Effects of conflicting rationalities during informal settlement upgrading processes on outcomes: A transitions perspective

Introduction Multisectoral informal settlement upgrading projects encompass a confluence of innovations and promise to lead to sustainable transitions in those places. They involve introduction or rehabilitation of sustainable infrastructure and basic urban services to enhance mobility, sanitation, water provision, energy and solid waste management in informal settlements. However, upgrading faces challenges due to context and baseline factors such as ethnicity, religion, population density, tenure; and the conflicting rationalities engrained in the different actors with reference to the rationalities of the community (Das, 2015; Morrison, 2017). We employ lenses of institutional logics linked to rationality and transition studies to understand the complexity of regime transformations in upgrading projects. Rationality has been conceptually discussed in the field of sociology with ideas of Max Weber (substantive, theoretical, practical, and instrumental forms of rationality) forming the basis of institutional research (Townley, 2002) and provided practice insights on informal settlements upgrading consequently feeding into planning theory (Watson, 2003). More recently institutional logics perspective has gained traction in institutional studies (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Rationalities are deeply embedded in institutional logics which range from institutions that guide state, family, community and politics among other settings (Quattrone (2015) further discusses the link between logics and rationality). Transition scholars have recently elaborated how institutional logics provide a deeper understanding of regime dynamics (Fuenfschilling & Binz, 2018; Fuenfschilling & Truffer, 2014; Fuenfschilling & Truffer, 2016) and how regimes of similar services combine in specific spatial settings (Van Welie et al., 2018). In the proposed paper, we further elaborate on the role of actors’ rationalities on introduction of new regimes of unrelated services in contested spaces. This study explores how conditions at baseline and actors’ rationalities during planning and implementation stages of upgrading respectively combine to influence the impact of newly introduced service regimes to the residents of low-income settlements. Method Using 60 key informant interviews and project reports, we analyze sixteen multisector informal settlement upgrading cases recently implemented in secondary towns in Kenya using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (Rihoux & Ragin, 2008) to determine which and how combinations of conditions result in positive and negative outcomes for the upgrading projects. Findings Combinations of baseline conditions that are associated with less impactful service regimes include mixed ethnic groups and low number of tenants or a homogenous ethnic group, a high number of tenants coupled with a small number of persons affected by the project. Persons affected by the project included those whose houses or shops were partly demolished to pave way for infrastructure. On the other hand, success is explained by a combination of both homogeneous ethnicity and low numbers of tenants or ethnic homogeneity and large proportions of people affected by the project. These conditions consistently explained 63% and 50% of failure and success respectively in the cases analyzed. Conflicting actor rationalities explain positive and negative outcomes even better. Success was only associated with a combination of aligned engineers’ rationality mostly, and partly contractors’ rationality when well aligned with the community rationality. The projects failed in most cases where any other rationality combined with misaligned engineers or contractors’ rationalities. These causal conditions consistently explained 100% and 75% of failure and success respectively of the cases analyzed. Conclusion Alignment or misalignment of other actors’ rationalities with those of the community during informal settlement upgrading better explains the upgrading’s impact the informal settlements as compared to all other models. In practice, it is necessary for planners to concentrate on and ensure they understand the rationalities of engineers and contractors and align them with those of the community whose settlements they are upgrading. It is necessary to align the engineer’ rationality but to guarantee positive impact, a combination of the engineers’ and contractors’ rationalities should be aligned. Theoretically, viewing combined service regimes belonging to different sector regimes in the lenses of institutional logics enables researchers to unbundle how conflicting or aligned institutional logics combine to affect newly implemented service regimes in precarious contexts.