Towards a governance of sustainability transitions: Giving place to individuals

Policies for sustainability transitions necessarily have three main characteristics: they are prescriptive with regard to dynamic societal processes, linked to the normativity of s us tainable development, and are able to interlink both the s ocietal and the individual levels. Taking transition management as a starting point, the paper elaborates that it cannot well addres s the s econd and third characteris tic. We therefore s ugges t complementing transition management approaches with the individualistic capability approach and the more structural practice theory. We suggest a heuristic combination that places individuals back into the s tudy of s us tainability trans itions and s how with three s ugges tions how this might change research on and for transitions. Firstly, we propose to assess sustainability on individual, niche, and regime level; Secondly, we show that the crucial learning processes occurring in the trans ition proces s es can be better unders tood when interrelating the three levels; Finally, we elaborate that the governance of sustainability transitions necessarily has – at the s ame time – to foster free spaces for experimentation and to select thos e niches that are conducive to more instead of less sustainability.