Methodological and Ideological Options
Accountability and sustainability transitions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107056Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Accountability is core to institutionalization of sustainable transitions.

  • Accountability rests on information flows and application of sanctions/rewards.

  • Accountability can be strong, hollow, authoritarian, or liberalized.

  • Expansion of solar energy in Portugal is linked to shifts in accountability.

Abstract

What constitutes a sustainability transition? We identify sustainability transitions as premised on shifts in accountability relations – assessments of conformance with institutional controls coupled with application of sanctions, incentives, and subsidies – which structure the selection pressures that shape future demographics, technical practices, and social and material trajectories of an economic sector or domain. Contestation and adaptation of accountability mechanisms lend themselves to empirical observation. Beyond evaluating institutional changes that might support a sustainability transition, our analytic framework positions us to identify incoherent, hollow and regressive modes of accountability that constrain sustainability transitions. To operationalize our conceptual scheme, we analyze a purported case of sustainability transitions, solar energy in Portugal during the period 2017–2020. This empirical analysis juxtaposes the promise of movement to a more equitable, low-carbon energy future with institutional and material inertia. We draw on expert interviews, field observation and secondary research to apply accountability analysis to this energy transition case. We find evidence of shifts in relations of accountability that bode well for accelerated growth of solar uptake in Portugal. More broadly, this pilot application of an analytic framework for studying relations of accountability shows significant promise for advancing environmental governance research.

Introduction

Scholarship on sustainability transitions is burgeoning and splintering, which can be a strength as well as a weakness. Within the “evaluative” stream in the literature (Loorbach et al., 2017), a range of seemingly distinct questions structure the field: what constitutes transitions, when is a claim of transition valid, and how to recognize ‘success'? The domains assessed and targeted for sustainability transitions can be characterised as socio-material systems (Hultin, 2019, p. 92), for example systems of electricity generation and transmission that introduce carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and cause climate change, thereby stimulating debate and investments in alternative energy systems. Informed by contrasting theories of change, varied research streams identified as transitions research feature different methods and data types, philosophies of science, and ambitions. These vary from densely analytical and theoretical, historical and descriptive, to action-oriented and prescriptive.

Despite this diversity, the common problem framing hinges on the establishment – or institutionalization - of a disruptive innovation trajectory. In reviewing the sociotechnical transitions literature a decade ago, Smith and Stirling (2010) commented:

Acknowledged to be the most important element, institutionalization is considered least in the transition management literature (Smith and Kern, 2009). This is the point at which serious commitments are needed, to such an extent that the incumbent regime suffers and is undermined if they are not made (Smith et al., 2005;Shove and Walker, 2007). Politically and economically, institutionalization is very difficult. It involves mobilizing serious selection pressures against the incumbent regime and redirecting vast institutional, economic, and political commitments into promising niches along desired pathways.

As highlighted here, a sustainability transition involves shifting resources away from a set of powerful actors, networks, and practices (Stirling, 2019; Turnheim and Geels, 2012) and nurturing and diffusing a range of progressive alternatives at the niche level (Loorbach et al., 2020). We identify accountability as a concept and set of practices with potential to advance sustainability transitions. As recent scholarship suggests (cf. Biermann and Gupta, 2011; Kraft and Wolf, 2018; Sareen and Haarstad, 2020), accountability analysis can take us beyond analysis of socioecological imperatives, shifting values, and idealized conceptions of mechanism design that dominate sustainability debates.

For us, accountability is a process of assessment through which some actor or action is evaluated in relation to contextual norms (Suchman, 1995) or institutional logics (Friedland and Alford, 1991). Further, accountability demands that these evaluations are linked to application of sanctions and subsidies - i.e., incentives, both negative and positive - that reshape competitive dynamics and the demography of relevant populations (e.g., firms, technologies, routines). We identify shifts in standards of appropriateness (i.e., changing foundations of legitimacy) coupled with changes in selection pressures (i.e., reassignment of rights and responsibilities; reallocation of resources) as the basis of a sustainability transition and realization of an alternative socio-material regime. We identify an opportunity to advance an analytical and potentially practical programme of research focused on accountability that supports assessment of the destabilization of incumbent regimes, as well as cultivation of alternative concepts, actors, networks, and practices at the level of niche.

In this article, we derive an accountability analysis methodology, and apply it to solar energy uptake in Portugal, a growing niche (Pinho and Hunter, 2019). Extending work by Kraft and Wolf (2018), we argue that attention to accountability relations – and the associated legitimacy flows – can support empirical assessments of sociotechnical transitions. We develop an approach to identify changes in environmental governance that shape behaviours, technical practices and, over time, the composition of populations of economic actors (i.e., organizational ecology or demography). The institutional shifts that we identify as driving socio-material change represent selection pressures in environments characterised by competition. For example, new regulations, licensing requirements, taxes, and social norms reward some set of actors/actions and disadvantage those that fail to read or actively disregard these signals. These shifts in social regulation stem from, and inform, new understanding of risks and emergent social norms (cf. Lund, 2016; Mitchell, 2011). To some extent, this reference to a shifting competitive landscape can be understood through reference to Schumpetarian dynamics and organizational ecology (Hannan and Freeman, 1984). More generally, we refer to multi-scalar socio-material systems in which population dynamics – and the behaviours of individuals in the population – are mediated by changes in material, structural and cognitive-cultural domains. Sustainability transitions require “changes in technology, but also changes in user practices, regulation, industrial networks, infrastructure, and symbolic meaning or culture” (Geels, 2002, p. 1257; Williams and Robinson, 2020). We note strong parallels between our problem framing and Kallis and Norgaard's (2010) treatment of co-evolutionary ecological economics.

In short, behaviours that have implications for sustainability (e.g., investments in energy infrastructure and changes in relevant public policies) are subject to varied assessments that condition prospects for actors within diverse populations. The standards of assessment and the implications of these ‘accountability tests' – i.e., redistribution of privileges and duties – are continuously subject to contestation and change. Study of changes in accountability assessments, mechanisms, and practices in these interconnected domains can be a means of evaluating progress (such as the growth and consolidation of a low-carbon niche), lack of progress (such as persistence and reaffirmation of commitments to fossil fuel energy sources), and twists and turns in sustainability transitions. These can be understood as changes in accountability regimes, which we define as the full range of assessments and selection mechanisms at work in and on a given domain.

We structure our argument as follows: Section 2 contextualizes accountability and legitimacy within environmental governance scholarship. Section 3 presents our accountability analysis framework. Section 4 applies our framework to dynamics of solar energy uptake in Portugal. The empirics emphasize the ambiguity of the sociotechnical dynamics, and the analysis demonstrates how an accounting of accountability allows us to make sense of the dynamics. In the concluding discussion in Section 5, we reflect on our approach to characterising sustainability transitions and articulate programmatic implications.

Section snippets

The accounting of accountability and legitimacy under transition

This section first introduces and links sociotechnical and institutional dimensions of transitions, and then argues for the need to focus on accountability relations to characterize sectoral transitions.

An accountability analysis framework

We have organized this section in two parts: 3.1 introduces a three-step cycle of inputs, outputs and outcomes through which to map changing accountability regimes during sectoral transitions, then 3.2 integrates treatment of accountability assessment and sanctions to create a 2 × 2 matrix that structures empirical representations of relations of accountability.

Accountability analysis of sectoral change: Solar energy uptake in Portugal

We conducted an accountability analysis of solar energy uptake in Portugal during 2017–2020. Our attention is focused on changes, debates about potential changes, and lack of changes. The assessment is based on semi-structured interviews conducted during five months of fieldwork during 2017–2019 with 80 diverse experts and sectoral stakeholders, in-depth field observations including site visits to solar projects, and desk research. Field visits were interrupted in 2020 due to a global pandemic,

Characterising sectoral change in terms of accountability relations

This concluding section abstracts from our case study to reflect on how accountability analysis can contribute to research and realization of sustainability transitions. We have defined accountability in terms of social regulation, and we have developed an accountability analysis framework that we hope researchers, policy actors, and practitioners will take forward. Mitchell (2011: 1882) refers to “an instrumental logic of consequences but also … a normative logic of appropriateness”. We

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by a Visiting Researcher Grant from the Norwegian Strategic Programme for International Research and Education (SPIRE) and the Research Council of Norway (Norges Forskningsrådet') grant 321421

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