Socio-technical dynamics and political institutions: A multilevel Darwinian framework of sustainability transitions

The study of sustainability transitions (SUSTRANs) is an emerging research field that provides useful keys
to understand how more sustainable ways to meet societal needs may emerge and develop. As stressed by
some scholars, much more work is needed to make political institutions endogenous to SUSTRANs. This
paper contributes to such a research endeavour by providing a simple conceptual framework based on
multiple levels of Darwinian evolution. The evolutionary environment is defined by a societal function (e.g.,
urban mobility), which is fulfilled by socio-technical systems (STSs) (e.g., the car, public transport, the
bicycle, etc.). Three levels of evolution are considered: a lower level, with firms; two higher levels, with
innovation networks and socio-political communities, respectively. While competing within the same STS,
firms cooperate within a socio-political community in order to back their STS, and compete with other –
both existing and emerging – STSs that fulfil the same societal function. With this simple framework
SUSTRANs can be represented as a multilevel evolutionary process that endogenously generate the needed
favourable policies (FPs). A socio-political community supporting a new and more sustainable STS achieves
the ability to induce FPs only if it is able to scale up – and reach a tipping point – in the cumulative
causation process between the enlistment of new members and an increasing level of legitimation. The
proposed framework can be applied not only to SUSTRANs, but to all socio-technical transitions, where
power and competition can be considered as multilevel phenomena, and multi-industry dynamics are at
centre stage.