Humanity faces major challenges because the boundaries of an ecologically safe and socially just space are transgressed. This thesis’ point of departure is that these societal challenges result from longterm, complex, unsustainable consumption and production patterns in sociotechnical systems such as energy, mobility, agriculture and water. These challenges cannot sufficiently be addressed by incremental improvements and technological fixes along path-dependent trajectories but also require path-breaking changes towards new socio-technical systems. So far, however, progress has been rather limited in achieving long-term sustainability objectives and fundamentally transforming these systems. Put differently, societal change does not happen or it takes place at an agonisingly slow pace. Against this backdrop of persistent environmental problems and rigid, unsustainable socio-technical systems, innovative activities are being developed to enable a paradigm shift towards a circular economy. However, as such shifts are highly political, these new activities typically result in inertia or, at most, incremental changes in established socio-technical systems. Therefore, the thesis investigates the political processes underlying inertia and incremental change in established socio-technical systems, directing attention to the power of deeprooted ideas, entrenched networks, embedded rules and vast infrastructure that hinder fundamental change. To do so, it focusses on the wastewater systems of Belgium and the Netherlands. Here novel activities are being developed that arise from the need for rapid shift to a circular economy. Yet these wastewater systems are also characterised by large, stable infrastructures and robust institutional arrangements. As a result, the main topic of this thesis is the politics of sustainability transitions towards a circular economy in the wastewater systems of Belgium and the Netherlands. In six chapters, the thesis delves into the politics of transitions towards a circular economy in the Dutch and Belgian wastewater system.@en

More pluralised understandings of incumbencies are often overlooked in transitions research, which may lead to underestimating the enabling roles of incumbents in niche projects. This study explores these roles by applying a power framework to five struggles revolving around a path-breaking decentralised wastewater treatment project in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Remarkably, incumbents from multiple regimes use power to enable the niche project. The study identifies and discusses four patterns in the enabling role of incumbents in niche projects. These patterns are clarified by focussing on incumbents from multiple regimes, belonging to local authorities, neighbouring and more distant regimes, as well as on the power of structural trends related to the urgency of sustainability challenges. As such, the study contributes to the understanding of multiple incumbencies and the conditions under which these may reinforce niche projects. For practitioners, the study underscores the role of power dynamics in the water/wastewater sector.

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Environmental problems are usually not tackled with path-departing policies but rather with incrementally adjusted or unchanged policies. One way to address incremental change is the policy feedback approach, which initially focussed on self-reinforcing feedback and path-dependency. Today, self-undermining feedback is also increasingly being studied, centring on agency and change. However, it is unclear precisely how actors use power in policy feedback processes. Therefore, this study applied a power perspective and the policy arrangement approach to a case study of the reorientation towards a circular economy in Dutch wastewater policy between 2008 and 2018, which resulted in incremental instead of fundamental policy change. Here it was observed that self-undermining feedback was generated from 2008 onwards but the balance quickly shifted back to self-reinforcing feedback, indicating that the analysed power struggles led to incremental change. These dynamics resemble a shift from the so-called paths and forks (i.e. fork in the road) towards the boomerang pattern (i.e. returning to its original position) of policy change. The patterns are explained by focussing on powerful actors that resist change through the use of incremental reforms, the ongoing struggles of these actors in facilitating self-reinforcing feedback and the role of interpretation in using feedback as a resource. Overall, this study provides a nuanced understanding of incremental change by directing attention to the power struggles of actors in policy feedback processes. For practitioners, the study emphasises the importance of power struggles in enabling a circular economy.

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Recently, calls have increased for a paradigm shift or transition towards resource recovery and a circular economy in the Dutch wastewater system. However, we have observed diverging interpretations on the nature of the transition. This reflects the political environment of sustainability transitions: political struggle emerges over the definition of problems, futures and strategies to be used. In order to help clarify the emerging debate and identify political choices, we conducted a discourse analysis. We identified three discourses that reveal some of the political choices to be made. One discourse is becoming dominant and focusses on optimising the large-scale infrastructure, market development and legislative changes. The discourse draws on the existing infrastructure and current political-economic institutions, which gives it an advantage in becoming dominant. Our findings also suggest that this discourse shapes a transition pathway that is characterised by lock-in effects and, at most, incremental changes instead of a fundamental shift in the established Dutch wastewater system@en

Classification = C3; UGent publication = Yes;@en