Industrial civilization is currently evolving along a fundamentally unsustainable trajectory, contributing to climate change, resource depletion and loss of biodiversity. A recent Deep Transitions framework (Schot and Kanger, 2018; Kanger and Schot, 2019) argues that this trajectory has been built up through the First Deep Transition: a 250-year co-evolution of multiple socio-technical systems. However, to…
Publications
An overview of all research conducted for the Deep Transitions project, including the two founding Journal Articles by Kanger and Schot and the working papers currently taking shape can be downloaded below.
Our Guide to Deep Transitions explains key terms used and gives you a flavour of the core ideas.
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Workshop Report: Deep Transition in the Transatlantic Zone in the Long Twentieth Century, 18-20 May
With the first phase of the Deep Transitions project drawing to a close, the Deep Transitions workshop on 18-20 May presented acquired findings to a broader community of scholars with pertinent backgrounds, and opened up emerging ideas to critical scrutiny. The workshop intended to provide a space for constructive dialogue and discussion, including the future…
The ‘COVID war’? Reflections on mechanisms and imprints of the COVID-19 pandemic
“We are at war”. This was the message from French President Emmanuel Macron in March as he announced the closure of France’s land borders in response to COVID-191 . From the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres2, to the rare public address delivered by Her Majesty the Queen on UK television3, the Second World War…
Beyond the Technological Revolution Series- Is Smart Green Growth the Solution?
Beyond the Technological Revolution is a four-year research project led by Carlota Perez, as a continuation of the work done for her 2002 book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: the Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Edward Elgar). Her research explores the relationship between technology and economic development, between finance and technological diffusion and between technical and institutional…
A Guide to Deep Transitions
The theory behind how societies change over time, and what compels these changes, must be explored to understand the future. Deep Transitions theory makes sense of what has happened in the past, while Sustainability Transitions along with Transformative Innovation Policy theory and practice, enables reflection on future transformations. This guide is an introduction to the Transitions…
Transition in the Socio-Technical System of Data Processing During the 20th Century
Interpreting changes in technology over extended periods of time is a recurrent theme for historians and economists. Doing so is particularly salient now due to looming existential threats. These threats are brought about by social discord, climate change and species extinction and they stem from our continuing reliance on fossil fuels and the shortcomings of…
Deep transitions: Theorizing the long-term patterns of sociotechnical change
Journal Article | Founding Deep Transitions Paper The contemporary world is confronted by a double challenge: environmental degradation and social inequality. This challenge is linked to the dynamics of the First Deep Transition (Schot, 2016): the creation and expansion of a wide range of socio-technical systems in a similar direction over the past 200–250…
Deep Transitions: Emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality
Industrial society has not only led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the Western world, but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality. The socio-technical systems that underlay contemporary societies have substantially contributed to these outcomes. This paper proposes that these sociotechnical systems are an expression of a limited number of…
International organisations and the governance of deep transitions: The case of a transition towards a circular economy
This paper contributes to a recent strand of work within the field of sustainability transitions that combines the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions with techno-economic paradigm thinking. Schot and Kanger (2018) and Kanger and Schot (2018) developed a framework which aims to explain the emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality of deep transitions. They define a…
World Wars and the Age of Energy Abundance: Unpacking Directionality in Deep Transitions
This paper explores the role of the world wars in shaping the directionality of the energy system in the first deep transition, which culminated in the post-World War two ‘golden age’ of high and stable economic growth underpinned by an increased use of fossil fuels and in particular a shift to oil amongst other developments….