Transforming local governance: using system leverage points to conceptualize sustainability transformations

Abstract Despite the global call for sustainability transformations, researchers and practitioners struggle to achieve this goal. One promising avenue is to use concepts from systems theory, particularly system leverage points, to understand and accelerate transformation processes. This paper addresses how public decision-makers and politicians at different levels of local government understand sustainability transformations and the implications of this understanding for their governance. Furthermore, we investigate how the leverage point framework can aid in conceptualizing local governments’ transformation processes. The empirical basis is a series of focus group interviews with public decision-makers and politicians in Norway. Using system leverage points as a conceptual boundary object between transformation theory and practical sustainability interventions, we find that these interview subjects are addressing the urgency of the transformative change needed and view the gap between knowledge and action as a prominent challenge. We discuss and introduce the notion of a “space of leverage”—reflecting that sustainability interventions act in an interlinked space of possibility that spans sectors and governance levels. On this basis, we propose three recommendations for governing deliberate transformations: (1) establishing new means for collaboration that integrate system perspectives; (2) establishing a shared sustainability vision across government administration and politics; and (3) evaluating the current management system, emphasizing system leverage points. Our study responds to the calls for research that engages with the “how” of transformations and elucidates how the leverage point framework can be used to understand a current transformation process at the local level.