Redefining Transition Management

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For Luhmann, systems have to innovate to survive. Social systems ... and necessary for survival (Van Assche, 2006). Yet, .... strategies evolved to hide the paradox for themselves. .... knowledge (Ark, 2005; Hoppe, 2002; Loos et al., 2007;.
WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY WORKING PAPERS IN EVOLUTIONARY GOVERNACE THEORY # 9

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Redefining Transition Management Kristof Van Assche, Martijn Duineveld and Raoul Beunen

Kristof van Assche is Associate Professor at the Communication & Innovation Studies, Wageningen University, The Netherlands & Associate Professor at the ZEF/Center for Development Research, Bonn University, Germany (Corresponding author) | Martijn Duineveld is Assistant Professor at the Cultural Geography Group at. P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands [email protected] | Raoul Beunen is Assistant Professor at Wageningen University. P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands [email protected]

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyze praxis/ theory entanglements in contemporary discourse on transition management, as exemplified by the Netherlands. We argue that modernist notions of steering pervade the governance system, overestimating the role of governmental actors and underestimating other sources of innovation and systemic innovation that could be labeled ‘transition’. We argue that in this policy environment, transitions management theories emerged and were embraced that reinforced flawed notions of social engineering, both in science and in governance. We develop a theoretical framework, partly deriving from the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, to grasp the paradoxes of current notions of transition management, and to outline an alternative approach. A renewed reflection on innovation we deem essential for an understanding of the potential for transition management, for delineating the limits and possibilities of steering in such endeavor. Innovation, it is argued, has to be understood as a post- hoc interpretation of previous decisions and actions, emerging in shifting networks of actors and allies. It is a risky and unpredictable operation at the intersection of incompatible understandings of the world. Transition management, then, has to be understood as the creation of conditions for reflection, including the reflection on the redistribution of risks engendered by innovation.. Keywords: transition management, innovation, social systems theory, Dutch policy

INTRODUCTION

Since the late nineties notions of innovation, systems innovation and transition management are abundant in public discourse. The Netherlands are a case in point. Here a focus on transition – a desired change and movement from one societal state to another emerged in the discourse on sustainable development. As consumer behaviour and long term ideas on sustainability were considered out of balance, government wanted to push societal actors to deliberately ‘innovate’ and shift technologies,

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economic practices and organizational forms on a more sustainable track. Redirecting the main stream of socio economic development in society was indicated as transition management (Andriani, 2009; Klerkx, 2008; Martens and Rotmans, 2002; Rotmans, 2006; Stichting InnovatieNetwerk Transitie Duurzame, 2003; Wilson, 2007). This article seeks to assess the current discourse on transition management by focusing on a central paradox in the management of transition and

Dutch case and reflect on the utility of the theoretical frame.

innovation. Innovation is by definition characterized by ‘newness’, by unpredictability and uncertainty which makes it very hard to plan or steer it. Yet, governments and managers today are striving to steer or plan ‘innovation’ and ‘transition’ in pursuit of specific goals, like those of sustainability. In analysing the paradoxes involved in such a deliberate management of transition, we will partly rely on the sociological systems theory developed by Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998). This body of work allows us, not only to outline the broader societal structure in which the management of transitions has to take place, but also to delineate the steering possibilities and limits of governmental organizations in stimulating innovation for particular goals such as sustainability. In this way, both the critical and constructive potential of systems theory can be demonstrated.

TRANSITION MANAGEMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS

To meet the challenges of environmental sustainability governments today are looking for new forms of governance and policy approaches and that can help to shift economies and technologies in a sustainable direction. In the Netherlands (and other countries like the UK) government-sponsored programmes have explicitly adopted methods of ‘transition management’, an approach rooted in tradition of systems thinking and ‘multilevel’ models of innovation (Kemp and Loorbach, 2006; Rip and Kemp, 1998). Transition management seeks to address complex, long-term problems in fields like energy, mobility, health which require policies that can induce social and technological innovations capable of replacing established ways of doing things, as well as their structural embedding (Voß et al., 2009).

We focus on the Dutch case, because here the government and its public administrations have put transition and innovation on a prominent place on the economic and scientific agenda, especially with regard to sustainability issues like energy use and food quality. Transition management theory, and its adoption in the Netherlands, has also attracted considerable interest amongst those studying environmental governance (e.g. Van Assche et al., 2012; Kern and Howlett, 2009; Shove and Walker, 2007; Smith and Kern, 2009; Voß et al., 2009). In the following section, we first present some background information and key concepts about transition management in the Dutch context. Then we briefly introduce Luhmanns system theory and provide a more detailed analysis of his views on innovation and transition. In the second section of the paper we analyse the Dutch discourse on transition and innovation in more detail. What is remarkable about this discourse, is the often-non-reflexive, latent believe in the possibility of steering transitions or social engineering (Shove and Walker, 2007). Using a sociological systems theoretical perspective, we will reflect on the role of government in stimulating environmental innovation and on its inherent limitations. In concluding sections, we assess the

Since the ‘transition management’ approach has been instituted by the Dutch government in 2001, it has quickly gained ground. During the last decade, both the Dutch mass media and policy- related documents at times reflected a preoccupation with environmental innovation, or a supposed lack thereof. A national forum convened for a few years (innovatieplatform), and research promising to enhance innovation in fields like energy, mobility, waste recycling was prioritized (Duineveld et al., 2009). Several governmental organizations were retooled to stimulate innovation. The traditional governmental information service on the implementation of new technical means changed in a herd of facility managers lecturing on innovation at the level of individual entrepreneurs. Innovation became the buzzword and the norm. Underlying assumptions were usually that the Dutch economy was not capable of meeting the requirements of sustainability, and therefore not innovative enough. Entrepreneurs were considered un-adaptive to changing environments (Peet, 2009). It

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LUHMANN’S SYSTEMS THEORY

was also presumed that innovation can be measured, that it can be managed and that rules can be identified to stimulate innovation (Ogink et al., 2004; Potters et al., 2007; Potters et al., 2009). Furthermore, various branches and levels of government have to assume their role in this urgent process of updating society and should become more susceptible to ‘systemic change’ (Duineveld et al., 2009; Kemp et al., 2007b; Van Assche, 2004, 2006).

Luhmann has been described as one of the greatest social scientists of the 20th century, but many of his concepts have been remarkably unexplored and left without much application. One of the fields where his insights did gain influence is organization and management theory, and the following analysis of innovation and transition is indebted to the work conducted in that particular field of application e.g. (Van Assche & Verschraegen, 2008; Fuchs, 2001; Hernes and Bakken, 2002; Seidl and Becker, 2005; Teubner, 1996), allowing for a smoother move from grand theory to analyses of practice. Luhmann understands society as a collection of interacting social systems, each creating its own reality through communication, based on specific distinctions and specific modes of reproduction. This has far- reaching implications for the analysis of innovation and transition.

The Dutch transition management discourse is firmly rooted in a long tradition of state planning and a strong believe in consensus building. Ideas of ‘social engineering’ have been omnipresent within Dutch governments and governance studies since the sixties and seventies of the last century (Baas, 1995; Frissen, 1999; Frissen, 2007, Fischer, 1990, 2000; Scott, 1998). Although proponents of transition management (Kemp et al., 2007b) have adapted this tradition to an age of ‘governance’ (instead of government) and ‘complexity’ (instead of linearity, simplicity) they remain firmly committed to models of ‘political agency’ and ‘deliberate intervention’ (Shove and Walker, 2007).

Traditionally, the notion of system often gets associated with the idea of a holistic structure that defines and controls all constituent phenomena, with the different parts or subsystems in subordination to the broader structure of the encompassing system. In the social sciences as well, one often interprets systems theory as implying a Weberian, top-down hierarchy of control and an enforcement of a general reason on individual actors (Nassehi, 2005): 180). This notion of a system is inherent in transition and transition management theory (Poppe et al., 2009). Control is organized in what are called socioeconomic regimes and innovations require so called strategic niche management to locate opportunities with less control (Bos, 2010). This understanding of systems, however, has nothing to with Luhmann’s theory of social systems, which basically rejects the idea that systems come into being and stabilize themselves through hierarchical relations and control by a higher level of order. Instead, systems build up their own structures or ‘organized complexity’ through their own operations; in this sense systems cannot be controlled by a bigger whole or higher level, but only by themselves.

These different presumptions are reflected in the literature on systems innovation and transition management which has developed since the late 90s. Often sponsored by governmental and semigovernmental organizations, this line of research and literature aims to circumscribe the concepts more precisely, to define parameters and generate procedures for optimizations (Poppe et al., 2009; Rotmans, 2000 ; Rotmans, 2003)). Our analysis aims to identify and reflect on the frame of assumptions that is at work in this discourse. Although there has been a lot of interest in the transition management literature over the last ten years, the discourse seems to have largely eluded critical scrutiny (important exceptions are Shove and Walker, 2007 and Smith and Stirling, 2010).

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relation between a system and its environment is asymmetric.

Luhmann distinguishes three types of social systems: interactions, organizations and function systems. Interactions are conversations, implying the perceived physical presence of interlocutors, short lived systems, fleeting, and limited in their processing of environmental complexity (Luhmann, 1995). Organizations reproduce themselves through a specific form of communications, namely decisions, implying the awareness and communication of alternatives, and continuously referring to previous decisions (Seidl, 2005). Function systems are the systems of communication that fulfill a function in society at large. Law, economy, politics, religion, science and education each play a role in the reproduction of society as the encompassing social system, each reproducing itself through distinct codes, each maintaining a boundary vis-à-vis the other function systems. While the pattern of interdependencies between the functions systems reveals a history of mutual adaptation (Van Assche et al., 2010). Politics is considered the system that articulates and enforces collectively binding decisions, but relies on law in their codification and enforcement (Luhmann, 1990).

Changes in the environment do not cause linear effects inside of a system, but only ‘irritations’, which are produced within the system itself. On the one hand, this means that a system is flexible in reducing ‘reality’ to its own systemic version – which is precisely what enhances the system’s ability to develop a special kind of complexity. On the other hand, it makes external, purposeful steering of the system an unlikely and difficult event. There can be no direct, purposeful steering, political, legal or otherwise, because direct interference of the environment would halt the autopoiesis, and lead to the dissolution of the system in the environment (Luhmann, 1989, 1990, 1995). Luhmann on transition and system innovation What would constitute an innovation in a social systems perspective? What would be a system innovation and is it possible to steer or manage this? For Luhmann, systems have to innovate to survive. Social systems reproduce themselves through recursive communication, linking back to previous communications and continuously reinterpreting them. For organizations, each decision reinterprets the history of previous decisions, slowly changing the interpretive frames to understand that history, and with that, the image of the organization that guides further decision- making (Hernes and Bakken, 2002; Luhmann, 2000). In autopoietic systems, literally everything will change over time, structures, elements and procedures gradually transform each other in due time. So, Luhmann’s evolutionary theory places a premium on innovation, as something that is radical, and necessary for survival (Van Assche, 2006). Yet, that continuous change will not always be perceived as innovation within the system. And the environment cannot force innovation, because systems respond to the environment only to the extent that environmental impulses can be internally reconstructed in the system’s code or logic From a systems perspective, the distinction between (mere) change and (genuine) innovation is a matter of

Society for Luhmann is polycentric, in the sense that each function system internally produces an image of society, of the other systems in its environment. Politics is not a site with a superior viewpoint, an elevated position that allows for a comprehensive view and understanding of society (King and Tornhill, 2003 ), and certainly not a central position from which the other systems can be steered (distinguishing his theory from the high modernism of Scott, 1998.) The behavior of function systems and organizations is necessarily opaque and unpredictable for politics, since it can never entirely grasp their mode of reproduction, the specificity of what Luhmann calls their operational closure or autopoesis, a form of reproduction entirely relying on what is available in the system itself. Closure here does not mean that such systems are not able to experience contact with their environments but that the only mode to get in contact is based on their own operations. Due to this operational closure, the 4

marvelously implemented plan, then the rhetoric of innovation can still claim that success a posteriori, as the result of conscious decision- making, of a drive for innovation (Allina - Pisano, 2008; Beunen et al., 2009; Collins, 2006; Ledeneva, 2005). Lack of innovation can be observed only by a collapse of autopoiesis, in the case of a company, a bankruptcy.

observation. Change takes places continuously, in adaptation to external and internal environments. Innovation could be seen as important change, or radical change, rapid change, successful change, but all these labels have little theoretical relevance. A distinction system theory can make is one between reflexive and non-reflexive change. To understand this, one needs to realize that only mode of operating for social systems is communication, or rather the connectivity of communicative events in time. The autopoiesis of social systems is based on communication, and only communication, in which each new communication connects to simultaneously defines (or ‘understands’) the previous communication. Innovation, in this view, can only be an ex-post account, a retrospective scheme of observation in which an event is defined as something new or transformative. According to Luhmann, social systems are capable of self- reflection by communicating on their own systemic communication, and on its position vis-à-vis various environments (Luhmann, 1989, 2004). But they never have a full understanding of their own autopoiesis, since it is necessarily observed from within, that is, with all the blind spots of first- order observation (During et al., 2009; Seidl, 2005). Social systems, therefore, will not be able to reflect on all changes taking place in the system, and many of those changes are unconscious adaptations. Reflexive changes are changes that enter the self- reflection of the system, as conscious responses to observations of the environment. If a reflexive change is deemed successful, it can be labeled as an innovation in hindsight (Seidl and Becker, 2005). A response to a changing environment might be inspired by fear, and marked by erratic analyses of skills, demands, resources, but if it works, it might become an innovation. And, as said, the chain of reinterpretations of success and failure, of innovation and nonadaptation never stops (Brunsson, 2002; Jansson, 1989; Morgan, 1986; Van Assche, 2004). This has clear advances: if an organization changed, largely unaware of those changes, and the result is perceived as very positive, e.g. an unexpected success in the elections, a growing market share, a

Rhetoric is the art of saying things well, and the art of being persuasive. Such implies immediately an environment that can be persuaded. Persuading people can be construed as producing a shift in their semantics, in the meaning they attribute to something. The rhetoric of innovation similarly implies an environment that has to be persuaded, that has to incorporate a perception of successful and purposeful change in their semantics (Fuchs, 2001). Recent theoretical models of innovation often stress that the recognition and success of innovations is dependent on the expectations and interests of the different actors directly or indirectly involved in developing an innovation (developers, legislators, politicians, end users, etc). Innovation is an emergent, interactive activity, involving many actors who cooperate or oppose one another. The art of innovation is exactly to interest an increasing number of allies (users, intermediaries, etc.) who can make the invention stronger (Akrich et al., 2002a, b; Latour, 1987, 2004). In last instance, the fate of the innovation depends on the active participation of a network of other actors. This dependence on the perception and cooperation of other actors reduces even further the degree of control an organization has over innovation. “Since the outcome of a project depends on the alliances which it allows for and interests which it mobilizes, no criteria, no algorithm, can ensure success a priori” (Akrich et al., 2002a). Innovation cannot simply be ‘decided’, but is rather the outcome of a contingent process of communication and coupling with other communication processes that is post-hoc rationalized as something new and valuable. This is what Luhmann calls the paradoxical nature of decision, and hence, of organizations. Organizations, 5

hospitals or firms, have played a crucial role in this process because they are able to couple different function systems, precisely in their different manner of operation, as they form decisions using the codes of the respective function systems (Andersen, 2005; Luhmann, 1997). Firms, for instance, even if their goal is economic, are coupled to other function systems as well, by using scientific research, dealing with legal claims, developing political pressure, etc. (Hernes and Bakken, 2002).

which consist of decisions, have to decide on how to proceed, yet have no secure knowledge about what to decide (otherwise it would not be a choice). If organizations would be fully aware of the nothingness upholding them, autopoiesis would stop, so a series of strategies evolved to hide the paradox for themselves. Luhmann speaks of de- paradoxification (Teubner, 1996; Van Assche, 2006). Paradox cannot be eliminated or solved, but it can be shifted out of sight (Schiltz, 2007). Causalities are constructed: ‘we have to do this’; leadership qualities are mystified: ‘he will guide us through this’. Organizations construct environments and events in such a way that they seem to cause, or prompt, a certain decision (Czarniawska, 1997; Hernes and Bakken, 2002; Weick, 1995). In this rhetoric of de- paradoxification, certain features of the external or internal environment are constructed as inviting, enabling or requiring innovation (During et al., 2009). Strategic management of organizations, including innovation management, cannot be but self- referential. Innovation can take place at the level of communications, procedures, and structures, but changes in one feature of the system are enabled by changes in the others, and will trigger new adaptations there. Changes in self- image, images of the environment, in decision- procedures, in hierarchy, all interrelate, whether one is aware of this or not (King and Tornhill, 2003 ). In that sense, every innovation is a system innovation; it is just that some changes are labeled systemic, others not. One can refer to the American automobile industry, with its successive waves of reform presented by successive managers as more systemic and more innovative than the previous ones.

If there is one system innovation, it would be the emergence of modern, differentiated, society, in other words the operational closure of the function systems in the 18th century (Luhmann, 1995). Following the same line of reasoning, one could also argue that system innovation springs from the sustained reflection on path-dependence and interdependence, on rigidity and flexibility, thereby increasing the options available, the insight in the linkage of various possible changes, and consequently, the potential for system innovation (Luhmann, 2002). Innovation in this view derives precisely from working on the contact borders between incompatible system codes; it springs from the clash of contending principles of evaluation and the attempt to translate events, objects, etc in the code of another system. In their seminal study on new-product development (Lester and Piore, 2004), show that examples of radical innovation involve combinations across disparate fields: new medical devices, for instance, draw on the basic life sciences as well as clinical practice; blue jeans combine traditional workmen’s clothing and laundry technology borrowed from hospitals and hotels and cellular phones reconfigure elements from radio and telephone technologies (Lester and Piore, 2004). It is exactly the friction between multiple systemic frames which challenges the taken-forgranted and takes knowledge apart so it can be creatively recombined (Stark, 2009). By smartly utilizing – instead of denying - differences between function systems, innovative organizations can repackage other systemic logics, making it possible to adapt to the ever changing topography of their organizational environment (for an application in the

FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENTIATION AS A SOCIOLOGICAL PREREQUISITE FOR INNOVATION

The history of differentiation produced operationally closed, but highly interdependent function systems. Law, politics, education, science, economics could only achieve their specialized communications because of the parallel development of the others (King and Tornhill, 2003). Organizations such as universities,

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capitalist democracies and simple interventions to build them (Allina - Pisano, 2008; Ledeneva, 2005; Verdery, 2003). The same example reveals that the rhetoric of transition can be internally appropriated in many ways: groups stress different aspects of the final situation, and the same applies to the starting point and the path. Some work towards a final goal with conviction, others just adopt the rhetoric for various purposes, criminal or otherwise (Collins, 2006).

field of planning, see Van Assche & Verschraegen, 2008: 270-278) MANAGING ‘SYSTEMS INNOVATION’ AND TRANSITIONS: THE DUTCH POLICY DISCOURSE

System innovation in the Dutch policy context is often used in distinction with innovation. A system innovation could lead to a transition, and is supposedly not confined to something small. To what? Different options arise here: to one company, to one sector, to the government, to the business sphere, to academia. This leaves ‘innovation’ as ‘something new, and something good’, ‘system innovation’ as ‘a more comprehensive innovation, bridging some boundaries’, and ‘transition’ as ‘the move of a larger whole by means of system innovation to a higher state of functioning’.

Within Dutch transition management studies transition is however conceived of as a formalized and manageable process. Transition consist of different phases, each characterised by their own dynamics and which are determined by system changes at different scale levels (Loorbach, 2007). Transitions are represented as processes involving several people and organisations, such as ordinary citizens, governments, businesses and social organisations: “Influence on society is not only social, cultural, institutional or political, but also economic, ecological and technological. Social actors are reflexive and as such shape and influence the dynamics of the system they inhabit” (Avelino and Rotmans, 2009). It is believed within the Dutch transition discourse that research on long-term societal changes can provide tools that help guide society towards innovation, system innovation for a mere sustainable society (Loorbach, 2007). Transition studies carry and constantly reproduce the promise of contributing to the solutions to socio-political and environmental problems in agriculture, water-management, transportation, education, healthcare and so on. These problems are represented as ”persistent problems that have been around for decades for which there are no cut and dried solutions (…). These problems are persistent because they are deeply rooted in our social structures and institutions (…)” (Rotmans et al., 2005). In order to solve these ‘persistent problems’, transition researchers produce recommendations and policy-measures in order to manage a transition. Within transition studies it is thought that transition management is able to offer a conceptual framework that enables one to come up with a specific mix of

What could be a transition? As explained earlier, transitions can only be identified as such post hoc. A transition in the making consists of a multiplicity of heterogeneous and often confused decisions made by a large number of different and often conflicting groups, decisions which one is unable to decide a priori as to whether or not they bring the desired end goal closer (Akrich et al., 2002a, b; Elster et al., 1998). Saying that transition can only be identified retrospectively means implicitly highlighting the existence of a plurality of possible transition paths. There is not pre-given path to follow. Post-communist countries, for instance, werefor a long time grouped together as ‘transitional’ countries: they were all supposed to be similar – moving from one societal state to another and supposed to end up similar. In practice, the specific autopoiesis of each state organization, their specific internal and external environments, their informal institutions, produced very different effects, which also produced different images of routes, plans and final situations (Elster et al., 1998; Van Assche et al., 2010). Post- communist ‘transition’ also showed that many western consultants were operating under false assumptions, products of their organizational cultures and business models, assumptions on ready- made models for

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)funded by governments it should hold the promise of the possibility to produce recommendations for effective policies. This forces scientists, chair groups and research institutes to explicitly present themselves as producers of strategic research and knowledge (Ark, 2005; Hoppe, 2002; Loos et al., 2007; Spaapen et al., 2007 ).

ways to steer things in the right direction. It is stated, that management at system level is essential, newcomers should create a new regime, a pluralistic approach is desirable and it is ought to be important for the actors involved within transitions to get to know each other’s perceptions of reality. More specific are the recommendations for setting up a transition arena and developing transition coalitions and a transition agenda. One of the key outcomes of transition research is that ‘cooperation’ is needed, and that knowledge needed to be more ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘trans-disciplinary’ (bridging disciplinary, conceptual, academic boundaries, enabling innovations crossing those boundaries) (Hendriks and Grin, 2007b; Kemp et al., 2007b). In many research and policy projects, these assumptions can easily be identified (Kemp et al., 2007a, Hendriks and Grin, 2007a).

In the following sections, we will further analyse key concepts and assumptions in the Dutch transition discourse, and dissect them by means of a social systems perspective on innovation and transition. LUHMANN’S CRITIQUE OF GOVERNMENT ‘MANAGING’ SOCIETY / SOCIAL ENGINEERING

Transition management theory is for a large part constituted within the tradition of Dutch governance (Shove and Walker, 2007). Its proponents generally agree that government policy has a key role to play in the promotion of ‘system innovation’ and believe that strong policy instruments and procedures are needed to insure that such transformations occur (Kern and Howlett, 2009). The following quote may serve as an example:

Typical for the Dutch transition discourse is a firm, but often non-reflexive belief in the possibility of steering transitions or social engineering (Shove and Walker, 2007). Transitions are represented as a set of factors or conditions that, if they all work together, will cause a desired change – as if they are the result of more or less mechanical, instrumental processes. Though transition experts state that it is a misconception to presume that the implementation of the theory will lead to a deterministic collection of directing rules (Rotmans et al., 2005), it did not keep transition studies from producing a large body of work full of concrete recommendations, guidelines, methods and techniques that are presumed to have real effects, and which can be used to attain certain objectives and solve certain problems (Avelino and Rotmans, 2009; Hendriks and Grin, 2007b; Kern and Howlett, 2009; Loorbach, 2009; Pahl-Wostl, 2006; Rotmans and Kemp, 2008).

The steering philosophy behind transition management is the modulation of ongoing societal developments and innovations at different levels against a set of collective chosen goals. The role of the government as part of societal networks is that of facilitator and mediator as well as director and decision-maker, depending on the different stages of the transition. The structuring form is centralised, cooperative context-steering oriented to producing controlled structural change (…) in which there is a co-evolution between modification of structures and modification of the self-understanding of actors. Within this transition management discourse the government “is seen as a facilitator–stimulator– controller–director, depending on the phase of the transition actually underway” (Kern and Howlett, 2009).

The transition management discourse thus fits within the increasing fashionability of applied scientific research (Gibbons, 1994 ). Social and political relevance are considered to be just as important as scientific relevance (Tress and Tress, 2003). Since much of the present-day policy research is (co8

Van Assche & Duineveld, 2013). When politics tries to take over law, economics, education, those systems will gradually lose their operational closure, will lose the capacity to autopoietically reproduce. After a while, this will lead to a breakdown of the systemic logic (King and Tornhill, 2003 ), and this in turn means a loss of observational capacity for society as a whole: precisely the multitude of different observations in various function-systems, allows society to adapt to ever changing environments (Van Assche, 2006, 2010). For example, it is precisely because society can observes ecological problems through differentiated, system-specific lenses (economic carbon trading schemes, legal emission rights, education programmes on global warming, scientific research, etc.) that various, reflexive solutions can be found among all subsystems concurrently and that the likelihood of possibly fruitful recombinations (f.i. trading carbon rights) is increased. Breaking down the differences between system codes, - what Luhmann terms dedifferentiation (1989, 1995, 2000) – is obviously not able to address the ecological question at the same level of complexity.

Luhmann is critical about projects of social engineering. He criticized in various works, among which Political Theory in the welfare state (Luhmann, 1990), the attempts of the state to work towards the ideal society, based on the assumption that the political system, in conjunction with the bureaucracy, would be able to have an overview of society, of all the social systems in society, their problems interactions. One can link this lack of observational capacity in the political system to a similar lack within every organization. The more radical the intervention attempted, the more unpredictability introduced, the higher the risk for both intervening and subjected system (Luhmann, 1989), and the higher the pressure for the intervening, the ‘managing’ system, to keep managing, to expand its operations, to overburden itself with regulatory tasks (Luhmann, 1990, 2000; Van Assche and Leinfelder, 2008; Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008). For Luhmann, welfare states, overstepping the boundaries of politics and overestimating their steering power and their quest for social engeneering, create their own disappointments (Luhmann, 1989, 2000; Van Assche, 2006; Willke, 1994). Failed policy will result in calls for new policies, new attempts to intervene in the other systems (Beunen et al., 2009). This will increase the tasks of the observing system, will increase the complexity of the observations and procedures required, and it will increase the difficulties of managing its own internal complexity (Hernes and Bakken, 2002). Typically, this implies a proliferation of bureaucracy, simultaneously a slowing down in the processing of environmental information, and, consequently, a widening gap between observation and policy response, a more outspoken blindness for the other systems (Luhmann, 1989, 1990).

FUNCTIONAL EMBEDDINGS AND STEERING TRANSITIONS

In the Dutch transition management discourse the government is regarded to be one of many but still an important actor involved in the transition process. It is recognized that top down policy implementation by the government has “decreased, leading to increasingly diffuse policymaking structures and processes stratified across subnational, national, and supranational levels of government” (Loorbach, 2009). Transitions are considered to take place in governance processes that “have been developed in various sectors and regions over the past 10 years. These are designed to create space for short-term innovation and develop long-term sustainability visions linked to desired societal transitions. These processes are producing broad innovation networks, including business, government, science, and civil society” (Loorbach, 2009).

In states committed to social and long-term planning (and certainly in communist regimes) the degree of functional differentiation decreases because of recurring interventions by the political system, because of a semantics in politics placing itself in the center of society (Elster et al., 1998; Sievers, 2002; 9

TRANSITION MANAGEMENT AND SCIENCE

A transition process is thus considered to be constituted and take place in networks which consists of governmental and non govermental organisations embedded in different function systems (Kern and Howlett, 2009).

To understand Luhmann on the role of science in relation to transitions and other extra academic effects we need to understand his conceptualization of the risk society. Luhmann (2002: 218) claims that ‘we have developed a society that has no choice but to run risks’. Differentiation makes society dependent on a collection of systems that cannot adequately predict each other’s behavior, a risky operation. Society has a permanent and insatiable greed for more "irritation" by the environment. The internal processing of these information produces a horizon of ever-new uncertainties which, in turn, will effect ever-new irritations. Mass media, Luhmann reasons, keeps society hyperalert by striving for newness. One response according to Luhmann is a growing dependence in the autopoiesis of society on second order observation, the observation of observations. One of the more pleasant consequences of relying of second order observation, including but not restricted to scientific analysis, is that risk can be made visible more accurately, enabling more precise risk management. Since innovation and by extension transition imply increased risk, since much of the behaviour of the organization is yet untested, risk management becomes a more central concern for the organizations involved, cf. (Douglas and Wildavsky, 1982).

For Luhmann engineering a transition is all the more difficult, because of this embedding of organizations in various function systems (Hernes and Bakken, 2002). Whereas politics cannot steer the other function systems without introducing more unpredictability and less differentiation, the steering problem is compounded by the complex relationships between organizations and function systems (Seidl and Becker, 2005). Organizations, different from function systems, can receive the ascription ‘actor’, can be addressed in communication (Luhmann, 2002). Thus, communication between governmental organizations and other actors is possible, whereas communication between function systems is not (Luhmann, 1995). This would seem to open the door for direct steering of organizations by their governmental peers. However, the requirement of operational closure still stands, and the unpredictability of organizational response is increased by the unpredictable influences of law, economy, education. A consultancy firm can be pushed towards innovation by governmental policies, but cannot afford to ignore the financial bottom line, and also participates in the systems of science and education, opening up the organization for the autopoietic requirements of those systems (Jansson, 1989; Simon, 2002; Van Assche, 2004). Indeed, tensions within organizations will routinely emerge from conflicting requirements of different function systems, say science and economy for the consultancy (Seidl and Becker, 2005), but a push towards innovation, that is, a push towards systemic change in the organization, will likely change its functional embeddings, aggravate those tensions, and shift the responses to future directives (Duineveld et al., 2009).

This in turn opens the doors for a stronger reliance on science, a strategy that brings its own risks. Scientific observation, grounded in the distinction true/ false, and conditioning truth on the application of scientific method and theory, can analyze risky and innovative decision making in other systems, in second order observation, but it brings its own blind spots, and, being a social system itself, it cannot fully grasp the complexity of economic, political, legal decisionmaking. Political pressure on science to find the logic of innovation, borne out of a desire for economic development, a logic that cannot be discovered following the logic of science itself, can lead to recipes for innovation and transition that misleadingly received the stamp of science (Duineveld et al., 2007;

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and transition management sheds a different light on the limits of governmental steering in facilitating, managing or sparking off transitions, but such does not entail that governmental inaction is a superior strategy. After briefly reviewing Luhmann’s position, we will suggest an alternative, not wholly contradictory, strategy

Duineveld et al., 2009; Latour, 1987, 2004; Van Assche, 2004, 2006). If factored into the risk management of organizations, these become recipes for disaster (Douglas and Wildavsky, 1982; Luhmann, 1989, 2002). Governmental incentives for innovation and transition can further be recuperated by the other actors for other reasons. Subsidies can lead to relabeling of existing knowledge, products and procedures as new, to unfair competition, in business, science and education (Duineveld et al., 2007; Latour, 2004; Van Assche, 2006). What might stand a better chance than trying to grasp the reproduction of all other systems, and trying to invent contextindependent formulas for innovation, is what Willke (Willke, 1994) calls context-guidance. Creating better conditions for innovation, and systemic innovation, in all likelihood has to entail redistribution of risk, in other words, enabling innovation by communal absorption of risks taken by innovative actors. That also this strategy has limits, was sufficiently illustrated by the recent crisis of innovative banking.

From the point of view of sociological systems theory the practice and the semantics of innovation are specific to each system, as are the pathways available. Path dependencies are manifold, and specific for different organizations, different function systems (Van Assche et al., 2010). A scientific innovation is not an economic innovation is not a legal innovation, and at any given point in time, the possibilities for those function- systems to evolve are constrained by their history of autopoiesis. The same applies to organizations as social systems. The difference between function- systems and organizations precludes the possibility of any function system understanding the process of innovation in any organization fully. Organizations, like companies, can utilize rhetoric of innovation to impress government, to sell, to provoke pity, to evade taxes, to receive subsidies (Brunsson, 2002; Burns and Stalker, 1961). Governments have very limited means of assessing those claims, and close association with firms makes them more vulnerable. Innovation in general, as in successful restructuring of the system to deal with environmental change, or make use of unseen opportunities, cannot be described, recognized uniformly, it cannot be predicted, it cannot be forced. Innovation, and by extension transition, are post- hoc ascriptions in and by social systems, reinterpretations of previous decisions that came about in networks, through shifting alliances, in competition over resources. In this situation, a sufficient knowledge base enabling success cannot be circumscribed. Reflexivity and productive difference, mixing different codes, are recurring feature of an otherwise shapeshifting phenomenon. Nevertheless, recurring modernist ideologies tend to install expectations that innovation is one phenomenon, that it can be engineered, and, in social democracies like the

CONCLUSIONS: LUHMANN: LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES OF STEERING TRANSITIONS

In a reaction to Shove and Walker (Shove and Walker, 2007), two eminent Dutch transition theorists disagree with the reproach of a return to social engineering: “perhaps transition management has a suggestion of social engineering but it is really a governance concept for exploring new paths in a reflexive manner. We developed the concept of transition management as a cyclical process of searching, experimenting, and learning, merely as a response to deterministic, blueprint-based steering methods used during the last decades” (Rotmans and Kemp, 2008). For us, transition management discourse is a clear sign that the ideology of social engineering is very much alive. This being said, some of the insights and precepts of transition management we do consider valuable. Our systems theoretical analysis of innovation, transition,

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Netherlands, that government has the duty at least to contribute to the engineering efforts (Duineveld et al., 2007; Duineveld et al., 2009; Luhmann, 1990; Scott, 1998; Van Assche, 2004).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Akrich M, Callon M, Latour B, 2002a, "The Key to Success in Innovation. Part I: The art of interessement." International Journal of Innovation Management 6 187-206 Akrich M, Callon M, Latour B, 2002b, "The Key to Success in Innovation. Part II: The art of choosing good spokespersons." International Journal of Innovation Management 6 207-225

All the problems signalled with politics and administration trying to manage society, are intensified when government, supported by scientific misconceptions, tries to standardize innovation and enforce the fictitious standards found. What then, could be positive recommendations regarding transition management. What can governments do to facilitate transition? 1. Examine whether there really is a systemic lack of innovation. Who is saying this, why, based on which grounds? What are implied definitions of innovation and transition? 2. Avoid de- differentiation. Differentiation enables refined adaptation, hence innovation. 3. Facilitate sustained reflection, as second order observation, on path dependencies and interdependencies in and between function systems and organizations. 4. Clarify, simplify, maintain and enforce rules of economic and scientific competition. 5. Decide on the acceptable level of redistribution of the risk taken by innovative actors. 6. Decide on the acceptable level of public investment in risky, but potentially innovative science. 7. Invest in general education and media quality, enabling the circulation and reinterpretation of various semantics, thus spreading innovative potential more broadly.

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