ABSTRACT
The main aim of this chapter is to articulate the theoretical backgrounds of the multilevel perspective (MLP) on transitions, with special attention to the role of agency in socio-technical change and trajectories. The MLP perspective does not seem to foreground agency at fi rst sight. This is partly an effect of its having two complementing components, which, in the wake of Poole and Van de Ven (1989), can be identifi ed as a global model and a local model. They explain the difference as follows:
The global (macro, long-run) model depicts the overall course of development of an innovation and its infl uences, while the local (micro, short-run) model depicts the immediate action processes that create short-run developmental patterns. . . . A global model takes as its unit of analysis the overall trajectories, paths, phases, or stages in the development of an innovation, whereas a local model focuses on the micro ideas, decisions, actions or events of particular developmental episodes.
