Technological transitions (TT) can best be described as a collection of theories regarding how technological innovations occur, the driving forces behind them, and how they are incorporated into society. TT draws on a number of fields, including history of science, technology studies, and evolutionary economics. Alongside the technological advancement, TT considers wider societal changes such as "user practices, regulation, industrial networks (supply, production, distribution), infrastructure, and symbolic meaning or culture".Geels, F. W., 2002. Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case study. Research Policy 31 pp. 257-1273 HughesHughes, T.P., 1987. The evolution of large technological systems. In: Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P., Pinch, T. (Eds.), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. pp. 51-82 refers to the 'seamless web' where physical artifacts, organizations, scientific communities, and social practices combine. A technological transition occurs when there is a major shift in these socio-technical configurations.Fleck, J., 1993. 'Configurations: Crystallizing Contingency', The International Journal of Human Factors in Manufacturing, 3, pp. 15-36
Origins Work on technological transitions draws on a number of fields including history of science, technology studies, and evolutionary economics. The focus of evolutionary economics is on economic change, but as a driver of this technological change has been considered in the literature.Geels, F.W., 2005. Technological transitions and system innovations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Joseph Schumpeter, in his classic Theory of Economic DevelopmentSchumpeter, T., 1934. The theory of economic development: an inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press placed the emphasis on non-economic forces as the driver for growth. The human actor, the entrepreneur is seen as the cause of economic development which occurs as a cyclical process. Schumpeter proposed that radical innovations were the catalyst for Kondratiev cycles.
Long wave theory The Russian economist KondratievKondratiev, N., 1925. Major Economic Cycles. Moscow. proposed that economic growth operated in boom and bust cycles of approximately 50 year periods. These cycles were characterised by periods of expansion, stagnation and recession. The period of expansion is associated with the introduction of a new technology, e.g. steam power or the microprocessor. At the time of publication, Kondratiev had considered that two cycles had occurred in the nineteenth century and third was beginning at the turn of the twentieth. Modern writers, such as Freeman and PerezFreeman, C. and Perez, C., 1988. Structural crisis of adjustment, business cycles and investment behaviour in Dosi et al Technical Change and Economic Theory. London: Frances Pinter. pp. 38-66. outlined five cycles in the modern age:
The Industrial Revolution (1770–1830) Victorian Prosperity: Age of steam and Rail (1830–1880) The Age of Steel (1880–1930) Oil, Mass Production and the Consumer Society (1930–1980) The Information Age (1980-?)
Freeman and Perez proposed that each cycle consists of pervasive technologies, their production and economic structures that support them. Termed 'techno-economic paradigms', they suggest that the shift from one paradigm to another is the result of emergent new technologies.
After the 2008 financial crisis, authors such as Moody and NogradyMoody, J.B., and Nogrady, B., 2011. The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World. New York: Random House have suggested that a new cycle is emerging from the old, centred on the use of sustainable technologies in a resource depleted world.
Technological paradigms, trajectories and regimes Thomas KuhnKuhn, T., 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago; London : University of Chicago Press described how a paradigm shift is a wholesale shift in the basic understanding of a scientific theory. Examples in science include the change of thought from miasma to germ theory as a cause of disease. Building on this work, Giovanni DosiDosi, G., 1982. Technological paradigms and technological trajectories. Research Policy 11 (3) pp. 147-162. developed the concept of 'technical paradigms' and 'technological trajectories'. In considering how engineers work, the technical paradigm is an outlook on the technological problem, a definition of what the problems and solutions are. It charts the idea of specific progress. By identifying the problems to be solved the paradigm exerts an influence on technological change. The pattern of problem solving activity and the direction of progress is the technological trajectory. In similar fashion, Nelson and Winter (,Nelson, R.R., Winter, S.G., 1977. In search of useful theory of innovation. Research Policy 6 (1) pp. 36-76Nelson, R.R., Winter, S.G., 1982. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge (MA); Belknap Press.)defined the concept of the 'technological regime' which directs technological change through the beliefs of engineers of what problems to solve. The work of the actors and organisations is the result of organisational and cognitive routines which determines search behaviour. This places boundaries and also trajectories (direction) to those boundaries.
Multi-level perspective (MLP) on technological transitions Socio-technical systems and transitions
Recently, the scope of academic sustainability discourse and investigative focus has broadened beyond the study of technological products, innovations and subsequent transitions.(Geels 2005) Much of the literature now examines technological artefacts and innovations through a wider scope of socio-technical systems.(Geels 2018) It has been argued that this contemporary framework has emerged in response to both an increased understanding of the urgency of environmental problems and the recognition that more substantiative transitions are required across multiple interdependent systems to mitigate impacts.(Geels 2010)
The technological transitions framework does acknowledge the co-evolution and mutual unfolding of societal change alongside technological innovation. However, the socio-technical transitions framework considers a more encompassing view of the interdependent links that technology maintains with systems that both generate the need for new innovations and ultimately produce and maintain them.(Geels 2005, 2010) More specifically, the systems that comprise the socio-technical paradigm include technology, supply networks, infrastructure, maintenance networks, regulation, cultural meaning as well as user practices and markets.(Geels 2018, Geels 2005) As such, socio-technical transitions can be defined as the multi-dimensional shift from one socio-technical system to another involving changes in both technological and social systems that are intrinsically linked in a feedback loop. Generally speaking, socio-technical transitions are a slow process as technological innovation tends to occur incrementally along fixed trajectories due to the rigidity of economic, social, cultural, infrastructural and regulative norms.(Geels 2005, Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) This is referred to as path dependency, creating technological 'lock-ins' which prevent innovation that disrupts the status quo.(Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) Therefore, the breakthrough and dissemination of technological innovations is dependent on more than their respective benefits, providing an insight into the complexity of the forces and multiple dimensions at play.
Multi-level perspective (MLP) framework The multi-level perspective (MLP) is an analytical tool that attempts to deal with this complexity and resistance to change. Focussing on the dynamics of wider transitionary developments as opposed to discrete technological innovations, the MLP concerns itself with socio-technical system transformations, particularly with transitions towards sustainability and resilience.(Geels 2010, Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) As the name implies, the MLP posits three analytical and heuristic levels on which processes interact and align to result in socio-technical system transformations; landscape (macro-level), regimes (meso-level) and niches (micro-level).(Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014, Geels 2018) Firstly, the regime level represents the current structures and practices characterised by dominant rules, institutions and technologies that are self-reinforcing.(Geels 2010, 2018, Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) The socio-technical regime is dynamically stable in the sense that innovation still transpires albeit incrementally and along a predictable trajectory. This makes the regime 'locked-in' and resistant to both technological and social transitions.(Kemp, Schot, and Hoogma 1998, Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) Secondly, the landscape level is defined as the exogenous, broader contextual developments in deep-seated cultural patterns, macro-economics, macro-politics and spatial structures, potentially arising from shocks associated with wars, economic crisis, natural disaster and political upheaval.(Geels 2018, Geels 2005, Twomey and Gaziulusoy 2014) Additionally, landscapes are beyond the direct influence of actors, yet stimulate and exert pressure on them at the regime and niche levels. Finally, the niche is defined as the "locus for radical innovations" where dedicated actors nurture the development of technological novelties.(Geels 2010, Geels 2005) Incubated from market and regulation influences, the niche fosters innovations that differ fundamentally from the prevailing regime and usually require landscape developments that open windows of opportunity in at the regime level. Therefore, the MLP attributes socio-technical transitions to the interaction of stabilising forces at the regime level with destabilising forces from both the landscape and niche levels.
MLP application - automobility regime
Due to the systems approach inherent in the MLP, analysis can be approached from different disciplinary perspectives according to their respective ontologies and priorities. From an urban planning perspective, the framework could be used to pinpoint the barriers and drivers associated with low carbon transport systems to better target policy efforts.(Moradi and Vagnoni 2018) To begin, from an urban mobility perspective, the landscape level is currently pressured by both stabilising and destabilising pressures. Namely, Peak Oil, public concern surrounding inaction towards climate change mitigation and information technologies that digitise daily life (e.g. tele-commuting) destabilises the landscape and automobility regime.(Geels 2012, Moradi and Vagnoni 2018) Conversely, the landscape level is solidified by stabilising forces such as cultural preferences for private ownership, timesaving, autonomy and privacy, as well as car-favouring urban fabric and infrastructure.(Geels 2012) This is further enhanced by universal pressures of globalisation which presupposes urban mobility to increase flows of goods and people.
This tension between stabilising and destabilising forces is mirrored in the prevailing automobility regime. The regime is stabilised by persistent investment in road projects, lifestyle norms and consumer preferences that perpetuate car use and resistance to major change by vested actors such as transport planners, policy makers and industry actors (e.g. car manufactures). Despite this stability, shifts in the landscape has allowed "cracks" in the regime such as traffic management policy (traffic calming, parking restrictions, etc.), diminishing policy commitment to the regime and industry actors proclaiming awareness of landscape pressures associated with climate change (Geels 2012).