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configurations. In contrast to opportunism, the dimension of prefiguration highlights how particular choices are orchestrated and made seemingly inevitable, despite having been initiated in a circumstance where they
were highly contingent. This dimension enables us to trace how specific
pathways are brought into being out of a wide array of possibilities. In the
Norwegian zero growth target-setting case, setting a highly ambitious target that curbs any future increase in car traffic in Norway’s largest cities
puts a literal brake on this hitherto growing sectoral segment within a
short span. In the Colorado case, the failed attempt to secure habitat
replacement for the sage-grouse from land takeover by energy extractive
industries nevertheless creates infrastructures for data (Habitat
Quantification Tool) and markets (Colorado Habitat Exchange) for future
habitat exchange.
10.1.5
Performativity
Legitimation plays out as farce that can risk perpetuating the status quo
and supporting energy transitions that lead to unsustainable outcomes, for
instance decarbonising without enhancing social equity. The dimension of
performativity draws attention to this tendency of employing rhetoric to
obfuscate the absence of sufficient substantive action. Legitimation can
thus become a clever and attractive but ultimately hollow performance,
where new accountability relations to transition in a sustainable manner
are not shaped for a different energy future, despite fanfare. In the
Norwegian zero growth target-setting case, the Zero Growth Objective
can be read as an ambitious target that, without a slew of accompanying
sectoral policies, would simply remain unattainable; more critically, it
could be argued as a means of distracting attention away from the carbonemitting aviation sector which continues to grow. In the Colorado case,
the expectation that a habitat exchange market would work (despite its
subsequent failure) is implicated in the removal of compensatory mitigation mandates stemming from the Endangered Species Act.
10.1.6
Power-play
Legitimation plays out in uneven topographies of power, where outcomes
are not shaped in a vacuum of fair decision-making processes, but socially
modulated by influential actors within evolving institutional structures
with specific historical legacies. The dimension of power-play highlights
S. SAREEN ET AL.
configurations. In contrast to opportunism, the dimension of prefiguration highlights how particular choices are orchestrated and made seemingly inevitable, despite having been initiated in a circumstance where they
were highly contingent. This dimension enables us to trace how specific
pathways are brought into being out of a wide array of possibilities. In the
Norwegian zero growth target-setting case, setting a highly ambitious target that curbs any future increase in car traffic in Norway’s largest cities
puts a literal brake on this hitherto growing sectoral segment within a
short span. In the Colorado case, the failed attempt to secure habitat
replacement for the sage-grouse from land takeover by energy extractive
industries nevertheless creates infrastructures for data (Habitat
Quantification Tool) and markets (Colorado Habitat Exchange) for future
habitat exchange.
10.1.5
Performativity
Legitimation plays out as farce that can risk perpetuating the status quo
and supporting energy transitions that lead to unsustainable outcomes, for
instance decarbonising without enhancing social equity. The dimension of
performativity draws attention to this tendency of employing rhetoric to
obfuscate the absence of sufficient substantive action. Legitimation can
thus become a clever and attractive but ultimately hollow performance,
where new accountability relations to transition in a sustainable manner
are not shaped for a different energy future, despite fanfare. In the
Norwegian zero growth target-setting case, the Zero Growth Objective
can be read as an ambitious target that, without a slew of accompanying
sectoral policies, would simply remain unattainable; more critically, it
could be argued as a means of distracting attention away from the carbonemitting aviation sector which continues to grow. In the Colorado case,
the expectation that a habitat exchange market would work (despite its
subsequent failure) is implicated in the removal of compensatory mitigation mandates stemming from the Endangered Species Act.
10.1.6
Power-play
Legitimation plays out in uneven topographies of power, where outcomes
are not shaped in a vacuum of fair decision-making processes, but socially
modulated by influential actors within evolving institutional structures
with specific historical legacies. The dimension of power-play highlights
S. SAREEN ET AL.