Assessing transitions through socio-technical network analysis: a methodological framework and a case study from the water sector

Classic accounts of transitions research have dominantly built on reconstructions of historical transition processes and in-depth case studies to identify and conceptualize socio-technical change. While such approaches have substantively improved our understanding of transitions, they often suffer from a methodological nationalism and lack of generalizability of the insights gained. To address this gap, we propose a novel methodology – socio-technical network analysis (STNA) – to map and measure socio-technical alignment processes across time and space. STNA provides a relational and dynamic perspective on how social and technical elements get reconfigured and aligned into “configurations that work”, allowing for the identification of differentiated transition trajectories at and across spatial context. The method’s performance is illustrated by the empirical case of ongoing transition processes in the global water sector. Building on this illustration, we outline potential future avenues of research, sketching the contours of what we believe could become a very generative conceptual perspective and methodological approach for transitions research in the future.