Constructing Low-Carbon Imaginaries in Urban
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Reading the future : constructing low-carbon imaginaries in urban institutions DOBSON, Julian Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/18744/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version DOBSON, Julian (2017). Reading the future : constructing low-carbon imaginaries in urban institutions. Doctoral, Sheffield Hallam University. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Reading the future: constructing low carbon imaginaries in urban institutions Julian Dobson A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2017 Truly, though our element is time, We are not suited to the long perspectives Open at each instant of our lives. Philip Larkin, Reference Back (1955) 1 Abstract Reading the future: constructing low carbon imaginaries in urban institutions A central paradox of environmental sustainability is that the institutions that bring stability to society must become agents of transformative change. In an urbanised world characterised by fossil fuel dependency, the stable ‘anchor institutions’ in major cities are likely to play a central role in transitions towards a low carbon economy and society (Coenen, Benneworth & Truffer, 2012; Goddard & Vallance, 2013). However, the nature of institutions both enables and militates against sociotechnical change, constraining the futures that are imaginable and achievable. This paradox has received little empirical attention. This thesis asks how actors in urban institutions imagine and interpret low carbon transitions. It presents case studies of strategic institutions in three northern English cities: a university in Manchester, a local authority in Nottingham, and a housing association in Sunderland. Each has publicly positioned itself as a leader on environmental sustainability. The research examines how actors’ engagements with the institutional logics or frames of reference embedded in an organisation (Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury, 2012) determine or divert potential pathways of change. Using Paul Ricoeur’s future- oriented hermeneutics (1988, 2008) as a guide, the study explores institutional change as an interpretive process, recasting institutional logics to serve new purposes. Through qualitative interviews and documentary analysis it uncovers this process of interpretation and scopes out its possibilities and limits. The research finds that actors’ use of institutional logics has a recursive effect, bending organisations back towards their original positions when challenged by crisis or conflict. However, this is countered by the forward motion of interpretation and reinterpretation. The interpretive process is critically catalysed by knowledge networks that are not coterminous with the urban spaces where transitions are enacted. The study finds such epistemic networks to be a necessary, though not sufficient, factor for transitions to take effect. Building on these findings, it proposes a model that integrates an interpretive approach and attention to institutional logics with the multi-level perspective previously advanced by transition scholars (Geels, 2002, 2004, 2010; Grin, Rotmans, & Schot, 2010). 2 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help of many others. I am grateful first of all to my supervisors at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, Peter Wells and Will Eadson, for their wisdom, encouragement and advice. Coming late in my career to academic research, I appreciated the supportive and collegiate environment of CRESR, and particularly the PhD forum facilitated first by Ryan Powell and subsequently by Richard Crisp. My thanks too to Sheffield Hallam University for providing the studentship that funded this research. Further afield, Heather Campbell at the University of Sheffield and Ira Harkavy at the University of Pennsylvania provided important background on the subject of anchor institutions; and delegates and panel convenors at the New Institutionalism Workshop and the Interpretive Policy Analysis conference in 2017 helped me to fine-tune my theoretical framework. I’m grateful especially for the comments of John Grin, Imrat Verhoeven and Amy Burnett at the IPA conference. I appreciated, too, the helpful and positive attitude of staff at the organisations where I conducted my research. They were invariably courteous and professional and willingly gave their time to enable the research to be accomplished effectively. My wife, Jo, and children Miriam, Finn, and Ben were all engaged in their own academic studies while this research took place and their support, patience and solidarity were invaluable, creating a space both to share the joys and absurdities of scholarly life and to put them in perspective. Finally, my thanks to Sheffield Council for an allotment which was a tremendous antidote to excessive study. The sloe gin will be ready at Christmas. 3 Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ......................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 10 1.1 CRISIS AND PARADOX ......................................................................................................... 10 1.2 A WATERSHED MOMENT? ................................................................................................... 12 1.3 SOCIOTECHNICAL TRANSITIONS AND ‘ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS’ .................................. 14 1.4 BURGEONING SCHOLARSHIP AND KNOWLEDGE GAPS ................................................... 16 1.5 HOW THIS THESIS IS STRUCTURED .................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2: WICKED PROBLEMS AND DURABLE INSTITUTIONS .................... 21 2.1 THE LAST TON OF FOSSILISED COAL? ................................................................................ 21 2.2 CONCEPTS OF CHANGE: PERSPECTIVES ON LOW CARBON TRANSITIONS ...................... 22 2.2.1 THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSITION ..................................................................................... 22 2.2.2 THE PURPOSE OF TRANSITION: TWO PARADIGMS ............................................................ 26 2.2.3 ENDS AND MEANS: TRANSITION THEORIES AND TRANSITION MANAGEMENT .............. 30 2.3 THE WICKEDNESS OF WICKED PROBLEMS ......................................................................... 35 2.3.1 CARBON LOCK-IN ............................................................................................................... 37 2.4 THE RESEARCH SETTING: ‘ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS’ ........................................................ 38 2.4.1 CONTEXT AND CHARACTERISTICS .................................................................................... 38 2.4.2 A DEVELOPING CONCEPT .................................................................................................. 40 2.4.3 A WINDOW ON TRANSITION .............................................................................................. 42 2.5 LOCAL, CONNECTED, DURABLE .......................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER 3: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............................................................. 45 3.1 AN INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE ........................................................................................ 45 3.2 RESEARCHING INSTITUTIONS ............................................................................................ 46 3.2.1 STARTING THE RESEARCH JOURNEY .................................................................................. 46 3.2.2 THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS ............................................................................................... 49 3.2.3 WHAT IS AN INSTITUTION? ................................................................................................ 50 3.2.4 A CONSTRUCTIVIST INSTITUTIONALISM ........................................................................... 54 3.3 STASIS AND CHANGE: INSIGHTS FROM INSTITUTIONAL THEORY .................................. 56 3.3.1 INSTITUTIONAL THEORY: BACKGROUND AND APPLICATION .......................................... 57 3.3.2 PATH DEPENDENCY AND CONCEPTS OF CHANGE ........................................................... 59 3.3.3 THE ‘PARADOX OF EMBEDDED AGENCY’ .......................................................................... 60 3.3.4 MAKING SENSE OF POWER ................................................................................................. 62 3.3.5 ORIENTING VALUES, MULTIPLE LOGICS ............................................................................ 63 3.3.6 INSTITUTIONAL WORK, SITUATED PRACTICES .................................................................. 68 3.4 ROADS NOT TRAVELLED ....................................................................................................