Goal-oriented modulation as a model for dealing with problems of sustainable development

1. Goal-oriented modulation as a model for dealing with problems of sustainable development René Kemp UNU-MERIT, ICIS & DRIFT

2. Key problems for GoSD • Dissent • Uncertainty about long-term effects • Distributed control • Changing wants • Determination of short-term steps for long-term change • Danger of lock-in • Political myopia

3. Dealing with dissent through • Problem structuring • Formulation of shared goals for functional systems • Exploration of different visions

5. Uncertainty about long-term effects • Calls for risk assessment, technology assessment for learning • Flexible designs, adaptive management, portfolios and capital-extensive solutions for increasing the capacity to react

6. Changing wants calls for • Flexible options • Diversity of options

7. Distributed control calls for • Joint decision-making and network management but this is not enough: interactive governance should be concerned with expressing long-term aims and the management of transition processes • The shaping of society from below

8. Determination of short-term steps for long-term change • Integrated assessment of futures • Path analysis leading to the identification of robust options, goals and short-term actions that generate useful actions

9. Danger of lock-in suggests • Use of portfolios • Prudence

10. Political myopia • Political commitment to transitions • Use of transition agendas, adaptive programmes for system innovation

11. Reflexivity • First-order reflexivity • Second-order reflexivity: governance which understands itself as part of actions-effects feedback loops

12. Reflexive strategies injecting feedback in actor-rule system dynamics Source: Voss and Kemp (2005) based on Burns and Flam (1987)

13. The Dutch model of Transition management …. is a deliberate effort to work towards a transition in a stepwise, adaptive manner, utilising dynamics and visions … in which different visions and routes are explored: system innovation and optimisation

14. Societal goals Political margins for change Existing policy process: short-term goals (myopic) State of development of solutions Sustainability visions Transition management: oriented towards long-term sustainability goals and visions, iterative and reflexive (bifocal) Transition Management: bifocal instead of myopic

15. Mathematically transition management = current policies + long-term vision + vertical and horizontal coordination of policies + portfolio-management + process management. ... is bottom-up and top-down, using strategic experiments and control policies

16. Biomass 20-40% of primary energy supply ‘Vision’ ‘Strategic goals’ 10-15% in power prod. 15-20% in traffic 2020 A. Gasification B. Pyrolysis ‘Transition Paths’ Expv 2 à 3 % C. Biofuels Exp 2003 EOS EOS : experiments : R&D Exp 2050

17. No definitive choice is made as to technological means • Different routes are investigated • Decisions are made in an interactive and iterative way • Support is temporary • Each option has to proof its worth • Technology choices are made at the decentralized level

18. Incrementalism Goal-oriented modulation —of which TM is an example Planning Key actors Private and public actors Private and public actors Bureaucrats and experts Steering philosophy Partisan mutual adaptation Modulation of developments to collectively chosen goals, government is facilitator & mediator Hierarchy Structuring form Polyarchy Heterarchy Hierarchy Role for anticipation Limited (no long-term goals) Dynamic anticipation of desired futures as basis for interaction Future is anticipated and implemented Type of learning First-order: learning about quick fixes for remedying immediate ills Second-order and first-order (rethink following problem structuring) First-order (instrumental)

19. Mechanism for coordination Markets and emergent institutionalisation Markets, network management, institutionalisation (both designed and emergent) Hierarchy (top-down) Degree of adaptivity Adaptive Highly adaptive thanks to especially created adaptive capacity Hardly adaptive Role for strategy and plans Limited role Important role for goals and strategic experiments for exploring social trajectories, as apart of adaptive programmes for system innovation. Plans with steps Interest mediation/ conflict resolution Individual gains for everyone Rewards for innovators, phase out of non-sustainable practices through markets and politics Little mediation (implementation and enforcement) Type of change that is sought Incremental, non-disruptive change System innovation and system improvement Predetermined outcome

20. Transition management as a form of context steering through anticipatory and adaptive governance that is explicitly concerned with learning and institutional change, which relies on variation and selection for dealing with problems of steering.is perhaps the third way that political theorists have long been looking for

21. What’s new about transition management? • The orientation to transition goals (less short-termism) • The orientation to learning and innovation (helps to overcome the preference for quick results, and policy reliance on technical fixes) • Alignment of different policy domains (helps to deal with fragmented policies) • Programmes for system innovation based on visions of sustainability • Less domination by vested interests: opening up of policy process