ABSTRACT
Recent global economic turbulences and the concerns over energy security and climate change have led national governments and international organizations such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), and the European Union (EU) to develop new suggestions of greener and more sustainable socio-economic development paths (OECD2009; EC 2010). Many of these have emphasized the promotion, development, and utilization of clean technologies as an inherent element in transitions towards sustainable production and consumption. At the same time, scholars of innovation studies, sociology, and political science have increasingly argued that incremental changes in the established socio-technical systems may not be sufficient in terms of generating the kind of profound transformations throughout all levels and sectors of a society that internationally agreed climate policy targets would necessitate. Therefore, debate has emerged around the idea of system-level transitions, with references to systemic innovations that would entail a transition from one socio-technical system to another and have profound implications for the entire systems of production, consumption, and governance (Geels and Kemp2007; Geels 2010; Chapter 1, this volume). This has also had important implications on the role of the state in governing technology, innovation, environmental, and economic development policies (Lovell 2007; OECD2009). In particular, a holistic and integrated view of innovation, sustainability and governance has been called for (EC 2010; OECD 2011). A key question in this respect has concerned the ways in which national governments could best support and advance system-level sustainable transitions and adopt ideas of a green state (Eckersley 2004; Kemp et al. 2007; Lovell 2007;Chapter 1, this volume).
