Adrian Smith

Fifty years ago, innovation studies researchers were critical towards the pioneering ‘Limits to Growth’ analysis of world economy–environment relations. Whilst criticism took distinct forms, their arguments shared hope in the ability of technology to decouple economic growth from environmental collapse. This idea has remained prominent in policy ever since. In revisiting that debate, however, this article recalls how critics’ hope was conditional upon a radical restructuring of political and economic relations at the international level. This was a period when Third World solidarity was pushing the United Nations towards an equitable economic order for post-colonial justice—including a global redistribution of technological capabilities and self-reliance. These hopes crumbled in the face of the neoliberal counter-revolution, and today, green growth frames technology as a device for evading, not enabling, radical political and economic change. Given the alarming fact that Limits to Growth scenarios appear more prescient than ever, what lessons can post-growth approaches to technology draw from this history?

Analysing interactions between niches and regimes is critically important for understanding sustainability transitions. What complicates interaction is the fact that sustainability is often understood and pursued differently in regimes compared to niches. That means the aims and criteria for innovation can be different on either side of the interaction. A paradox arises in which interaction will be easiest when there is already good alignment between niche and regime sustainability criteria; but such alignment will by definition not demand very great changes in the regime nor empower more radical niche experiments. In practice, four different interactions co-exist: differentiation; co-option; hybridisation; and criticism. These interactions work in both directions, can be interdependent upon one another, and influence wider change processes over time. It becomes problematic to conceive reconfiguration as a single transition process originating in niches and linking to regimes. This is illustrated with an example that contrasts sustainability in the automation regime of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) with a niche space that we call post-automation. In becoming attentive to niche-regime interactions, so the politics of sustainable transitions becomes clearer.

To minimize market fragmentation, optimize efficiencies through compatible digital architectures, and encourage collaboration, high-level smart city harmonization efforts have been advocated across Europe. This paper critically analyzes attempts by the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities Six Nations Forum (EIP-SCC 6N) to constitute a common smart city management framework through application of a generic Blueprint. Analysis highlights how these efforts are brought to bear through four techniques: simplification, interoperability, integration, and authorization. Examining the adoption (and rejection) of these techniques underscores the importance of attending to distinctive urban contexts and alternative ways of knowing and acting in the city.

Digital platforms for urban democracy are analyzed in Madrid and Barcelona. These platforms permit citizens to debate urban issues with other citizens; to propose developments, plans, and policies for city authorities; and to influence how city budgets are spent. Contrasting with neoliberal assumptions about Smart Citizenship, the technopolitics discourse underpinning these developments recognizes that the technologies facilitating participation have themselves to be developed democratically. That is, technopolitical platforms are built and operate as open, commons-based processes for learning, reflection, and adaptation. These features prove vital to platform implementation consistent with aspirations for citizen engagement and activism.

The relationship between technology and human capabilities is an ambivalent one. The same technology can expand capabilities for some users under certain circumstances, whilst diminishing capabilities for others situated differently. In this paper we analyse human capabilities in relation to digital design and fabrication technologies as configured, sociotechnically, in makerspaces in the UK. Through a combination of methods, the study identifies how some of the capability benefits claimed for makerspaces are experienced in practice, whilst noting that other capabilities claimed appear absent. Q-method in particular enables the study to examine systematically the plurality in these expansions and absences. We discuss how capabilities might be expanded, how our methods might be of wider use, and we draw some conclusions for theory regarding sociotechnical configurations and human capabilities.