IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sru/ssewps/2015-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Socio-technical transitions and policy change - Advocacy coalitions in Swiss energy policy

Author

Listed:
  • Jochen Markard

    (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Management, Technology and Economics, Group for Sustainability and Technology, Weinbergstrasse 56/58, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Marco Suter

    (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Department of Management, Technology and Economics, Group for Sustainability and Technology, Weinbergstrasse 56/58, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Karin Ingold

    (Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, Bern 3012, Switzerland
    Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, EAWAG, Überlandstrasse 133, Dübendorf 8600, Switzerland
    Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Zähringerstrasse 25, Bern 3012, Switzerland)

Abstract

Policies and politics are an integral part of socio-technical transitions but have not received much attention in the transitions literature so far. Our paper addresses this gap with a study on actors and coalitions in Swiss energy policy making. Drawing on the advocacy coalition framework, we develop first ideas about the interplay of socio-technical systems and policy systems. Then we investigate empirically how coalitions have changed and whether there are indications for major policy change. Our results show that advocacy coalitions in Switzerland have largely remained stable despite the Fukushima shock. However, heterogeneity of beliefs has increased and in 2013, even a majority of actors expressed their support for the energy transition – an indication that major policy change might be ahead. It seems that in socio-technical transitions policy change is not just a matter of core beliefs. Instead, changes in the policy issue and in the actor base – both as a consequence of technological change – play a role as well. We make suggestions how the advocacy coalition framework can inform analysis and theory building in transition studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jochen Markard & Marco Suter & Karin Ingold, 2015. "Socio-technical transitions and policy change - Advocacy coalitions in Swiss energy policy," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-13, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sru:ssewps:2015-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2015-13-swps-markard-et-al.pdf&site=25
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Konrad, Kornelia & Markard, Jochen & Ruef, Annette & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Strategic responses to fuel cell hype and disappointment," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(6), pages 1084-1098.
    2. Jacobsson, Staffan & Lauber, Volkmar, 2006. "The politics and policy of energy system transformation--explaining the German diffusion of renewable energy technology," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 256-276, February.
    3. Geels, Frank W. & Schot, Johan, 2007. "Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 399-417, April.
    4. Elizabeth Shove & Gordon Walker, 2007. "Caution! Transitions Ahead: Politics, Practice, and Sustainable Transition Management," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(4), pages 763-770, April.
    5. Kern, Florian & Smith, Adrian, 2008. "Restructuring energy systems for sustainability? Energy transition policy in the Netherlands," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 4093-4103, November.
    6. Solomon, Barry D. & Krishna, Karthik, 2011. "The coming sustainable energy transition: History, strategies, and outlook," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 7422-7431.
    7. Hess, David J., 2014. "Sustainability transitions: A political coalition perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 278-283.
    8. John Grin, 2012. "The politics of transition governance in Dutch agriculture. Conceptual understanding and implications for transition management," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(1/2), pages 72-89.
    9. Stenzel, Till & Frenzel, Alexander, 2008. "Regulating technological change--The strategic reactions of utility companies towards subsidy policies in the German, Spanish and UK electricity markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2645-2657, July.
    10. Musiolik, Jörg & Markard, Jochen & Hekkert, Marko, 2012. "Networks and network resources in technological innovation systems: Towards a conceptual framework for system building," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(6), pages 1032-1048.
    11. Ulmanen, Johanna H. & Verbong, Geert P.J. & Raven, Rob P.J.M., 2009. "Biofuel developments in Sweden and the Netherlands: Protection and socio-technical change in a long-term perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1406-1417, August.
    12. Markard, Jochen & Truffer, Bernhard, 2008. "Technological innovation systems and the multi-level perspective: Towards an integrated framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 596-615, May.
    13. Farla, Jacco & Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Coenen, Lars, 2012. "Sustainability transitions in the making: A closer look at actors, strategies and resources," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(6), pages 991-998.
    14. Bergek, Anna & Jacobsson, Staffan & Carlsson, Bo & Lindmark, Sven & Rickne, Annika, 2008. "Analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems: A scheme of analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 407-429, April.
    15. Strunz, Sebastian, 2014. "The German energy transition as a regime shift," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 150-158.
    16. Smith, Adrian & Voß, Jan-Peter & Grin, John, 2010. "Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 435-448, May.
    17. Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 955-967.
    18. Coenen, Lars & Díaz López, Fernando J, 2009. "Comparing systems approaches to innovation and technological change for sustainable and competitive economies: an explorative study into conceptual commonalities, differences and complementarities," Papers in Innovation Studies 2009/12, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edmondson, Duncan L. & Kern, Florian & Rogge, Karoline S., 2019. "The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(10).
    2. Javier López González & Valentina Meliciani & Maria Savona, 2019. "When Linder meets Hirschman: inter-industry linkages and global value chains in business services," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 28(6), pages 1555-1586.
    3. Phil Johnstone & Andy Stirling, 2015. "Comparing Nuclear Power Trajectories inGermany And the UK: From ‘Regimes’ to ‘Democracies’ in Sociotechnical Transitions and Discontinuities," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-18, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    4. Normann, Håkon Endresen, 2017. "Policy networks in energy transitions: The cases of carbon capture and storage and offshore wind in Norway," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 80-93.
    5. Janaina Pamplona da Costa, 2015. "Network (Mis)Alignment, Technology Policy and Innovation: The Tale of Two Brazilian Cities," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-14, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Håkon Endresen Normann, 2016. "Policy networks in energy transitions: The cases of carbon capture and storage and offshore wind in Norway," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20161026, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    7. Rogge, Karoline S. & Reichardt, Kristin, 2016. "Policy mixes for sustainability transitions: An extended concept and framework for analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1620-1635.
    8. Roman Jurowetzki, 2015. "Unpacking Big Systems - Natural Language Processing meets Network Analysis. A Study of Smart Grid Development in Denmark," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-15, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    9. Hafeznia, Hamed & Aslani, Alireza & Anwar, Sohail & Yousefjamali, Mahdis, 2017. "Analysis of the effectiveness of national renewable energy policies: A case of photovoltaic policies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 669-680.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 955-967.
    2. Håkon Endresen Normann, 2016. "Policy networks in energy transitions: The cases of carbon capture and storage and offshore wind in Norway," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20161026, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    3. Normann, Håkon Endresen, 2017. "Policy networks in energy transitions: The cases of carbon capture and storage and offshore wind in Norway," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 80-93.
    4. Allan Dahl Andersen & Jochen Markard, 2017. "Innovating incumbents and technological complementarities: How recent dynamics in the HVDC industry can inform transition theories," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20170612, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    5. Markard, Jochen & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Analysis of complementarities: Framework and examples from the energy transition," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 63-75.
    6. Edmondson, Duncan L. & Kern, Florian & Rogge, Karoline S., 2019. "The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(10).
    7. Kivimaa, Paula & Kern, Florian, 2016. "Creative destruction or mere niche support? Innovation policy mixes for sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 205-217.
    8. Francisco Chicombo, Adélia Filosa & Musango, Josephine Kaviti, 2022. "Towards a theoretical framework for gendered energy transition at the urban household level: A case of Mozambique," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    9. Nhat Strøm-Andersen, 2019. "Incumbents in the Transition Towards the Bioeconomy: The Role of Dynamic Capabilities and Innovation Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.
    10. Cheng Wang & Tao Lv & Rongjiang Cai & Jianfeng Xu & Liya Wang, 2022. "Bibliometric Analysis of Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transition Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-31, March.
    11. Andersen, Allan Dahl & Markard, Jochen, 2020. "Multi-technology interaction in socio-technical transitions: How recent dynamics in HVDC technology can inform transition theories," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    12. Yap, Xiao-Shan & Truffer, Bernhard, 2019. "Shaping selection environments for industrial catch-up and sustainability transitions: A systemic perspective on endogenizing windows of opportunity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 1030-1047.
    13. Jonas Heiberg & Christian Binz & Bernhard Truffer, 2020. "Assessing transitions through socio-technical network analysis – a methodological framework and a case study from the water sector," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2035, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2020.
    14. Coenen, Lars & Benneworth, Paul & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Toward a spatial perspective on sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 968-979.
    15. Phil Johnstone & Andy Stirling, 2015. "Comparing Nuclear Power Trajectories inGermany And the UK: From ‘Regimes’ to ‘Democracies’ in Sociotechnical Transitions and Discontinuities," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-18, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    16. Pohlmann, Angela, 2019. "Dismantling the relationship between energy innovations and power," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. Contesse, Maria & Duncan, Jessica & Legun, Katharine & Klerkx, Laurens, 2021. "Unravelling non-human agency in sustainability transitions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    18. Monk, Alexander & Perkins, Richard, 2020. "What explains the emergence and diffusion of green bonds?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    19. Melissa Jackson & Aleta Lederwasch & Damien Giurco, 2014. "Transitions in Theory and Practice: Managing Metals in the Circular Economy," Resources, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-28, July.
    20. Bento, Nuno & Fontes, Margarida, 2015. "The construction of a new technological innovation system in a follower country: Wind energy in Portugal," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 197-210.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Politics; policy change; advocacy coalition framework; energy transition; energy policy; Switzerland;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sru:ssewps:2015-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: University of Sussex Business School Communications Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spessuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.