Challenge accepted

Sub-national government authorities and the legitimacy of co-creative redevelopment projects in fossil-industrial regions

Journal Article (2025)
Author(s)

T.S.G.H. Rodhouse (TU Delft - Multi Actor Systems, TU Delft - Organisation & Governance)

Eefje Cuppen (TU Delft - Organisation & Governance, Universiteit Leiden)

U Pesch (TU Delft - Ethics & Philosophy of Technology)

A.F. Correljé (TU Delft - Economics of Technology and Innovation)

Research Group
Organisation & Governance
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.100962
More Info
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Research Group
Organisation & Governance
Volume number
55
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Abstract

Regions reliant on declining fossil fuel production often grapple with upcoming deindustrialisation, economic decline, and deterioration of liveability. In attempts to address these issues proactively, local change agents, including sub-national government authorities, increasingly collaborate to develop new, more sustainable and just regional pathways. A potential yet not uncontested stepping stone towards such pathways is co-creative asset redevelopment. In this paper, we focus on the role of sub-national government authorities in co-creative redevelopment. Particularly, we zoom in on the legitimacy challenges that these authorities face and must address for co-creative redevelopment to have transformative capacity. We draw on insights from the case of GZI Next in Emmen, the Netherlands, and identify six challenges, amongst others intra-organisational conflicts of interests, accountability issues, and competing claims to the right to a just transition. We reflect on these challenges and how to overcome them and propose avenues for future research.