Dynamics and directions of change in governance
This research line conceptualizes and analyses continuity and change in policies, polity, and politics, and in turn how these enable and constrain the dynamics and directions of societal change in different contexts. Because of the wicked nature of the challenges facing governance actors in the fields of climate, water, environment, food and agriculture, it is very important that policy systems respond to new insights, and do not become locked-in into old problem definitions and understandings. Policy and institutional change towards transformation is of paramount importance, but is hard to create because policies and institutions are often deeply entrenched, surrounded by constituencies that benefit from them, and because of existing power constellations.
This research line aims to capture the mechanisms that drive or inhibit policy and institutional dynamics in the direction of societally desired sustainability outcomes. Change dynamics can occur because of policy oriented learning, experimentation, evaluation, public dialogue, but also because of political power play, compliance with international norms, diffusion, path dependency, or sensemaking. Societal change that emanates from these dynamics is often characterized in the literature as either transformational or incremental, but our research has shown that it helps to distinguish between the depth, scope and pace of change, and that change can be continuous and transformational through accumulating small wins. That is why we pay extensive attention to the conceptual, methodological and empirical challenges of tracking (policy) change, and the influence of underlying mechanisms that make it possible to describe and analyze patterns of stasis and change. Moreover, interdisciplinary collaborations allow for assessing the extent to which change contributes to more sustainable outcomes, such as a circular food system and economy. Insights in the mechanisms and directions of change are used to identify the levers for change in designing new governance arrangements to manage wicked problems.
