Water and the politics of sustainability transitions: from regime actor conflicts to system governance organizations

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to the analysis of the politics of sustainability transitions by developing a focus on regime actor conflicts and a processual model for how these conflicts develop and are resolved. In a comparison of water-supply systems in four U.S. cities, we show how conflicts among regime actors and political jurisdictions lead to the formation of system governance organizations (SGOs) that bridge jurisdictional boundaries to manage conflicts over a technological system (TS). SGOs coordinate relations among water utilities and diverse stakeholders to reduce pervasive conflicts, but they can also serve as drivers of improved sustainability. We analyze resistance that can emerge, such as from urban growth coalitions, which limit the capacity of SGOs to drive changes. We develop a four-stage processual model (first-order regime conflicts, SGO formation, sustainability transition expansion, and second-order regime conflicts) that opens research in the politics of transitions to the dynamic of regime actor conflicts and provides the basis for generalizations about the causes of SGO formation and their effects on the governance of TSs such as water-supply infrastructure. Policy implications regarding how to improve political support for SGO sustainability efforts are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Politics
• sustainability transitions
• regional governance
• water conservation

Acknowledgement

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David J. Hess is the James Thornton Fant Chair in Sustainability Studies and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, where he is also the Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment and the Director of the Program in Environmental and Sustainability Studies (www.davidjhess.net).

Kate Pride Brown is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the School of History and Sociology, Georgia Institute of Technology.

ORCID

David J. Hess http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8117-0260

Kate Pride Brown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0812-5997

Additional information

Funding

This project was partially supported by the US National Science Foundation for the grant ‘Water Conservation and Hydrological Transitions in American Cities,’ Hydrologic Sciences, EAR-1416964; Division of Earth Sciences.