of heterogeneous electricity constellations in Dar es Salaam

BackgroundElectricity infrastructures in sub-Saharan African cities are characterized by heterogeneous socio-technical constellations, including alternative grid access channels and off-grid systems. These constellations secure access beyond conventional grids but also produce adverse social, environmental, and economic outcomes affecting sustainable energy transition efforts. In fact, interventions aiming to promote energy transitions may be restricted by institutional mechanisms that produce and maintain these heterogeneous constellations. This article explores these institutional mechanisms by focusing on the governance of heterogeneous electricity constellations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It develops a novel framework on governance modalities to understand and explain the logics, mechanisms, and actors that govern different constellations across diverse neighborhoods as well as to unpack how they limit the potential of sustainable energy transitions and offer specific opportunities for them.ResultsThis article is based on a qualitative case study covering three diverse neighborhood types in Dar es Salaam (i.e., low-income, peri-urban, and affluent areas) that reflect heterogeneous user demands. The research draws on interviews with residents and community leaders to understand local modes of coordination, the participatory observation of technical features and user practices, as well as document sources and semi-structured expert interviews to analyze institutional aspects. Our study demonstrates that heterogeneous electricity constellations in Dar es Salaam are governed by the place-based interplay of four governance modalities: hierarchical, market-based, network-based, and managerial governance. Based on this conceptualization, we identified critical barriers for interventions toward urban energy transitions in the context of infrastructural heterogeneity, namely, conflicting logics that shape conventional grid services, complex and fragmented actor constellations, and diverging, place-based interests among various actors, including different state actors.ConclusionsOur study indicates that heterogeneous urban infrastructure constellations are not merely a response to the considerable socio-spatial inequalities within Southern cities. Rather, their prevailing importance and (re)production must be understood as resulting from the interplay of various governance modalities. The study contributes to debates on urban energy transitions in sub-Sahara Africa by explaining the institutional complexity associated with infrastructural heterogeneity, which can restrict interventions aiming to improve and universalize service provision through heterogeneous urban electricity constellations.

A review of how we study coastal and marine conflicts: is social science taking a broad enough view?

Conflict in the marine environment is of increasing relevance as blue growth boundaries are pushed and resource access and use are in dispute. Social science disciplines have a long history and a wide range of approaches for studying conflict. However, understanding the approaches used to study marine conflict is challenging since the literature is large, broad, difficult to navigate, and there is little connection between conflict themes and the associated methods used to analyze these conflicts. In the present study, we take a first step to address this by systematically reviewing 109 peer-reviewed articles that employ empirical social science methods to study marine conflict. We find that studies on marine conflicts have centered on disputed space, mainly at local scale, and natural resources, such as fish. The main parties at the center of the conflicts are small-scale fisheries and public authorities, although with a growing presence of blue growth sectors. Most studies employed qualitative approaches to study marine conflicts. Current gaps in the understanding of marine conflict include gaps in understanding relational interactions and historical causal events. The need for social science research into marine conflict and the application of multiple social science methods is ongoing as different constellations of conflict actors emerge and as disputed ocean spaces expand beyond EEZs, to include polar regions, and the sea floor.

Provisional by design. Frontex data infrastructures and the Europeanization of migration and border control

ABSTRACT Data infrastructures for the Frontex joint operations are often only temporary and thus in need of being built up and removed easily, adjustable to changing constellations of security actors, and adaptable to new situations. They need to work through flaws, gaps, and inconsistencies. Still, they fabricate data used for the re-identification of migrants, police investigations, situational pictures, or risk analysis and lead to the intensification of security practices of Frontex. This is accomplished by data infrastructures that are provisional by design. People and forms are used as provisional gateway to interconnect various installed bases of national police and coast guard authorities, informal communication channels and ‘other’ entry fields proliferate around partially standardized classification systems, and ongoing coordination and repair tame and validate the proliferation of data. With this, the data infrastructure of joint border operations hints to a mode of Europeanization that is neither supranational nor intergovernmental. Instead of centralized administrations or fully integrated information systems, it aims for partial harmonization through interconnecting loosely information systems and institutional ecologies of national and EU agencies alike. This causes issues of accountability and requires an analysis that takes the mundane socio-technical conditions of knowledge production into account.

Women’s Rights Close to Home? The Miami-Dade County CEDAW Ordinance as Local Practice

Abstract Because of the United States’ minimal domestic engagement with human rights, several subnational initiatives, including the Cities for CEDAW campaign, have formed to infuse human rights into local policy making. Analyzing Miami-Dade County as one locale within the Cities for CEDAW network, this article asks what happens to human rights when they are turned into urban policies. Drawing on literature theorizing the complexities of urban human rights activism and using an interpretivist framework of analysis, the article reconstructs local context features and practices promoting gender equality through the countywide CEDAW ordinance. It develops a narrative based on expert interviews and finds an unusual actor constellation in which a local officeholder led the way rather than community activists. The practices identified work within institutional constraints and highlight data collection to support informed gender policy making. The findings lead to the conclusion that both activists and scholars should think beyond the dynamics of policy formulation and more explicitly about the complexities of implementation.

Multilevel governance of energy transitions in Europe: Addressing wicked problems of coordination, justice, and power in energy policy

AbstractConcerns about energy transition and policies to achieve a clean energy Europe are omnipresent in all European discourses. A transformation dynamic has captured all European states, whereby the extent, scope, and direction of this transition vary between different (EU member‑) states and political levels (European, national, federal, local). Likewise, governance dynamics and policies vary between the different European governance and regulatory systems. This Special Issue aims to take stock and discuss approaches in governance and policy research to assess, analyse and evaluate this variance from a theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspective. Of particular interest are recourses to investigate concepts describing and analysing the formation of new policy fields. Within the framework of the Special Issue, the role of specific architectures in which the energy transformation in Europe is embedded (e.g., federalism and multi-level structures, institutional constellations of actors, multi-sector networks, etc.) are analysed to explain the energy transition policies and their transformative properties. Linking the empirical results back to basic research concepts and relating the results to the existing approaches in policy and governance research facilitates a better understanding of the energy transition as a classic and/or new transformation policy.

The politics of supply chain regulations: Towards foreign corporate accountability in the area of human rights and the environment?

AbstractIn recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empirically investigates foreign accountability dynamics. We do so by advancing an analytical framework that conceptualizes FCA and identify important contextual conditions that help to explain accountability dynamics. Applying this framework, we show that the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of such regulations are highly political processes, wherein competing ideas embedded within unequal actor constellations and institutional environments shape the possibilities to achieve more transformative change. By theorizing and empirically investigating FCA dynamics, we contribute to advance debates about the sustainability governance of global supply chains.

Systems Thinking, Mapping and Change in Food and Agriculture

Societal actors across scales and geographies increasingly demand visual applications of systems thinking – the process of understanding and changing the reality of a system by considering its whole set of interdependencies – to address complex problems affecting food and agriculture. Yet, despite the wide offer of systems mapping tools, there is still little guidance for managers, policy-makers, civil society and changemakers in food and agriculture on how to choose, combine and use these tools on the basis of a sufficiently deep understanding of socio-ecological systems. Unfortunately, actors seeking to address complex problems with inadequate understandings of systems often have limited influence on the socio-ecological systems they inhabit, and sometimes even generate unintended negative consequences. Hence, we first review, discuss and exemplify seven key features of systems that should be – but rarely have been – incorporated in strategic decisions in the agri-food sector: interdependency, level-multiplicity, dynamism, path dependency, self-organization, non-linearity and complex causality. Second, on the basis of these features, we propose a collective process to systems mapping that grounds on the notion that the configuration of problems (i.e., how multiple issues entangle with each other) and the configuration of actors (i.e., how multiple actors relate to each other and share resources) represent two sides of the same coin. Third, we provide implications for societal actors - including decision-makers, trainers and facilitators - using systems mapping to trigger or accelerate systems change in five purposive ways: targeting multiple goals; generating ripple effects; mitigating unintended consequences; tackling systemic constraints, and collaborating with unconventional partners.

Fraternal natalism: demographic anxieties and the righteous state in Turkey

This article develops the concept of fraternal natalism to examine the long-standing alliances between different state actors in Turkey –governments, physicians, religious authorities, and the military– to build, restore, and consolidate reproductive righteousness. It argues that fraternal natalism relies on a narrative of a national crisis to put forward and justify controversial policies in line with the Turkish state's reproductive imaginaries. This natalism provokes demographic anxieties about religious and ethnoracialized “others,” casting them as inherently dangerous for the nation's continuity and security. Looking at these strategies through the lens of fraternal natalism exposes the continuities and disjunctures in reproductive righteousness rather than exceptionalizing particular actors and historical periods. It also reveals how religious rhetoric and constructions of race/ethnicity are mutually foundational in the formation of reproductive politics. Although the article develops the concept through a historical and discursive analysis of reproductive politics in Turkey, it can be applied to other contexts to chart the complex configurations of state actors involved in molding reproductive behaviors and population practices.

Researching (multiple) coordination of action in adult education organizations—Theoretical approaches, empirical findings and future perspectives

The paper aims at analyzing how coordination of action is conceptualized and researched in the context of adult education. Selected perspectives from organization theory are explored with regard to their conceptualizations of coordination of action. Based on a narrative synopsis of studies from adult education research, the paper then shows that there are various actor constellations, coordination mechanisms and influencing factors marking coordination of action as a multi-faceted, multi-level and multi-perspective research phenomenon. Following, key parameters of a research program focusing on multiple coordination of action in adult education organizations are presented.

The Impact of External Dynamics of the Pamir Crisis in 2018-2022

Despite the fact that the Pamir region has been experiencing turbulence for decades, experts agree that lately the central government's course towards Pamir has intensified to an unprecedented degree. The author's hypothesis is that one of the main reasons for this trend is a change in the configuration of external actors' interests. In this regard, the research question is: “What is the impact of key external actors on the dynamics of the Pamir crisis of 2018-2022?” The methodological basis of the study includes a critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, case studies and comparative analysis. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that this topic remains marginal both in Russia and abroad, and in Tajikistan it is often taboo. Another factor preventing this topic from leaving the periphery of scientific knowledge is the inaccessibility of reliable information sources. Based on the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the Pamir crisis is an extremely multifactorial conflict that is becoming increasingly internationalized. Pamir is an extremely resource-rich and promising region, which borders on Afghanistan, ruled by a terrorist regime, and on the Chinese XUAR, where the problems of terrorism, separatism and extremism remain unresolved. All this makes the Pamirs a point of interest intertwining of various external players in economics, security and the military-industrial complex and makes the dynamics of the internal crisis in Pamir dependent on the configuration of these interests.

HYBRID NETWORK METHODS TO DISENTANGLE DATAFICATION IN THE DOMESTIC CONTEXT

Datafication of childhood and family life (Barassi, 2020; Mascheroni & Siibak, 2021) represents one of the main expressions of data colonialism (Couldry & Mejias, 2019). Indeed, data relations are pervading the practices and imaginaries of parenting and childhood to the point of being taken for granted. This poses significant epistemological and methodological challenges. This contribution sets out to advance some methodological proposals to study such phenomena through hybrid methods. Adopting a longitudinal mixed methods research design within a sample of 20 families with young children (0-8 y.o) which combines interviews, observational and visual data (Pink & Leder-Mackley, 2012) and drawing upon the concept of families as communicative figurations (Hepp et al., 2018) we argue that network methods and constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) appear suited as analytical tools to capture the interactions between data (generated by the media practices of each household’s member) and each family figuration with the goal to foreground the power relations at play and bring to the surface taken for granted practices and imaginaries. The first empirical application showed that these techniques allow to map each family’s constellation of actors, their data practices and imaginaries, and the digital media ensemble highlighting patterns of spatial differentiation and the media-related structure of relationships that unveil household’s power relations and norms. Moreover, the resulting visualisations emerged as worth-experimenting means to foster participants’ reflexivity. These results suggest that CGT methodology and hybrid network methods may represent a way to materialize data relations and disentangle data colonialism in family life.

Disentangling the practice of landscape approaches: a Q-method analysis on experiences in socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes

Landscape approaches are gaining momentum in both scientific and policy agendas. However, landscape approaches comprise a multitude of concepts, approaches and principles, which are in part similar, in some parts different or even contradictory. In this paper, we used a Q-method questionnaire to explore how landscape approaches are understood and employed in 45 case studies of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes derived from the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), as well as the motivations for employing them. Our analysis revealed that all landscape approaches pursued very similar goals, namely to ensure that local communities as landscape stewards have the capacity to preserve context-specific values in the face of socio-economic and environmental changes. The tools for reaching such goals are built upon people and nature feedback dynamics that crystalize in rich biodiversity and local ecological knowledge. However, our analysis also showed that the means to reach those goals differed depending on many contextual factors, such as the dominant ecosystems and socio-economic activities in the landscape, the constellation of actors or the most relevant drivers of change affecting the social–ecological system. In particular, we identified four distinct lenses in which landscapes approaches are applied in practice to landscape sustainability: (1) for the preservation of natural values, (2) for the preservation of socio-cultural values, (3) for the promotion of social justice and participatory governance, and (4) for securing food security and local livelihoods. Our results showed an association between the choice of a lens and the value types motivating the use of a landscape approach. Relational values were associated with a focus on landscape conservation and safeguard of social–ecological values. Our study highlights the relevant and beneficial role of landscape approaches as a boundary concept and emphasizes the need for transdisciplinary and participatory methods within landscape research and practice to navigate the context-specific options for implementation of landscape approaches.