Power Dynamics in Transformative Social Innovation

Introduction

Initiatives around the world are addressing societal challenges by experimenting with social innovations (SI), i.e., new ways of doing, thinking, and organizing. Examples include the sharing economy, eco-communities, participatory democracy, and many more.

Societal Transformation

Such SIs can contribute to societal transformation if/when they challenge, alter, and/or replace dominant structures and institutions that underlie the root causes of societal challenges. To have such a transformative impact, SIs must undergo some form of diffusion, scaling, or mainstreaming.

Innovation Paradox

In this process, they lose (some of) their novelty and risk reproducing or even aggravating the structures/problems that they meant to challenge in the first place, thereby possibly contradicting their original intentions. This project tackles this innovation paradox from a power perspective by studying how power relations are changed and/or reproduced in processes of transformative social innovation (TSI).

Research Questions

We ask how/to what extent SIs are/can be mainstreamed and gain power while upholding transformative potential.

Power Framework

We develop a novel power framework that synthesizes major power contestations in social and political theory to analyze how actors across different institutional logics (state, market, community, non-profit) gain/lose/exercise/undergo power in TSI.

Methodology

We conduct embedded case studies of 4 SI trends:

1. Sharing economy
2. Eco-communities
3. Decentralized energy
4. Participatory democracy

These case studies are conducted at multiple scales, including 12 translocal networks and 12 local initiatives in 3 geographical contexts (United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal), using interviews, participant observation, document reviews, and Transformative Power Arena sessions.

Critical Power Moments

We design a Critical Power Moments methodology for retrospective analysis of how power relations are (re)produced/transformed over time, as well as a prospective participatory Transformative Power tool to identify challenges and strategies for powering TSIs.