ABSTRACTCurrent persistent challenges of sustainable and equitable development call for systemic technical and social innovations. The ´insertion´ practices of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) can be considered examples of such innovation efforts. The underlying rationales and institutional frameworks have been elaborated extensively in social economy scholarship. However, as WISEs are frequently reported to fall victim to pressures towards isomorphism or 'capture' by incumbent institutional structures, transitions theory seems worthwhile to invoke in order to develop a dynamic understanding of these processes. As illustrated through case study data on the Flemish social economy, it is highlighted how ´insertion´ displays longitudinal dynamics of institutional capture that are similar to those observed in sustainability transitions more generally. This empirical analysis helps to identify the scope for fruitful paradigmatic interplay between transitions studies and social economy scholarship.
International audience ; Considering the ongoing strive towards new, alternative indicators to measure our societal development pathways, and the fact that policy indicators remain largely enigmatic with regard to their patterns of embeddedness in institutional decision-making processes, it appears necessary to work towards reducing our lack of understanding of their interactions with policy-making. In the present paper, we focus on exploring the significance of composite indicators for policy making in the particular policy environment of the EU-institutions. Our research is underpinned by the conviction that such indicators are not systematically used directly, but have an indirect influence on policy making that needs to be better understood. Our analytical framework-in order to analyse the ways in which composite indicators enter policy processes is characterised by the distinction between the 'use' and the 'influence' of indicators on the one hand, and on the other hand between 3 types of factors: indicator factors, policy factors and user factors. Our empirical results show that while most of the academic attention and political debate around indicators has tended to focus on 'indicator factors', such quality attributes actually mattered relatively little in our setting as determinants of indicator influence. This rejects the idea that the robustness of evidence would lie exclusively in its technical quality and in the independence of its producer, and instead calls attention to the processes of evidence-construction. Simultaneously, 'user factors' (beliefs and representations of policy actors) and 'policy factors' (institutional context) were crucial as explanatory factors of the policy mechanics we identified.
International audience ; Considering the ongoing strive towards new, alternative indicators to measure our societal development pathways, and the fact that policy indicators remain largely enigmatic with regard to their patterns of embeddedness in institutional decision-making processes, it appears necessary to work towards reducing our lack of understanding of their interactions with policy-making. In the present paper, we focus on exploring the significance of composite indicators for policy making in the particular policy environment of the EU-institutions. Our research is underpinned by the conviction that such indicators are not systematically used directly, but have an indirect influence on policy making that needs to be better understood. Our analytical framework-in order to analyse the ways in which composite indicators enter policy processes is characterised by the distinction between the 'use' and the 'influence' of indicators on the one hand, and on the other hand between 3 types of factors: indicator factors, policy factors and user factors. Our empirical results show that while most of the academic attention and political debate around indicators has tended to focus on 'indicator factors', such quality attributes actually mattered relatively little in our setting as determinants of indicator influence. This rejects the idea that the robustness of evidence would lie exclusively in its technical quality and in the independence of its producer, and instead calls attention to the processes of evidence-construction. Simultaneously, 'user factors' (beliefs and representations of policy actors) and 'policy factors' (institutional context) were crucial as explanatory factors of the policy mechanics we identified.
International audience ; Indicators of sustainable development (SDIs), societal progress and wellbeing are perceived as informational tools vital for sustainability governance. The literature has thus far overwhelmingly concentrated on improving the technical quality of the indicators, while the role of these indicators in policy processes remains under-researched. Drawing on literature concerning policy evaluation and assessments — aswell as the emerging literature on the interplay between indicators and policy — this article identifies a number of issues central for the role of SDIs in governance processes. It draws attention to the multiple indirect pathways through which these indicators exert their influence, highlighting the conceptual and political roles of SDIs. The conclusions outline a number of trade-offs and ambiguities inherent in the use and developmentof indicators.
International audience ; Indicators of sustainable development (SDIs), societal progress and wellbeing are perceived as informational tools vital for sustainability governance. The literature has thus far overwhelmingly concentrated on improving the technical quality of the indicators, while the role of these indicators in policy processes remains under-researched. Drawing on literature concerning policy evaluation and assessments — aswell as the emerging literature on the interplay between indicators and policy — this article identifies a number of issues central for the role of SDIs in governance processes. It draws attention to the multiple indirect pathways through which these indicators exert their influence, highlighting the conceptual and political roles of SDIs. The conclusions outline a number of trade-offs and ambiguities inherent in the use and developmentof indicators.
International audience ; This article examines the various roles that indicators, as boundary objects, can play as a science-based evidence for policy processes. It presents two case studies from the EU-funded POINT project that examined the use and influence of two highly different types of indicators: composite indicators of sustainable development at the EU level and energy indicators in the UK. In both cases indicators failed as direct input to policy making, yet they generated various types of conceptual and political use and influence. The composite sustainable development indicators served as " framework indicators " , helping to advocate a specific vision of sustainable development, whereas the energy indicators produced various types of indirect influence, including through the process of indicator elaboration. Our case studies demonstrate the relatively limited importance of the characteristics and quality of indicators in determining the role of indicators, as compared with the crucial importance of " user factors " (characteristics of policy actors) and " policy factors " (policy context).
International audience ; This article examines the various roles that indicators, as boundary objects, can play as a science-based evidence for policy processes. It presents two case studies from the EU-funded POINT project that examined the use and influence of two highly different types of indicators: composite indicators of sustainable development at the EU level and energy indicators in the UK. In both cases indicators failed as direct input to policy making, yet they generated various types of conceptual and political use and influence. The composite sustainable development indicators served as " framework indicators " , helping to advocate a specific vision of sustainable development, whereas the energy indicators produced various types of indirect influence, including through the process of indicator elaboration. Our case studies demonstrate the relatively limited importance of the characteristics and quality of indicators in determining the role of indicators, as compared with the crucial importance of " user factors " (characteristics of policy actors) and " policy factors " (policy context).
The idea of going « beyond GDP » attracts more and more actors, whose status, objectives and visions are very different. The diversity of institutional scales, theoretical approaches, and normative positions regarding the opportunity and motives of going "beyond GDP" makes hard to clearly identify the stances of the actors and the power balances dominating the debates. We therefore ask: What do the current debates mean to their actors? Are they a new rhetoric liable to elude a confrontation with the structural problems resulting from the crisis? Are they an opportunity window for launching again societal debates that are hardly raised elsewhere? Or are they a real trigger toward a paradigmatic change, deeply questioning productivism? We try to answer that question by analysing the discourses of official actors (politics, administration, technicians) involved and not involved in "beyond-GDP" initiatives. We show that, at the official level, beyond GDP debates, while they raise new societal issues, do not contribute to erode the central role of economic growth. The debates are dominated by pragmatism, in that dominant interests are focused on short-term constraints and objectives, where GDP growth remains pivotal. The involvement of actors in beyond-GDP debates reveals more a need and/or the willingness to adapt public management and policies to new constraints rather than a critical reflexion on the productivist model on which our economies have been built for more than sixty years. ; L'objectif d'un « au-delà du PIB » mobilise de nombreux acteurs, aux statuts, objectifs et visions très différents. La diversité, souvent diffuse, d'échelles institutionnelles, d'approches théoriques et de positionnements normatifs vis-à-vis de l'opportunité et des motifs d'un « au-delà du PIB » rend les débats confus, les positionnements peu clairs, et les rapports de force difficilement identifiables. Mais de quoi les débats actuels sont-ils le signe ? Aller « au-delà du PIB » serait-il un objectif rhétorique par défaut, en l'absence de stratégie crédible de sortie de crise ? Constitue-t-il une fenêtre d'opportunité à la mise en débat de questions de société difficilement abordables par ailleurs, et non une fin en soi ? Ou au contraire cristallise-t-il un volontarisme militant, désireux d'amorcer un véritable changement paradigmatique ? Nous tentons de répondre à cette question par l'analyse de discours d'acteurs officiels (politiques, techniciens et administratifs) impliqués et non-impliqués dans la poursuite d'un « au-delà du PIB ». Il ressort qu'au niveau des sphères officielles, les débats sur « un-delà du PIB », s'ils font entrer en ligne de compte de nouveaux enjeux comme le bien-être ou la soutenabilité, ne participent pas à éroder la centralité de la « croissance du PIB». Les débats s'avèrent dominés par une certaine forme de pragmatisme, les intérêts dominants étant centrés sur des contraintes et objectifs de court-terme, dont la croissance économique semble toujours considérée comme un élément indispensable. L'intérêt des acteurs pour de nouveaux indicateurs relève donc plus d'une volonté et/ou d'une nécessité d'adapter les modalités de gestion publique et/ou les politiques publiques à de nouvelles contraintes que d'une remise en question plus fondamentale du modèle productiviste sur lequel les économies sont bâties depuis plus de soixante ans.
Society is transforming through a whirlpool of innovations. This includes technological as well as social innovations, i.e. changes in social relations involving new ways of doing, organizing, framing and knowing. Especially the potentials for transformative social innovation (TSI) are gaining the interest of progressive political actors and critical scholars. Occurring in the form of new modes of governance and alternative ways of working and living together, TSI involves the challenging, altering or replacing of dominant institutions. As documented in various strands of critical social inquiry and innovation research, TSI praxis is pervaded with contradictions, anomalies and paradoxes. This methodological contribution addresses the challenge that tends to remain: How to elaborate this general critical awareness into more operational 'strategies of inquiry'? The paper discusses paradoxes of a) system reproduction, b) temporality, and c) reality construction. Identifying distinct kinds of contradictions and distinct empirical phenomena, this differentiation also calls attention to the associated differences between realist, processual and constructivist research philosophies. Gathering the empirical analyses, theoretical interpretations and methodological advances that have been made on these paradoxes, this contribution opens up the scope for critical and practically relevant innovation research: It is important to bridge the divide between rigorous but sterile methodological know-how, and critical-reflexive theorizing that lacks operational insights.
Policies for sustainability transitions necessarily have three main characteristics: they are prescriptive with regard to dynamic societal processes, linked to the normativity of sustainable development, and are able to interlink both the societal and the individual levels. Taking transition management as a starting point, the paper elaborates that it cannot well address the second and third characteristic. We therefore suggest 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 study of sustainability transitions and show with three suggestions 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 transition processes can be better understood when interrelating the three levels; Finally, we elaborate that the governance of sustainability transitions necessarily has – at the same time – to foster free spaces for experimentation and to select those niches that are conducive to more instead of less sustainability.
