No 2024/6 The rescaling of institutional rationalities for shaping opportunity spaces

Abstract

By integrating the concept of opportunity spaces into the debate on multi-scalarity in transitions, this paper explains how and why actors engage in institutional change processes across scales. Opportunity spaces for change conceptualize a multi-scalar institutional architecture as structure for agency and take account of the future-past-dimension of agency. Actors rescale institutional rationalities by carrying out institutional work across scales with the intention to strengthen an industrial path. Our conceptual elaborations are illustrated by in-depth interviews and participant observation of industry associations in the market for residential storage systems in Germany. Af-ter having constructed and exploited a national opportunity space for this niche, particularly indus-try associations and companies engage in institutional work fostering the national implementation of EU legislation and affecting legislation, discourses and standards at a European scale. While insti-tutional semi-coherence is found as constraining condition for rescaling institutional rationalities, holding positions at multiple scales enhances agency.