ABSTRACT
Policy-makers and scholars argue that Western societies are confronted with the need for major changes in agriculture, energy supply, the knowledge infrastructure, water management, transportation and many other important sectors in order to reach a sustainable future. These changes have a time horizon of at least one generation, and invoke developments and interactions within and between many different domains of society. The issue of stimulating and managing such processes has raised a lot of attention. In policy circles, the terms ‘transition’ and, accordingly, ‘transition management’ are used to capture the envisioned long-term and complex changes to more sustainability (Rotmans et al, 2000). The transition to a sustainable society is a dauntingly complex issue, both politically and theoretically. It includes exploration and stimulation of new ways of production and consumption, new types of regulation and, probably, new types of institutions to coordinate the various efforts. One example is the efforts to develop more sustainable energy production and consumption, which require huge adaptations in terms of technology, infrastructure and legislation (Jacobbson and Johnson, 2000). Such transition processes involve many risks and require initiative and creativity. Yet experiences are limited, as are the insights into how these processes should be designed, organized and implemented.
