Explored more thoroughly elsewhere (Stirling, 2014a and b), there is sadly not
the space here to develop examples in the desirable detail. However, the point is
nonetheless readily made by considering the radical implications of ‘transformations’, potentially displayed, for instance, by ecological agriculture, zero carbon energy
futures in general and renewable energy in particular. As already touched on, these
can be contrasted with characteristics of ‘transitions’ towards ‘sustainable intensi -
fication’ based on agricultural transgenics, or nuclear power (or even climate geo -
engineering) as large-scale responses to climate change. These latter transitions are
typically propounded by powerful incumbent interests within existing sectoral
regimes. The former possible transformations reflect knowledges, values and inter -
ests that are more marginal to the current constituting of these regimes. Charac -
terized, then, as a contrast between orientations for radical change driven alternatively
by powerful incumbent or relatively disempowered subaltern interests, it is only the
latter kinds of transformation that depend on clear roles for democratic struggle that
are worthy of the understanding adopted here.
More fine-grain features of this contrast between ‘transformation’ and ‘transition’
can be illuminated by considering in more detail the much-proclaimed global
‘renaissance’ in nuclear power (Nuttall, 2005; Toke, 2013). Of course, when
consideration is given to the actual patterns of investment and their relation to
other energy technologies, the objective reality of a global nuclear renaissance is
rather dubious, but the success of this rhetoric is unquestionable. Promulgated at
the highest political levels and by scientific authorities ostensibly unrelated to nuclear
supply chains, the effect is to condition wider knowledges and expectations in
powerful ways. The result in many countries is that political pressures for green
transformations in the energy sector, originally driven largely by public concerns
over nuclear power and sympathy for renewable energy transformations, are in
fact systematically channelled by apolitical ‘management’ discourse into transitions
more towards nuclear power (Stirling, 2014c).
Of course, general claims that nuclear power is ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ remain
strongly criticized in any sense other than low operational carbon emissions.
Nuclear waste, weapons proliferation and accident risks – and their associated
authoritarian control structures – have long made nuclear an iconic target of the
green movement (Dorfman, 2008). The Brundtland Commission and follow-on
intergovernmental processes also generally treat this technology with suspicion, so
the language of ‘sustainability transitions’ is typically not used directly of nuclear
power. Although displaying many key diagnostic features of a controlled ‘transition’
outlined here, initiatives explicitly identified as ‘transition management’ in the energy
sector are typically linked with more popular renewable technologies. However,
it is precisely the central point here that it is the attributes of power dynamics in
knowledges and practices constituting ‘transition’ (by contrast with ‘transformation’)
that lead nuclear power in many countries to be the perverse beneficiary of
authoritarian inflections of decades of subaltern pressures that were typically
formatively forged disproportionately in opposition to nuclear power.
Emancipating transformations 63
the space here to develop examples in the desirable detail. However, the point is
nonetheless readily made by considering the radical implications of ‘transformations’, potentially displayed, for instance, by ecological agriculture, zero carbon energy
futures in general and renewable energy in particular. As already touched on, these
can be contrasted with characteristics of ‘transitions’ towards ‘sustainable intensi -
fication’ based on agricultural transgenics, or nuclear power (or even climate geo -
engineering) as large-scale responses to climate change. These latter transitions are
typically propounded by powerful incumbent interests within existing sectoral
regimes. The former possible transformations reflect knowledges, values and inter -
ests that are more marginal to the current constituting of these regimes. Charac -
terized, then, as a contrast between orientations for radical change driven alternatively
by powerful incumbent or relatively disempowered subaltern interests, it is only the
latter kinds of transformation that depend on clear roles for democratic struggle that
are worthy of the understanding adopted here.
More fine-grain features of this contrast between ‘transformation’ and ‘transition’
can be illuminated by considering in more detail the much-proclaimed global
‘renaissance’ in nuclear power (Nuttall, 2005; Toke, 2013). Of course, when
consideration is given to the actual patterns of investment and their relation to
other energy technologies, the objective reality of a global nuclear renaissance is
rather dubious, but the success of this rhetoric is unquestionable. Promulgated at
the highest political levels and by scientific authorities ostensibly unrelated to nuclear
supply chains, the effect is to condition wider knowledges and expectations in
powerful ways. The result in many countries is that political pressures for green
transformations in the energy sector, originally driven largely by public concerns
over nuclear power and sympathy for renewable energy transformations, are in
fact systematically channelled by apolitical ‘management’ discourse into transitions
more towards nuclear power (Stirling, 2014c).
Of course, general claims that nuclear power is ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ remain
strongly criticized in any sense other than low operational carbon emissions.
Nuclear waste, weapons proliferation and accident risks – and their associated
authoritarian control structures – have long made nuclear an iconic target of the
green movement (Dorfman, 2008). The Brundtland Commission and follow-on
intergovernmental processes also generally treat this technology with suspicion, so
the language of ‘sustainability transitions’ is typically not used directly of nuclear
power. Although displaying many key diagnostic features of a controlled ‘transition’
outlined here, initiatives explicitly identified as ‘transition management’ in the energy
sector are typically linked with more popular renewable technologies. However,
it is precisely the central point here that it is the attributes of power dynamics in
knowledges and practices constituting ‘transition’ (by contrast with ‘transformation’)
that lead nuclear power in many countries to be the perverse beneficiary of
authoritarian inflections of decades of subaltern pressures that were typically
formatively forged disproportionately in opposition to nuclear power.
Emancipating transformations 63