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Theorizing power in transition studies: the role of creativity and novel practices in structural change

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Abstract

An important theoretical challenge for theorizing about power dynamics in societal transitions is the transformation of power itself. In this respect, it is especially puzzling how agency at the level of novel practices can extend beyond the habitual, how it can draw on structures and destructure at the same time and in doing so, how it might emerge both as a creative and a destructive force. This article addresses this puzzle by scrutinizing and refining multi-level conceptions of power in the field of transitions studies. In the first part, it explores one specific multi-level framework by Grin and Van Tatenhove in a longitudinal case study of wind energy projects in Denmark and establishes that it has four conceptual short-comings—relating to (1) temporality; (2) relationality; (3) materiality; and (4) creativity—that this article claims to overcome in the second part. In order to so, it draws on several practice theories for an extended framework that enables the unpacking of the interplay between creativity and transition processes.

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Notes

  1. Arts and Van Tatenhove (2004) and Clegg (1989) offer a multi-layered framework of power in which the ‘lowest’ layer (relational power resp. episodic power) is most obviously (re-)produced through action, whereas the higher levels tend to be seen as the changeable conditions of these actions. Clegg (1989) offers various concepts such as ‘nodal points’ and ‘obligatory passage points’ to conceptualise the relation of action and agency to the higher ‘circuits of power’. However, both Arts and Van Tatenhove and Clegg can be improved on the way the abstract types of power are products of action too and work through the bodies of the actor-networks that perform them.

  2. Bourdieu himself sees the field as a ‘battle ground’, a view better captured by the French equivalent of field, ‘champ’, that Bourdieu uses in French texts.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge John Grin and Anne Loeber for their contributions to this article in particular and my research project in general. This research project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Their financial support enabled me to write this article. I also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions.

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  1. Political Science Department/AISSR, University of Amsterdam, Oudezijds Achterburgwal 237, 1012 DL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jesse Hoffman

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Hoffman, J. Theorizing power in transition studies: the role of creativity and novel practices in structural change. Policy Sci 46, 257–275 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-013-9173-2

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