It's all in your head: The role of intellectuals in transition processes, a neo-Gramscian approach

Antonio Gramsci’s work has recently been used to explain why socio-technical transitions are not taking place. This literature builds on the Gramscian concepts of transformismo, passive revolutions, or war of positions. Gramsci’s work can be insightful for transition scholars as he analyzed why transitions did not take place, as well as what the conditions for a transformation would be. For Gramsci, a transformation was preliminarily an intellectual endeavor. Only when the intellectual war (the war of positions) was won, could a physical war (a war of maneuver) be victorious. Thus, philosophy, ideology, beliefs, or folklore are the arenas that decide upon the success of a transformation. Accordingly, using a neo-Gramscian approach, changing people’s worldviews is a vital factor for a successful transformation towards a sustainable society.
Intellectuals can have a key role in transformative processes as they can help to maintain or birth new worldviews. There is an increasing call for scientists to collaborate with stakeholders and actively contribute to transition processes. This is understood to be in contrast to scientists’ traditional role as objective observers who are separate from society. However, using a Gramscian approach, it is obvious that scientists can be class-bound and thus influence societal trajectories and transitions. Understanding the role of scientists within transition processes might, thus, be valuable. This requires amongst others understanding the dynamics between individuals and social groups, as well as, the role of worldview or paradigm changes.
Within dominant transition theories, such as socio-technical transition theory, worldview changes do not take center stage. Furthermore, they do not shed light on the dynamics between individuals and groups. To address this shortcoming, I developed a novel transition concept. It enriches the adaptive cycle developed by Gunderson and Holling (2002) with neo-Gramscian thought. The novel transition concept helps to understand the dynamics between individuals and (counter hegemonic / hegemonic) groups, as well as the role of worldview changes in transition processes. Thus, it can help to understand how intellectuals, such as academics, can impact transformation processes.