Enabling sustainability transitions in Asia: The importance of vertical and horizontal linkages

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Political Science

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Technological Forecasting & Social Change76

First Page

255

Last Page

266

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

The phrase “sustainable development” appears increasingly in national policies in Asian countries, and there are many successful ‘sustainability experiments’ documented at the local level throughout the region. We explore why, despite the efforts made at the national and local levels, underlying trends are away from sustainability. Drawing on the multi-level perspective on system innovation, we argue that linkages between different levels in socio-technical systems are critical to explaining the emergence of sustainable development pathways. The absence of these linkages in many Asian contexts is an important factor obstructing sustainability transitions in Asia. We argue that while the importance of vertical linkages is recognized and theorized in the multi-level perspective, the horizontal and the temporal dimensions are under-explored. We develop a set of propositions for exploring linkages in socio-technical systems, supporting these with empirical examples from the region.

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Disciplines

Development Studies | Growth and Development

Keywords

Sustainable development—Asia; Sustainability—Asia

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