Normative contestation in transitions ‘in the making’: Animal welfare concerns and system innovation in pig husbandry

Previous studies of system innovations mainly focused on historical cases that were driven by commercial motivations of pioneers and entrepreneurs. This article investigates a system innovation in the making that is driven by normative concerns, such as sustainability or animal welfare, initially formulated by outsiders like special-interest groups. Our central research question is: How, when and why is normative contestation of existing regimes effective in influencing the orientation of transitions in the making?The conceptual framework enriches innovation studies and the multi-level perspective with insights from social movement theory (SMT) and political science. SMT is used to analyze the build up of normative pressure (through framing, resource mobilization, and political opportunity structures). From political science we use the notion of multiple streams, in our analysis a problem, regulatory, market and technology stream.The research design consists of a comparative case study of pig husbandry systems. One case analyses the sub-sector of pregnant sows where normative pressures, after several decades, led to the changes advocated by the contestants. The second case concerns the sub-sector of pig fattening where normative pressure was less successful.The difference is partly explained by the normative pressure for pregnant sows being larger than for fattening pigs. The other part of the explanation is that in the first case normative pressure aligned better with the three other streams (regulatory, market and technology) to lead to the changes desired by the contestants.

Research highlights▶ Normative contestation can influence ‘transitions in the making’ depending upon (a) dynamic of the contestation process and (b) alignment with ‘opportunity structures’, analysed as ‘streams’. ▶ Social Movement theory (SMT) can be used fruitfully to analyse the contestation process and thus enrich innovation studies. ▶ Existence of a variety of problem definitions or variety of solutions will weaken normative pressure. ▶ Normative contestation can become effective by the alignment of four ‘streams’, notably problems (put on the agenda by normative contestation), regulatory/policy, technology and market.