Subnational, Inter-scalar Dynamics: The Differentiated Geographies of Governing Low Carbon Transitions—With Examples from the UK

This chapter aims to improve our analytical understanding of low carbon transitions at and in between multiple geographical scales, particularly ‘below’ a national level. Taking the Multilevel Perspective (MLP) as our starting point we show that it offers tools for thinking through the institutional and technological conditions and rules through which regimes reproduce or change over time. But it is not very well equipped to study transitional dynamics as they unfold in space. This chapter sets out a range of levels on a spatial scale and activities that are relevant to transition activity but with which the MLP so far engages only partially. The chapter explicitly identifies very different, yet coexisting, scales of transition activity which aim at low carbon transitions in the UK. It demonstrates the possibilities of attributing particular transition activities with different spaces and levels on a geographical scale and highlights the dynamics between these scaled activities. It does this to open up debate about the ‘appropriate’ mechanisms for dialogue ‘between’ governance levels and differently scaled transition activities.