ABSTRACT
Reforming the global financial architecture, negotiating end producer responsibilities for plastics, and mitigating loss and damage from climate change are just a few of the leadership challenges that must be addressed at every level, from the local to the global, across inequitable systems. Political will for Sustainable Development Goals implementation requires influential individuals, organizations, partnerships and social movements to harness the following three processes to shift norms, policy, and behaviours: reframing the direction of policy pathways towards the transformative agenda, orchestrating alignment either through targeted coalitions or mobilizing majorities, and securing the commitment of scarce resources such as time, attention and finances. Yet examining the role of political actors across levels reveals dominant arrangements that continue ‘business-as-usual’ development pathways that prevent progress. It is precisely this willingness towards self-preservation that absorbs the direction, alignment and commitment needed to ‘transform our world’. Advancing new norms that support reflexive governance frameworks can help mitigate this resistance.
