It is also essential to make a better connection between these notions, since the relationship between them is not evident per se.” Governance approaches mentioned are now related to Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI), which are innovations with explicit transformative goals and attention to mutual gains, and originating from political science and negotiation theory in particular.
This paper seeks to develop the notion of a Natural Social Contract (NSC) to enable transformative governance based on co-evolution. In a nutshell, to quote, the NSC “involves the fine-tuning of top-down policy and visions with important bottom-up processes (…), and takes place in a hybrid sphere, in which there is room for collaboration between governments, businesses, knowledge institutions and civil society, among others, characterized by Penta-helix models and based on multiple value creation”. Because of this collaborative, polycentric approach, the papers draw on Evolutionary Governance Theory, and develops a perspective of “co-evolutionary steering of interrelated transitions”. The paper’s aspiration is clear and laudable; yet its elaboration is wanting. My recommendation therefore leans towards a strong ‘revise and resubmit’, based on these five points.