Department Environmental Social Sciences

Global Regimes in the Water Sector (GLORIWA)

sinkhole (picture: eawag)

 

Modern cities look similar in many aspects. Solutions in energy and water supply or transportation are solved very similarly on a global scale. This is in stark contrast to the variations in local material and cultural conditions in which the different cities are embedded. In the GLORIWA project, we investigate this contrast using the example of urban water management.

The idea of global socio-technical regimes provides a clue as to why cities in arid regions of the world (e.g. Beijing) pursue very similar water management strategies to Zurich, which is much richer in water. A socio-technical regime is the constellation of technologies and social structures, which have established themselves around these technologies. In the water sector, the sewer system is a visualization of the socio-technical regime concept.

In sewage systems, water is used, among other things, as a means of transport for various pollutants, entailing specific user habits and other social structures. In global cities, the socio-technical solution of using water through a sewerage system as a means of transport for various forms of pollutants is so dominant that not even the most visionary entrepreneurs can achieve a breakthrough towards more sustainable and locally adapted solutions than sewerage systems.

This global dominance of socio-technical constellations can be summarized under the scientific concept of socio-technical regimes. In GLORIWA, we trace the most dominant global socio-technical regimes in urban water supply and examine them to find out how they can prevail against potentially more sustainable, locally adapted solutions.

Project Team

Dr. Johan Miörner Tel. +41 58 765 6493 Send Mail
Dr. Manuel Fischer Head of Department ESS & Group leader PEGO Tel. +41 58 765 5676 Send Mail
Dr. Christoph Lüthi Dr. Eng. Infrastructure Planning Tel. +41 58 765 5614 Send Mail

External team members

Dr. Lea Fuenfschilling (CIRCLE - Lund University)

Publications

Global socio-technical regimes

This paper addresses the question why socio-technical transitions follow similar trajectories in various parts of the world, even though the relevant material preconditions and institutional contexts vary greatly between different regions and countries. It takes a critical stance on the implicit methodological nationalism in transition studies' socio-technical regime concept and proposes an alternative 'global' regime perspective that embraces the increasingly multi-scalar actor networks and institutional rationalities, which influence transition dynamics beyond national or regional borders. By drawing on globalization theories from sociology and human geography, we show that socio-technical systems often develop institutional rationalities that are diffused via international networks and thus become influential in various places around the world. In so doing, we shed light on the multi-scalar interrelatedness of institutional structures and actors in socio-technical systems and elaborate on the implications for the conceptualization of transition dynamics. The paper illustrates this with the case study of an unsuccessful transition in the Chinese wastewater sector. Recent studies indicate that key decisions on wastewater infrastructure expansion were not only influenced by path-dependencies stemming from China's national context, but equally (or even more critically) by the dominant rationality of the water sector's global socio-technical regime. We conclude by discussing the contours of a new research agenda around the notion of global socio-technical regimes.
Fuenfschilling, L.; Binz, C. (2018) Global socio-technical regimes, Research Policy, 47(4), 735-749, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.003, Institutional Repository

Towards a multi-scalar perspective on transition trajectories

This paper contributes to the geography of transitions literature by conceptualizing transition trajectories from a multi-scalar perspective. It combines an institutional perspective of transitions with conceptions of scale from human geography to derive a framework which explicates how (de-)institutionalization and re-scaling mechanisms condition different transition trajectories. Our conceptual elaborations show that the traditional local-global niche cumulation and upscaling trajectory can be complemented with two alternative trajectories that build on analytically different sequences of institutionalization and re-scaling processes. This is illustrated through a case study of technology standardization in the sanitation sector, more specifically the development of the ISO 30500 standard for non-sewered sanitation systems, which was initiated by a consortium led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The observed transition trajectory departs from key assumptions of the local-global niche model, with actors engaging in direct institutionalization at the global level, followed by re-scaling global rationalities into different (sub-)national contexts.
Miörner, J.; Binz, C. (2021) Towards a multi-scalar perspective on transition trajectories, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 40, 172-188, doi:10.1016/j.eist.2021.06.004, Institutional Repository

Assessing transitions through socio-technical configuration analysis – a methodological framework and a case study in the water sector

Classic accounts of transitions research have predominantly built on reconstructions of historical transition processes and in-depth case studies to identify and conceptualize socio-technical change. While such approaches have substantively improved our understanding of transitions, they often suffer from methodological nationalism and a lack of generalizability beyond spatial and sectoral boundaries. To address this gap, we propose a novel methodology – socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) – to map and measure socio-technical alignment processes across time and space. STCA provides a configurational and dynamic perspective on how social and technical elements get aligned into "configurations that work", allowing for the identification of differentiated transition trajectories at and across spatial and sectoral contexts. The methodology's value is illustrated with the empirical case of an ongoing shift from centralized to more modular infrastructure configurations in the global water sector. Building on this illustration, we outline potential contributions of STCA to configurational theorizing in transition studies, sketching the contours of what we believe could become a generative epistemological approach for this field.
Heiberg, J.; Truffer, B.; Binz, C. (2022) Assessing transitions through socio-technical configuration analysis – a methodological framework and a case study in the water sector, Research Policy, 51(1), 104363 (19 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.respol.2021.104363, Institutional Repository

How global regimes diffuse in space - Explaining a missed transition in San Diego's water sector

Socio-technical regimes are highly institutionalized rationalities that have co-evolved with actors, technologies and institutions over extended periods of time and become taken for granted across geographical contexts. Transition studies feature an extensive focus on regime dynamics within specific territorial contexts. However, we know surprisingly little of how regime rationalities are constructed, diffused and reproduced across space. This is a key gap in the geography of sustainability transitions literature. This paper introduces a conceptual model to analyze transformative opportunities in regions and how regime actors strategically diffuse and implement global regime solutions through combinations of discursive and substantive system reconfiguration activities. The empirical analysis draws upon a combination of Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis (STCA) of 354 newspaper articles and 10 in-depth expert interviews to illuminate how regime actors prevailed in diffusing and legitimizing the water sector's dominant socio-technical configuration in San Diego during a period of substantial transformative opportunities.
Miörner, J.; Heiberg, J.; Binz, C. (2022) How global regimes diffuse in space - Explaining a missed transition in San Diego's water sector, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 44, 29-47, doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.05.005, Institutional Repository