Inertia and path protection

The challenges posed by climate change represent the type of external shock that theories of inertia anticipate will be transformative. Hirvilammi et al (2023) aptly state: ‘Whereas 20th-century social policies were designed to meet the challenges of industrialisation, urbanisation and globalisation, 21st-century social policies need to counter the inequalities and conflicts emerging from climate and other environmental policies’ (p 1). Although social policy scholars tend to focus on the risks of the past (Johansson et al, 2016), sustainability analysts have looked more into the risks to come, such as climate change, biodiversity losses and access to fresh water (Rockström et al, 2023). Terms like ‘climate crisis’ (Ripple et al, 2020) and ‘climate emergency’ (Gills et al, 2020) underscore the urgency of the current situation, necessitating immediate and drastic action. Once a planetary boundary has been crossed, an uncertain and potentially catastrophic path lies ahead. Despite the need for emerging and transformative changes, what is sometimes forgotten is that these must be implemented within existing social systems. This is why institutionalists often say that history matters and that previous institutional solutions enable and constrain societies’ abilities to enter a new path (for example, Pierson, 2004). An interesting reflection relates to how societies handled the recent COVID-19 crisis. For instance, Hogan et al (2022) found that the pandemic served as a catalyst for change in areas where policy change had already begun, yet not in others. This suggests that external shocks, like a pandemic, do not cause a change in themselves.

Welfare and environmental concerns are highly institutionalised policy domains and have enjoyed extensive public support. Sweden has, for instance, a long history of redistributive social policies (Johansson and Panican, 2016; Blomqvist and Palme, 2020). Aside from its history and tradition of a social democratic type of welfare state regime, the country also has a tradition of environmental ambitions. In 1972, it hosted the first UN Conference on the Human Environment, and the resulting Stockholm Declaration placed environmental issues at the forefront of international concerns. These activities paved the way for the current sustainability discourse, as the conference linked economic growth and pollution of the air, water and oceans to the well-being of people worldwide. This was later followed by the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2030 (UNGA, 2015). Though one may imagine that these historical conditions could have facilitated a smooth transition towards sustainable welfare, our study shows that Swedish cities have difficulty shaking themselves free of history (David, 2001). Although local actors support change, inertia appears to be the dominant pattern, albeit with glimpses of emergence.

Inertia is evident in how local governments handle environmental and welfare concerns, and actors tend to reproduce institutions. A possible reason for this is that the imagined costs of path reproduction outweigh the potential benefits of transformation (Mahoney, 2000). Of course, such calculations are rather shortsighted, underestimating the actual costs associated with climate change further down the line. Though local governments have, in principle, extensive mandate and capacity to act alongside central state or regional authorities, civil servants tend to stick to their domains. As a form of utilitarian practice, they protect their professional investments and benefit from knowledge specialisation. Our research finds the SDGs a source of inspiration but have not yet led to integration across policy domains. Instead, central political (and legal) regulation constitutes a barrier to policy integration and fosters continued silo thinking – and silo doing – in local policy making and urban planning. Civil servants moreover lack the proper language and terms to think and act outside established policies and programmes. Although local governments installed cross-cutting sustainability offices, their ephemeral nature indicates implementation deficits and stability of established solutions. Patterns of inertia thus prevail despite local governments being led by red-green political majorities at the point of investigation.

Inertia can likewise be observed in civil society sites. Civil society actors embraced the discourse on sustainability and the SDGs, encouraging them to act across environmental and welfare domains. However, our research demonstrates that frame integration is risky since organisations benefit from organising on particularistic claims. A unique and clear-cut cause is central to rallying members and gaining public attention and support. Staying within established frame distinctions enhances resource hoarding and the potential for political influence. Practices of path protection appear particularly present among established organisations as they have invested the most into the present path and, thus, are keen to maintain existing distinctions between organisations and movements to a greater extent than newcomers into the field. A key concern for civil society organisations is to engage in advocacy work and influence policy processes and outcomes. Due to the separation of policy domains, organisations are, thus, valued for the ability to represent ‘their’ question or group. Legitimacy comes from staying with their cause rather than engaging in frame alignment or cooperation with a different segment of local civil society.

Patterns of inertia finally dominate public attitudes. Attitudes linked to ‘green’ and ‘red crowding out’ follow the fault lines of environmental and welfare divides, well recognised in previous literature. In that sense, green and red crowding out are expressions of the silo-based logic of keeping environmental and welfare concerns separate and holding on to the status quo. People with a low capacity to handle social risks prefer welfare concerns, whereas people who already have their basic human needs satisfied rather favour climate and environmental concerns. While socioeconomic divides explain support for (or against) environmental and welfare concerns, the urban–rural divide has a more decisive bearing on those who do not support either. Rural residents are, in that respect, even more in favour of the status quo, as there is a tendency to express support for neither environmental nor welfare concerns. The combined and widespread support for ‘red crowding out’, ‘green crowding out’ and ‘rejection’ indicates limited support for a sustainable welfare path, especially among groups outside the urban realm.

Emergence and path advocacy

Emergence stands in contrast to inertia and core differences are summarised in Table 6.1. Instead of continuing with what is already there, new ideas and emerging practices point to the seeds of change and patterns of experimentation outside established institutional orders. Emergence can occur inside or outside established systems – theories of incremental change stress change from within linked to concepts like displacement, layering or conversion. Emergence is, in this respect, considered on top of rules and norms already in place (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010). Murphy (2023) stresses that emergence should not be considered an element of the future, but is embedded into the present and emerges from current activities and tensions. Similarly, concepts like path advocates and path entrepreneurs stress change as taking place inside, alongside or outside existing institutional orders (Djelic and Quack, 2007). Although emergence thus marks the start of something new, due to its contingent nature the road to change is not evident, as emerging ideas and practices might fade away and soon be forgotten.

Emergence in local government takes place inside public agencies through a paradoxical combination of grand visions and specific practices. Ideas of sustainability are explicit in cities’ visionary documents, master plans and long-term planning documents. Such grand ideas have become an institutionalised part of urban visionary practices, and the combined challenge of ecological and social concerns has found its way into strategic urban planning documents. This implies that integrating environmental and social sustainability is central to how planners imagine cities as attractive places for future residents. The cities investigated in this book have even further ambitions as they signed up to become climate-neutral cities before 2030. The European Commission selected them as part of the European Mission for Climate Neutral and Smart Cities (European Commission, 2022), acting as role models for an urban pathway towards sustainable welfare.

Visions of these kinds have, however, not been fully implemented and remain, for the time being, layered on top of existing rules and regulations (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010). At the same time, we find sustainable welfare experimentation in well-defined policy strategies such as urban greening strategies or in specific projects. These experiments serve as niches for introducing new ideas, practices and scripts that otherwise would fall short. However, while ideas and practices on sustainable welfare appear plausible when expressed in grand urban visions or within a specific project and strategy, it is a much more complex and challenging endeavour to implement these visions into the formal steering and administration of environmental and welfare agencies. However, one of the cities studied in this book (Lund) has managed to fully implement a sustainable welfare strategy across levels of local administration. These policies are in their first phase, and it remains to be seen whether they will fade away, as in the other three cities, or potentially provide an integrated solution across policy domains.

Civil society is often considered a site where new ideas emerge, which is also true regarding sustainable welfare. We find claims of social justice a core element in civil society actors’ attempts to align environmental and welfare frames. Social justice issues have long been a cornerstone in welfare organisations’ framing of their concerns. Environmental organisations and movements have adopted this view, increasingly expressing concern over environmental justice and who will bear the burden of climate change mitigation. Radical actors like Extinction Rebellion (XR) fill the role of path entrepreneurs as they manage to find allies among welfare civil society organisations that likewise mobilise on social justice. Framing sustainable welfare as a social justice issue serves as a new master frame, but also contradicts other justice frames, such as ‘jobs vs environment’ (Räthzel and Uzzel, 2011). For instance, ‘Whose social justice?’ and ‘On what grounds?’ is particularly relevant for large parts of the labour movement, making integration with the environmental movement difficult. Established environmental organisations have similar concerns. They focus on environmental protection and react against the emerging ideas of a broader justice movement. Individuals, however, act across organisational divides as some engage in both environmental and welfare organisations, for instance, through dual membership or participation in welfare and environmental protests. Hence, these individuals acted simultaneously as supporters and bearers of emerging ideas of sustainable welfare.

This emerging justice frame fills the same function as expressions of visions in urban planning documents. It mobilises people and allows them to think (and act) differently. We find a similar pattern concerning emerging practices linked to sustainable welfare, mainly taking place in a specialised and small-scale format (for example urban gardening, repair shops or cafés, with the attempt to foster social and environmental goods). Urban residents and activists seek new ways of doing things through these practices. However, an inherent scale problem is embedded in sustainable welfare experimentation (Clark and Johansson, 2016). Like most civic organisations, emerging practices rely on the volunteering efforts of activists and committed citizens and contingent funding arrangements. There is an evident risk that emerging practices will not translate into long-term solutions, for instance, due to a lack of mechanisms for upscaling and integrating successful experiments into broader urban planning and policy frameworks.

Urban residents are often an avant-garde, willing to embrace change and holders of more tolerant stances concerning other social groups, with less climate scepticism and stronger environmental beliefs (Gimpel et al, 2020; Huijsmans et al, 2021; Weckroth and Ala-Mantila, 2022). This is partly due to urban residents generally being more educated than their counterparts in suburbs, smaller cities or rural areas and partly to the place effects linked to living in places with mixed social groups (Kearns et al, 2014). Our research demonstrates that urban residents dominate among those who simultaneously express support for welfare and the environment. Moreover, they display dispositions inclined to a broad and deep social-ecological ‘transformation’, including high ecological consciousness and support for social welfare and redistributive policies.

While these individuals form an urban avant-garde promoting transformative change, also other groups express support for change, yet more in the style of emerging attitudes. Across categories like synergy/reject and green/red crowding out, we find support patterns for gradual change towards more ecological sustainability in general, but more hesitant about profound structural transformations. Among the habitus groups explored in previous chapters, we identified three positions promoting ecological modernisation without improvements in social justice, support for energy transitions without additional changes and support for authority-driven expert change without including the participation of citizens. These groups have moderate support for welfare policies and the environment in common without directly pushing for change in both.

Paths and counter-paths

Emergence is contingent, and the lasting qualities of ideas and practices linked to sustainable welfare remain to be observed. Much of the empirical findings in this book suggest that changes are merely ephemeral, that inertia dominates and aside from some emerging ideas and practices, the silo logic prevails. However, theories of inertia, emergence and transformation mainly address changes within one system and less about how patterns of stability and change relate to other transformation processes. Polanyi’s theory of transformation and the distinction between movement and counter-movement takes a different approach (Polanyi, 2001). Although his example concerned establishing a free market, he observed how market construction caused parallel reactions among socialist and social democratic parties, trade unions and social movements attempting to de-commodify and (re-)socialise the market.

Movements and counter-movements are inseparable entities of the same process of transformation, clearly seen in contemporary politicisation of environmental and climate policies. Since the Brundtland Report, policy makers have expressed the need to transform economic, social and cultural systems to handle the risks and challenges associated with climate and environmental change. The full institutionalisation of such an approach occurred with the United Nations’ SDGs and, more recently, a range of reforms taken by national governments and the European Union. The European Green Deal, for example, prioritises the climate crisis and sets 2050 as the target for decarbonising European economies (Sabato et al, 2023; Sabato and Mandelli, 2024). Throughout Europe, and especially in Sweden, we can however observe a political counter-mobilisation against sustainability and sustainable welfare arrangements. Progressive climate change policies have become an area of extensive conflict, significantly as nationalist and populist parties mobilise voters against the changes that scientists consider necessary.

The current Swedish conservative government has de-prioritised strategies linked to sustainable development and implemented legislations and political reforms that will increase carbon emissions, primarily by reducing taxes on fossil fuels and implementing changes in the required composition of biofuels in petrol and diesel. Consequently, Sweden risks not living up to its EU commitments for 2030 and, thus, being fined according to the Effort Sharing Regulation. While political reforms as initiated by the Swedish government illustrate a political denial of what scientists consider necessary (for example, Dunlap and Brulle, 2020), these changes can be interpreted as attempts to explore a counter-path, be it of a new kind, or as a return to the ‘tried and tested’ path before sustainability came on the agenda. For instance, the term ‘Petro populism’ suggests using natural resources to gain popular support, instilling doubts about climate change as a crisis (Matsen et al, 2012). While sceptical interlocutors may regard such policies as acts of deterrence, we tend to interpret them as expressions of support for continuing the fossil-based path and a form of sustainable welfare denialism (Brulle, 2020).

Polanyi’s movement and counter-movement approach follows the urban–rural divide. Patterns of emergence have a distinct urban dimension, at least concerning the sites of civil society and public opinion. We find a striking correlation between the emergence of the – now international – Fridays for Futures movement and large mobilisations against increasing fuel prices. The story of Greta Thunberg is well known as she decided to demand forcible climate action from the politicians through a school strike outside of the Swedish parliament (Emilsson et al, 2020). At the same time, the French yellow vest movement started to emerge as a protest against social injustices and, among other things, contained manifestations against climate change measures, often linked to gas and energy prices (Clifton and de la Broise, 2020; Guerra et al, 2020; Shultziner and Kornblit, 2020). In the Swedish context the so-called Petrol Uprising (Bränsleupproret 2.0) took off alongside the Fridays for Futures movement (Johansson and Scaramuzzino, 2023; Hylander et al, 2024). Organised in smaller cities, and on parking lots for shops selling car supplies it mobilised public discontent against environmentally friendly sustainability policies supposedly benefitting those in cities. Like Fridays for Futures, the Petrol Uprising gained public support and attention. Whereas the former managed to mobilise people to enter the streets, the latter gained 630,000 members on Facebook – a membership exceeding that of national political parties and most trade unions in Sweden.

Public scepticism of climate change is a well-observed phenomenon (Krange et al, 2019). Dijkstra et al (2019) suggest the need to consider the geographies of discontent to capture present social and political cleavages. Our research strongly underscores such an approach, as urban residents support sustainable welfare more than people in smaller cities or rural areas. In that respect, urban residents can be interpreted as advocates for and bearers of a sustainable welfare path. In contrast, people living in rural residences are more inclined to express support for the status quo. Hence, both groups can be interpreted as path advocates, but for different paths. As the GAL-TAN scale predicted (Inglehart, 1997), urban residents hold more Green, Alternative and Libertarian values. They are better positioned to embrace change processes such as globalisation, migration or sustainable welfare. On the contrary, semi-urban and rural residents tend to hold more Traditional, Authoritarian and Nationalist values. Our result of a strong correlation between rejecting sustainable welfare and rural residence supports this characterisation. Support for a sustainable welfare path can rather be found among people with high education and socioeconomic positions who want to embrace change. Our study also finds widespread political passivity tied to groups rejecting environmental and welfare concerns (Emilsson et al, 2024). Rejectors feature a general reluctance to societal change and disinterest in politics, including personal political action – an attitude that is particularly prevalent among men.

The term ‘rejection’ thus has a double meaning. It may first be applied to consider people’s position taking against sustainable welfare. However, it can also express support for a different path that avoids or denies the cultural trauma that climate change is likely associated with (Brulle and Norgaard, 2019, p 887). Although our research finds some support for a sustainable welfare agenda, its rejection is also part of the puzzle. In a Polanyian sense, we can interpret rejection and synergy as two paths on how societies can handle the climate crisis. Today, they both constitute viable options in contrast to inertia. However, it is essential to remember that counter-movements are highly context-specific. Hence, we need more research into how the social, cultural, political and economic structures shape counter-mobilisations outside a Social Democratic welfare state.

Conclusion

Climate and environmental change on the one hand and social inclusion and individual welfare on the other present significant challenges to societies and their modes of governance. Given the established role of human activity as a crucial driver of climate change, the reform of economic, social, political and cultural systems is imperative to ensure welfare within planetary boundaries (Persson et al, 2022). The concept of sustainable welfare points to a visionary state where societies will have found solutions to such challenges and where ecological and social issues are mutually resolved. However, the ability to embark on a sustainable welfare trajectory occurs within existing social systems and is correspondingly enhanced and hampered by previous institutional solutions.

Terms like climate emergence (Hirvilammi et al, 2023) and the widespread evidence on the need for societies to change (Rockström et al, 2023) serve as the ground for simultaneously interpreting our results as signs of ‘hope’ (emergence and transformation) and ‘despair’ (inertia) concerning Swedish cities’ ability to handle the social-ecological challenges and transform urban governance systems. Signs of hope are primarily associated with the role of cities in societal transformation processes. As epicentres of human activity, cities are catalysts for exploring and developing new ideas, practices and innovative ways of addressing climate change. The comparative approach explored in this book finds that, despite differences, Swedish cities similarly adapt and mitigate environmental and welfare-related challenges. Local governments explore sustainable welfare linked to urban visions and urban experimentation. Residents and civil society actors pressure decision makers to lead the way towards sustainable welfare policies as a sort of ‘progressive avant-garde’. However, the extent to which this will turn into a new model of sustainable urban governance remains to be seen. In any case, there are strong forces inside local city governments and among urban civil society actors and urban residents willing and pushing for pathways to sustainable welfare.

Signs of hope exist, however, in conjunction with signs of despair. The emerging changes we find mainly build on existing institutions as a form of incremental rather than transformative change. Processes of emergence and transformation are hampered by practices of path protection or even rejection. While cities function as sites for change, rural areas serve as places for stability and status quo. Most empirical evidence across the cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö points to patterns of inertia across urban sites. Our research identifies factors that hamper the turn towards emergence, and, even more so, transformation, which is crucial for urban researchers and planners. Urban actors with vested interests in the established path tend to oppose emerging ideas and practices, challenging the views of institutional entrepreneurs, movements and progressive citizens. Despite, or possibly due to, Sweden’s extensive policy ambitions about environmental and welfare concerns, actors have difficulty and sometimes display unwillingness to break with history.

It would, however, be a mistake to consider stability and change as mutually exclusive processes. Our book indicates the relevance of combining theories of inertia, emergence and transformation and, hence, the importance of going beyond the theoretical divide that has kept welfare state and sustainability scholarship apart. From this perspective, sustainable welfare appears as a messy, open and highly contingent transformation process without an established direction. At the same time, its contested nature has somewhat paradoxically clarified its contours. While counter-mobilisation practices can be interpreted as a sign of transformation failure, in a Polanyian sense, they also function as path clarification. Expressions of denial, rejection and opposition towards environmental and/or welfare concerns can be read to constitute explorations of an alternative vision of societal development. Societies in general, and cities in particular, find themselves at the crossroads of either entering a path that embraces climate, environmental and ecological challenges, including the social, cultural and political risks that come with it, or another path that misrecognises these challenges and the corresponding risks. This however lies beyond the scope of this book and the future will reveal which path societies choose to take.