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Identification and characterization of potential change agents among agri-food producers: regime, niche and hybrid actors
The multi-level perspective has been criticized for being functionalistic and paying little attention to actor-based perspectives. Nevertheless, for the identification and assessment of potential change agents in a sustainability transition, a clear conceptual and methodological approach is necessary. This paper, thus, develops a multi-dimensional typology of niche, regime, and hybrid actors, which is conceptually grounded in transition studies and empirically illustrated by a cluster analysis based on a survey of pig and poultry farmers in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Animal husbandry is chosen as a case study because a significant share of the environmental impact within the agri-food system is attributed to this sector and there is evidence for resistance to change by mainstream actors. Conceptually, the paper provides a framework of constitutive elements for different kinds of actors and contributes to an extension of the niche–regime dichotomy by adding the group of hybrid actors. The empirical results show that cluster analysis is a suitable approach to identify conceptually meaningful differences among interviewed farmers. Among pig and poultry farmers, the regime actors are by far the largest group. The smaller group of hybrid actors, however, has large potential to act as boundary spanners. A particularly interesting finding is that several larger farms are among the group of niche actors which hints at the possibility that larger farms are not necessarily resistant to change.
Identification and characterization of potential change agents among agri-food producers: regime, niche and hybrid actors
The multi-level perspective has been criticized for being functionalistic and paying little attention to actor-based perspectives. Nevertheless, for the identification and assessment of potential change agents in a sustainability transition, a clear conceptual and methodological approach is necessary. This paper, thus, develops a multi-dimensional typology of niche, regime, and hybrid actors, which is conceptually grounded in transition studies and empirically illustrated by a cluster analysis based on a survey of pig and poultry farmers in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Animal husbandry is chosen as a case study because a significant share of the environmental impact within the agri-food system is attributed to this sector and there is evidence for resistance to change by mainstream actors. Conceptually, the paper provides a framework of constitutive elements for different kinds of actors and contributes to an extension of the niche–regime dichotomy by adding the group of hybrid actors. The empirical results show that cluster analysis is a suitable approach to identify conceptually meaningful differences among interviewed farmers. Among pig and poultry farmers, the regime actors are by far the largest group. The smaller group of hybrid actors, however, has large potential to act as boundary spanners. A particularly interesting finding is that several larger farms are among the group of niche actors which hints at the possibility that larger farms are not necessarily resistant to change.
Identification and characterization of potential change agents among agri-food producers: regime, niche and hybrid actors
Sustain Sci
Bünger, Arne (author) / Schiller, Daniel (author)
Sustainability Science ; 17 ; 2187-2201
2022-11-01
15 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Multi-level perspective , Actor-based typology , Change agents , Animal husbandry , Cluster analysis Environment , Environmental Management , Climate Change Management and Policy , Environmental Economics , Landscape Ecology , Sustainable Development , Public Health , Earth and Environmental Science
Multifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials for Sustainable Agri-Food and Ecosystems
| UB Braunschweig | 2020