Transition Management
Description
Yannick Rumpala:
"The basis of the transition management approach is a series of fundamental orientations: a reflection that targets the long term (at least 25 years) and is likely to give a framework to policies on a short term basis; a systematically multidimensional, multi-actor, and multi-levelled understanding; the concern for learning; the search for (systemic) innovation; and an opening of a wide range of possibilities (Rotmans and Kemp, 2003, p. 17). To achieve this structural change, the actors and institutions concerned would have to utilise the existing dynamics and direct them towards collectively chosen goals (Rotmans and Kemp, 2003, p. 27). Therefore, this particular approach gives importance to the elaboration of long-term visions, which can be used as a framework to formulate intermediate objectives and continuously evaluate the existing policies. Not only would these visions enable transition itineraries to be outlined, but they would also facilitate the mobilisation of social groups. Governmental tasks would have to target defining essential objectives and regularly verifying that the processes of adjustment were functioning correctly (Rotmans, Kemp, van Asselt, 2001).
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Transition management, which has been proposed as the incarnation of a new form of “governance” that is supposed to be open and reflexive since it is more oriented towards learning and experimentation, could offer, according to its founders, the approach that many have been searching for: the approach that is capable of bringing together the advantages of incrementalism and planning. In other words, one that enables societies to transform themselves thanks to gradual processes of collective adaptation guided by long term objectives (Kemp, Loorbach, Rotmans, 2007)." (http://yannickrumpala.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/y-rumpala-the-search-for-pathways-to-sustainable-development-and-institutional-reflexivity-ipa-grenoble-2010.pdf)