Inertia

The concept of inertia suggests no change in societal systems and institutional arrangements. Related path dependency theories try to explain why institutions and established political solutions are change-resistant and remain stable over time (Pierson, 2004). Institutionalist approaches often take a historical account and suggest that present actions and processes are ‘unable to shake free of history’ (David, 2001, p 19) or that ‘what happened at an earlier point in time will affect the possible outcomes of a sequence of events occurring at a later point in time’ (Sewell, 1996, pp 262–263). Mahoney (2000) argues that ‘path dependence characterises specifically those historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patterns or event chains that have deterministic effects’ (p 507).

Social policy research has long pointed to welfare states as stable entities. Esping-Andersen (1996) considered them as ‘frozen landscapes’ unaffected by extensive exogenous pressures. Welfare reform ‘takes place within frameworks of historical institutionalisation’ leading to welfare states being ‘relatively historically stable’ (Esping-Andersen, 1990, p 80). They are ‘immovable objects’ (Hemerijck, 2013, p 93) as reforms are negotiated with coalition governments, federal arrangements or strong regional actors and active social partnerships, where actors with veto power constrain policy reforms. Despite pressure to change (for example, linked to the labour market, demographics or financial crises), welfare state scholars tend to see welfare states as fairly stable. Change is ‘essentially rare’ (Djelic and Quack, 2007, p 165), occurring ‘either in a big bang or hardly at all’ (Schmidt, 2010, p 4).

Three strands of theorising allow us to explore mechanisms of path dependence: utilitarian, normative and habitual models (Sarigil, 2015). First, the stability of welfare and environmental states is tied to utilitarian models of stability and notions such as increasing returns, policy feedback, lock-in and path dependence as a self-reinforcing process (Pierson, 2004). In a utilitarian style, actors are seen as knowledgeable about given alternatives and capable of evaluating and making informed choices. Established institutions are argued to be founded to respond to collective bargaining problems, with stability arising from actors’ cost and benefit calculations.

Although periods of social and political change come with significant ambiguity and include conflicts, Pierson suggests that once a path is put in place, ‘the probability of further steps along the same path increases with each move down that path’ (Pierson, 2000, p 263). Actors’ gains increase the more a path is trodden. As actors continue to invest, ‘the costs of exit – of switching to some previously plausible alternative – rise’ (Pierson, 2000, p 263). This points to the well-known phenomenon of reproduction as ‘actors rationally choose to reproduce institutions – including perhaps sub-optimal institutions because any potential benefits of transformation are outweighed by the costs’ (Mahoney, 2000, p 517). Change, therefore, comes with costs, and the benefits of staying on the established path are more profitable than investing in a new and unknown path (Pierson, 1996).

While such an approach assumes that actors are rational and calculating, driven by intentionality and strategic decision making, it recognises less behaviour as guided by a logic of appropriateness (March and Olsen, 1989). Actors are not isolated individuals (or organisations) but socially embedded, and engage in reproducing social practices ‘not only because of the economic rationality of a standardised behaviour but because, in their agency, they thoughtlessly follow well-rehearsed cultural scripts’ (Lessenich, 2005, p 348). They seek to be legitimate in the eyes of others and adapt to recognised standards and ways of thinking due to their isomorphic behaviour. They follow socially constructed ideals, norms and roles and adjust their behaviour to follow others (Goodin, 1996).

Despite their differences, utilitarian and normative models share some similarities as actors are assumed to be rational, or at least reflexive, regarding their choices. Habitual models follow a different approach (Hopf, 2010) and further stress the significance of adaptation to social norms, cultural scripts and socialised behaviours (Sarigil, 2015). Stability comes more from people doing what they have done before and less due to attempts to follow others (Hopf, 2010). It is fair to say that habitual action includes an element of reflexivity, as a habit is a way to reduce uncertainty through the routinisation of social practices.

Sociologists have long argued that habitual action (as well as utilitarian and appropriate action) is socially distributed. Bourdieu, for example, argued that people’s social position is vitally important for their actions (Bourdieu, 1993; Koch, 2020b). While his theory primarily identified stability within fields, it showed why people’s actions tend to remain stable over time, as they are shaped by the social positions into which they are socialised, thereby limiting their alternatives for action (Bourdieu, 1998). People’s social practices are shaped by their habitus, pointing to the need to study social positions, dispositions and position takings to understand the conditions for an eco-social transformation among a given population (Koch, 2020b; Fritz et al, 2021; see Chapter 5).

Therefore, inertia and related theories indicate the unlikelihood of path departure or integration across environmental and welfare concerns. Each theory explains why change is rare (Nilsson and Eckerberg, 2007; Jordan and Lenschow, 2010). Path dependency theories, for example, explain why cross-cutting departments for sustainable development (such as Agenda 2030 councils and commissions) have been challenging to integrate into national and local administrations. Instead, political specialisation and silo organisation of public policies and administration tend to prevail. Arguably, the persistence of political and organisational silos can be attributed to utilitarian, normative or even habitual models, with a defence of administrative borders as well as professional loyalties and expertise. Mobilisation across causes and frames has also proven difficult, as environmental and welfare groups largely mobilise in connection with one cause and one group.

Emergence

The concept of emergence points to the start of something new. This could include a new path or a change within an established institutional order. Academic interest in emergence comes from a critique of the structuralist and deterministic assumptions in path dependency theories. They point to a ‘deus ex machina’ explanation of future developments (Peters, 1999) or suggest that actors follow a specific trajectory without the possibility of change or exit (Crouch and Farrell, 2004). Theories of emergence suggest that change occurs through small, ongoing and incremental changes within existing systems despite a new path not being in sight. Instead of considering institutions as historically stable artefacts, emergence theorists emphasise them as being ‘inherently open and disjointed, containing many ambiguities, multiple layers, and competing logics’ (Hemerijck, 2013, p 96). As a result, stability and change cannot be conceptualised in an either/or mode. Emergence points to the practices and processes at work between inertia and transformation.

A well-known approach to emergence is Mahoney and Thelen’s (2010) theory of incremental change (see also Streeck and Thelen, 2005). From its name, we learn that the focus lies on change as being ‘likely to follow an incremental pattern of policy change’ (Ferrara and Rhodes, 2007, pp 276–277). Although an established order remains stable and adapts to external pressures because ‘challengers lack the capacity actually to change the original rules’ (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010, p 17), change constantly occurs. It happens through the continuous displacement of existing rules by new ones and the layering of new regulations on top of existing ones. This might occur due to what Hacker (2005) calls ‘drift’, a change of existing rules in response to environmental shifts. Drift can, therefore, signal inertia on the surface but a growing gap between formal rules and actual circumstances and practices. Change might also take place due to conversion practices or strategic redeployment. Actors exploit the ambiguity of a solution to change the rules of the game (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010, p 17; see Angelin et al, 2014, for an application to the Swedish welfare system). Hence, this approach assumes that changes towards sustainable welfare can occur, although present solutions and formal institutions may remain stable. New functions and rules are added to improve the integration of ecological and social concerns, generating nested responses. Considering the increasing pressure and ambition from societal actors to act sustainably, this could lead to drift, as old rules and practices are applied in a situation requiring a more integrated approach, making old practices less relevant.

While theories of incremental change shed light on emergence as taking place within established orders, theories of path generation further explore how and why a new path might emerge. Emergence is identified as a complex process involving the interaction, combination and recombination of present established orders with new and emerging elements (Bothello and Salles-Djelic, 2018). This process is associated with significant ambiguity, and emergence is the potential start of a new path. Emergence, therefore, follows a Polanyian idea of movement and countermovement as being structurally shaped by a point in time that entails pressure for ‘continuity and stimuli for change’ (Djelic and Quack, 2007, p 182).

In that regard, an emerging path is not a singular entity but is shaped by its emergent qualities. Emergence is messy and shaped by crookedness, openness, unintended qualities and practices (Bothello and Salles-Djelic, 2018, p 96). Change towards emergence results from gradual and protracted processes of pressures, contestation and struggles between different interests. Rather than being the result of ‘grand designs’, it can emerge through ‘progressive incrementalism’ – that is, gradual developments that, over time, trigger change of an increasingly transformative nature and might generate new paths that emerge (Cashore and Howlett, 2007; Levin et al, 2012).

Actors play a crucial role in processes of emergence, as it occurs ‘through the cumulative impact through time of a multiplicity of agentic moves’, but it would be misleading to consider these as expressions of ‘purposive action’ (Djelic and Quack, 2007, p 96). To explore practices of emergence, urban sustainability and governance research points to experiments as a driver for change in processes of emergence (Evans et al, 2018). Raven et al (2017) find that public administrators, entrepreneurs, citizens and researchers ‘increasingly come together in these “new political arenas”’, collaborating on ‘experimental projects’ alongside already institutionalised policies and practices. Others suggest that experiments have turned into an institutionalised way of urban governance (Bulkeley and Castán Broto, 2013; Kronsell and Mukthar-Landgren, 2018). In this respect, experiments are part of practising something new and often occur in less occupied spaces. Following Savini and Bertolini (2019), we argue that emergence occurs through ‘niche construction’. They define niches as ‘institutional spaces or episodes wherein social practices generate opportunities for disruption in their regulatory and physical context’ (Savini and Bertolini, 2019, p 833). Niches are linked to regimes following ‘a permanent tension within a particular socio-economic order’ (Savini and Bertolini, 2019, p 833).

The role actors play is less as rule followers and more as rule makers. Beckert’s (1999) distinction between managers and entrepreneurs is illustrative, as managers adapt to external pressure and follow routines, while entrepreneurs leave ‘these behind, looking for new and innovative options’ (Lessenich, 2005, p 349). MacKinnon et al (2019, p 123) use the concept of path advocates similarly as promoters and brokers of new ideas that have path-emerging effects – that is, ‘the development of collective visions or expectations to attract and enroll other interests and actors’. The notion of path entrepreneurs points even further towards the particular type of activity at play, as they challenge dominant rules, from inside or outside of an organisation, to introduce new ideas, practices and scripts. They might, in turn, engage divergent agendas in an amalgamated discourse to bridge divided discourses or policy solutions. Path advocates might also engage in anchoring new ideas with the established order – for example, by building coalitions with prominent groups holding veto powers or aligning the ideas and discourse underpinning the emerging path with already dominant discourses and agendas. While path entrepreneurs might develop new models, path advocates engage in aligning new models with what is already in place to foster the ‘absorption of the novelty into the regime’ (MacKinnon et al, 2019, p 123).

The concepts of path advocates and path entrepreneurs allow us to interpret signs of emergence towards sustainable welfare. Within municipal administrations, we can expect to find these actors in positions between established bureaucracies, such as boundary-crossing projects or urban experimentation. Although the focus is often on political or economic actors, civil society can play a crucial role as actors engaged in path identification and path emergence. Many civil society actors play a significant role in advocating social, political, economic and cultural change. Through a wide range of political activities (for example, advocacy campaigns, petitions or protests), they challenge established orders and seek to change or transform public opinion and political agendas.

However, we need to be careful when making assumptions about actor rationality. Although actors with interests and convictions deliberate or compete over what ideas and rules will prevail, the emergence phase comes with significant complexity and ambiguity. Defining and reviewing what emergence might lead to and why is thus a challenge. Garud et al (2010) state that path emergence instead fosters a different type of agency, as agents with a capacity to reflect on the given conditions but who might act in a different direction to the current institutional order. Garud and Karnøe (2001, p 2) contend that actors successfully engaging in path emergence come with a particular mindset, as they are ‘knowledgeable agents with a capacity to reflect and act in ways other than those prescribed by existing social rules’. Therefore, it is not their resources or powers that make them path entrepreneurs or path advocates but rather their capacity to think differently, which they refer to as ‘mindful deviation’.

Transformation

The concept of transformation provides further perspectives for the study of pathways towards sustainable welfare at an urban level. Many theories consider transformation as a complex process, and to date, it is not entirely clear ‘what transformation means, how it can be evaluated, and how the conceptions or transformation fit within the current understanding of dealing with policy problems in practice’ (Görg et al, 2017, p 3). Transformation is an umbrella term or metaphor requiring additional conceptualisations (Feola, 2015). One recent attempt (concerning degrowth) was proposed by Buch-Hansen and Nesterova (2021, 2023), who applied critical realism, especially ‘plane thinking’, to ‘deep transformations’ studies. Conceptualising transformational change on four ‘planes of social being’ – material transactions with nature, social interactions between persons, social structures and inner being – the two authors discuss how changes on one plane might lead to changes on others, thereby providing a theoretically advanced understanding of the complexity associated with transformative change. Buch-Hansen et al (2024) develop this approach by demonstrating how degrowth transformations may evolve on the four planes, three sites (business, civil society and the state) and various scales (including European, national and local).

Most transformation literature envisions a major shift away from established paths, such as ‘qualitative system change’ (Nalau and Handmer, 2015, p 350) or forming a fundamentally different system (Roggema et al, 2012). As the term suggests, transformation assumes a change in shape or a metamorphosis (Linnér and Wibeck, 2020; Scoones et al, 2020). In such a perspective, transformation is defined as ‘fundamental changes in structural, functional, relational, and cognitive aspects of socio-technical-ecological systems that lead to new patterns of interactions and outcomes’ (Patterson et al, 2017, p 2) or as a ‘fundamental shift that questions and challenges values and routine practices and changes prior perspectives employed to rationalise decisions and pathways’ (Nalau and Handmer, 2015, p 350). As emphasised by Scoones et al (2020), such fundamental changes could be generated by processes of transformative change that are structural (that is, societal organisation of production and consumption), systemic (that is, intentional, steered change of specific systems) and enabling (that is, facilitating human agency and collective action) in nature.

Theories rely on two different conceptualisations of transformation, either as rapid or as emerging. Traditional understandings of path dependence indeed consider transformation in its rapid form in response to ruptures, extraordinary large-scale historical events and external shocks. Such contingent episodes of radical change – for example, revolutions, regime changes or energy crises – cause tremendous pressures on existing systems and push actors to reconsider or leave present solutions for a different alternative. The vested interests, appropriate behaviours or habitual actions lose significance when the rules of the game change substantially, thereby giving rise to developments along a new path. In this regard, transformation is a shift from one established order (path) to another. Current debates concerning environmental emergence and the climate crisis carry a similar message of a crisis that requires ‘a fundamental, radical, and possibly rapid change toward sustainability’ (Feola, 2015, p 376).

Discussions on social tipping points follow a similar logic of change as forms of rapid transformation. Still, these are less linked to significant events and more to the diversity of collective actions that, over time, might trigger profound societal change processes (Otto et al, 2020; Stadelmann-Steffen et al, 2021; Andrighetto and Vriens, 2022; Moore et al, 2022; Winkelmann et al, 2022). It has been suggested that a minority ‘can trigger a shift in the conventions held by the majority of the population’ (Centola et al, 2018, p 1). Here, various actors can be understood as critical agents in transformations, ranging from politicians and leaders to grassroots organisations and the general public (Feola, 2015; Linnér and Wibeck, 2019; Otto et al, 2020). They are understood as having transformative capacity, such as acting as innovators or providing ideas or expertise, raising awareness, influencing decisions and steering or navigating change processes.

Transformations can also be understood as a process that is protracted and linked to cumulative changes and not to single events, or as Linnér and Wibeck express it, ‘from the very long period of the Neolithic transformation to the relatively fast 50-year period of the British abolition’ (Linnér and Wibeck, 2019, p 57). Similar to theories of emergence, such protracted transformation processes resemble an understanding of social change resulting from gradual developments that might lead to minor or more transformational modes of change. This is similar to the understanding of change as ‘progressive incrementalism’ (Cashore and Howlett, 2007; Levin et al, 2012) – that is, as a sequence or process of incremental changes that, over time, might become increasingly more progressive to trigger systemic and transformative change.

In contrast to the idea of change proposed by path dependency theories, sustainability transformation scholars suggest that transformations occur non-linearly, driven by ‘discontinuities, ruptures, or thresholds, and do not generally proceed smoothly’ (Feola, 2015, p 381). Instead of recognising external events or shocks, transformation occurs through endogenous and exogenous processes, which involve ‘emergent, inadvertent, unintended consequences and intended, deliberate ones’ (Feola, 2015, p 382). Linnér and Wibeck (2019, 2020) stress the significance of various mechanisms that might lead to transformation, such as change in values, public engagement, institutional and technological innovations and new ideas about or new narratives of sustainable societies. Each of these can function as a trigger of either rapid or protracted transformation processes.

The formulation of new narratives, which refers to ‘changes in how we understand ourselves, in our worldviews or belief systems’ (Linnér and Wibeck, 2020, p 225), has, for example, been present in ‘any major societal transformation’ (Linnér and Wibeck, 2020, p 225). Changes in perspectives and meanings are often associated with longer time horizons. However, these might occur more rapidly, as in the case of the rather sudden widespread protests against slavery in the British Isles during the 1790s or the demonstrations against climate change in the historically unprecedented school strikes that attracted around six million protest participants (Linnér and Wibeck, 2020; see also Hochschild, 2005; de Moor et al, 2020). These two examples of protests have been understood in relation to the notion of a social tipping point or social tipping processes (Linnér and Wibeck, 2019, 2020; Otto et al, 2020), which ‘have received recent attention, as they encompass the required rapid, transformational system change to combat the climate and sustainability crises’ (Winkelmann et al, 2022).

It is fair to say that debates on transformation often take a ‘normative or political-strategic approach’ (Feola, 2015; Görg et al, 2017, p 3) as something desirable and unavoidable. This is apparent in debates on sustainability transformations, which take place in the context of the unsustainability of present systems. Much of the existing sustainable welfare theory carries such a meaning as it points to the unsustainable lifestyle and insufficient and unsustainable modes of welfare provision. Integration and mutual recognition of environmental and welfare concerns can, in that respect, be considered as an expression of societal transformation (Koch and Mont, 2016). However, for a complete transformation towards sustainable welfare, other planes of social being than social structures would also need to be considered. Following Buch-Hansen and Nesterova (2023), this applies to ‘material transactions with nature’, ‘social interactions between persons’ and people’s ‘inner being’, including norms and values.

An analytical framework

Inertia, emergence and transformation refer to three conceptualisations of stability and change. Although, in combination, these could assume automatism and sequence of order, we use them as heuristic devices to identify whether, how and to what extent cities have embarked upon a path in which environmental and welfare concerns and practices are combined and treated in an integrated fashion. Table 2.1 summarises the main analytical elements regarding theories of inertia, emergence and transformation across three dimensions: discourses, actors and practices. It serves as a point of departure for our analysis across the sites of local government, civil society and public attitudes.

Theoretically and ideal-typically, we can assume inertia to be shaped by two distinctly different pathways institutionalised into differentiated ideas and discourses, policy domains and modes of mobilisation. Politicians and civil servants address environmental and welfare concerns in isolation, as there is limited interest in addressing them in combination. Utilitarian, appropriate or habitual logic largely shapes practices, as actors define themselves as engaged in environmental or welfare concerns and practices. The separation between ideas, actor constellations and types of practices leaves limited room for path deviation or path emergence. Within spheres of public opinion and urban mobilisation, few initiatives follow a form of mindful deviation in terms of engaging with issues or exploring proposals beyond established identities or modes of interest formations.

Emergence points to changes in discourses, actor constellations and types of practices that increasingly and innovatively mix or span established domains and agendas. Within public opinion, actors increasingly relate to environmental and welfare concerns as interconnected and necessary to address in combination. Ideas and discourses of environmental and welfare concerns are, to a large extent, formed in isolation. Yet, path advocates or path entrepreneurs mobilise support in connection with new ideas, frames or discursive formations that cut across divides or mix elements from each as an act of discursive bricolage. Institutional entrepreneurs might act as path advocates but lack the power to operate as veto players or to mobilise people to such an extent that it changes the present order. Path advocates contrast with or oppose dominant actors and institutional orders. Emerging ideas, actors and practices thrive in experimental settings or less regulated niches.

Transformation signals a new stage shaped by a new set of dominant ideas, frames and discourses in which actors invest interests and start to act. Eco-social concerns are not shaped by a separation between established orders but through the constitution of something qualitatively different. Differentiation across environmental and welfare policy domains or administrative responsibilities has lost significance. Whether driven by ruptures, gradual changes or entrepreneurial activities of path advocates, a path of sustainable welfare is established, and a new path of inertia and path dependence is embarked upon.