Analysing socio-technical transitions using the Multi-Level Perspective

The third socio-technical systems based approach for examining environmentally sustainable transformations within the housing sector is Transitions Theory or the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) (Rip and Kemp, 1998; Geels, 2011). This theory is concerned with questions of innovation and socio-technical development. MLP researchers typically pursue these questions, to better understand how transitions in socio-technical systems can be deliberately engineered. The MLP was first developed to historically trace the development of technologies in whole socio-technical systems.

For example, transitions from horse-drawn carts to automobiles (Geels, 2005a) and transitions in water supply and personal hygiene (Geels, 2005b).

The starting point for understanding the MLP framework, is to explain the notion of a technological regime, described as:

‘…the rule-set or grammar embedded in a complex of engineering practices, production process technologies, product characteristics, skills and procedures, ways of handling relevant artifacts and persons, ways of defining problems – all of them embedded in institutions and infrastructures’ (Rip and Kemp 1998: 338).

Rip and Kemp go on to position regimes as the meso-level of the MLP framework, explaining how, ‘[r]egimes are intermediaries [situated] between specific innovations as these are conceived, developed and introduced, and overall socio-technical landscapes.’

As such, the MLP comprises three analytical levels: niches (micro-level), regimes (meso-level), and the socio-technical landscape (macro-level). MLP researchers contend that these three levels form a ‘multi-layered backdrop of novelty and irreversibility’ (ibid.)(see Figure 2.8).

Figure 2.8 – Multi-level framework on socio-technical transitions

(Source: Adapted from Geels, 2002)

Different processes occur at these three levels: ‘(a) niche innovations build up internal momentum, through learning processes, price/performance improvements and support from powerful groups, (b) changes at the landscape level create pressure on the regime and (c) destabilisation of the regime creates windows of opportunity for niche innovations’ Geels and Schot (2007: 400). The MLP suggests that when these processes align, novel approaches (such as low-energy housing construction) breakthrough into mainstream markets, where they compete with the existing regime.

If conditions are favourable, a shift in regime occurs, resulting in a transition - a major and irreversible change in the way that particular societal functions (e.g. housing provision) are met (Hargreaves et al., 2013).

The MLP approach to understanding the governance of socio-technical systems has gained some traction in politics and industry as a managerial tool used to encourage more sustainable regimes to take hold (Berkhout, 2002). Transition Management (Kemp and Loorbach, 2006) and Strategic Niche Management processes (Kemp et al., 1998) can attempt to: nurture innovations within ‘niche’ spaces by providing protection from mainstream markets and pressures; alter exogenous landscape processes (for example, by shifting public attitudes and cultural conventions); and dismantle embedded regimes (for example, by changing existing policy and practice) (Hargreaves et al., 2013; Moore et al., 2014). Amongst other applications, these tools have been applied to understand: the emergence of a passive house network (Mlecnik,

2014); uptake of low-energy housing refurbishment (Killip, 2013); and the potential transformation of the housing construction sector by green niche developments (Berry et al., 2013). Application of the MLP has also received critique. For instance, Shove and Walker (2007) and Scrase and Smith (2009) raise concern over its ability to attend to everyday politics and to direct the trajectory of complex social systems.

The MLP has received considerable theoretical criticism (see responses by Geels, 2011). Originally accused of technological bias and of failing to adequately attend to the role of social actors in transition processes, the concept of technological regime was expanded to ‘socio-technical regimes’ (Geels, 2004) (see Figure 2.9). Transition theorists have rebutted the criticism that the MLP neglects societal and cultural aspects of change, claiming that the framework is in fact ‘shot through with agency, because the trajectories and multi-level alignments are always enacted by social groups’ (Geels, 2011:

29). However minimal attention is given to forms of ‘social innovation’ by the MLP, and actors are defined narrowly as stakeholders of the socio-technical regime under study (Hargreaves et al., 2013). Further, Shove and Walker point out that the MLP has emphasised how innovations are ‘shaped by social processes rather than… ways in which technical systems are implicated in defining and reproducing daily life’ (2010: 404).

Second, the MLP has been accused of having a bias towards bottom-up socio-technical change, by focusing on how innovations emerge and may/not take-hold in regimes.

This emphasis occurs ‘at the expense of processes which… operate ‘downwards’ from general features of the socio-technical landscape’ Berkhout et al. (2004: 62). In an effort to understand not just innovations and vertical relations between emerging niches and incumbent regimes, but also how the normality of everyday life is maintained, Shove and Walker take this critique further. Instead of linear change, they highlight the ‘horizontal circulation of elements’ of practice and argue for a ‘flatter model characterised by multiple relations… of reproduction [that cut] across different scales’

(2010: 474) (see Section 3). Such critiques have resonated with transition theorists who have increasingly deviated from the notion of ‘nested hierarchy’ and acknowledged that ‘levels…refer to different degrees of stability, which is not necessarily hierarchical’

(Geels, 2011: 37). Further, some researchers have identified points of intersection between the vertical plane (innovation in regimes) and the horizontal plane (innovation in practices) (e.g. Hargreaves et al., 2013; Jensen, 2014), and suggested that the MLP and SPT could be used to provide complementary perspectives on a research problem.

Figure 2.9 – A dynamic multi-level perspective on transitions

(Source: Adapted from Geels, 2004)

Third, the MLP primarily adopts a single system focus, drawing boundaries around socio-technical systems and regimes of particular interest. To use low-energy housing as an example, the MLP and transition management tools have variously been used to explore transitions in: the energy regime (e.g. Verbong and Geels, 2007; Foxon et al., 2010); eco-cities (e.g. Rohracher and Späth, 2014) green building renovation (e.g. Horne and Dalton, 2014; Killip, 2013) and the new-build housing construction regime (e.g. Jensen, 2012). Whilst each of these regimes upholds multiple everyday ways of doing, overlapping relations connecting these different regimes have largely been overlooked by the MLP. Consequently, calls have been made for attention to be given to how variously sustainable practices become embedded in social life, how wider

‘systems of systems’ hold social-technical structures in place, and whether and how reorganisation of these systems may enable more environmentally sustainable ways of life (Shove, 2003; Watson, 2012).

In terms of providing a framework to study socio-technical change in the housing sector therefore whilst the MLP adopts a systems-based approach to change and contemplates transitions in socio-technical structures, it arguably still retains a technological bias. Whilst it has gained traction in policy circles, this approach would examine the housing sector in isolation from overlapping systems and policies.

In addition, MLP theorists have only recently begun to acknowledge ‘flatter’ less-hierarchical change mechanisms. Given the limitations of this theory, and the two other socio-technical systems based approaches discussed in Section 2.3 (Domestication Theory and Actor Network Theory), there is a need to look beyond these theoretical frameworks in order to understand the governance of low-energy housing.