Theory of Change - technical version
Thank you to everyone who offered feedback on deliberation 3, we now have a plain English and (this) technical version of our theory of change.
This is how we think the ‘fundamental changes to how society functions’ (IPCC, 2024), that are now necessary, can come about.
Phase 1 – in progress and likely to intensify as climate and nature crisis deepens and ‘solutions’ fail.
1. Disillusionment with current forms of environmentalism approaches a tipping point. Disillusionment with depoliticised, mainstream, and ‘climate liberal’ approaches to environmentalism (i.e. market-led, technocratic, and incremental approaches) continues to grow as belief in their ability to affect the scale of change necessary fades away, particularly as material pressures (e.g. cost of living) intensify.
2. Paradigm shift in how climate and nature crisis is understood. Major national and international challenges that were once thought of as separate from one another come to be more widely understood as intersecting and mutually reinforcing crises within a larger polycrisis and metacrisis, including their economic and geopolitical dimensions (e.g. inequality, resource competition, and shifting global power). This is a paradigm shift in how a crisis like climate change is understood - it is already underway.
3. The Movement for Interdependence gains momentum as an emergent form of environmentalism. The paradigm shift is leading to a phase out of climate liberal approaches to environmentalism; this will accelerate the growth of the emergent movement for interdependence. This movement is nascent, but developing. It is focused on reconnecting humans with nature, and with each other - it counteracts the forces of hyper-individualism and begins to challenge the deeper cultural assumptions about value, motivation, and human nature that underpin it, tackling the wider causes of the polycrisis.
Phase 2 – emergent and evident in pockets, but largely still to come and where the focus of our work needs to be.
4. Social infrastructure expands, hyper-individualism goes into retreat. The movement for interdependence gains further momentum and begins to rein in hyper-individualism by creating, advocating for, and driving up use of online and real-world social infrastructure (including nature embedded social infrastructure), as well as educational and formational spaces (e.g. schools, teacher networks, and community learning environments) that cultivate interdependence in practice.
5. The idea of the interdependent, rather than independent self, spreads through society. As the quality and volume of social infrastructure improves and expands, increasing numbers of people begin gravitating towards it. This exposes them to new and diverse ways of thinking and being in the world. The effect is transformative; they begin to rediscover themselves as interdependent, rather than independent selves, though this shift is uneven and contested.
6. Social capital strengthens, social atrophy declines. As use of real-world social infrastructure (‘third places’) increases, the use and influence of social media platforms starts to fall. This leads to an increase in social capital, and a decrease in social atrophy and its associated negative effects. The effect on communities is transformative, although competing forces and backlash remain.
7. Collective action expands, conditions for society-wide political change build. - Upon these foundations, communities collaborate, cooperate, and take collective action to: build resilience, capitalise on opportunities to improve their lives, create new forms of art and culture, and organise politically. Outcomes vary and co-option is possible, but the conditions for wider fundamental change grow.
Phase 3 – to come and contingent on the scale and speed of change in phase 2.
8. A political movement for fundamental change grows big enough to win a national election. Social infrastructure and strong social capital becomes the norm, not the exception across society. As a result, a political movement, rooted in – and of – these vibrant communities, grows into a force large enough to win local, regional, and national elections. The transition from community power to electoral power is difficult, contested, and requires coordination, leadership, and new or adapted political formations.
9. Neoliberalism is declared as over, a new socio-economic system is born. This movement forms a Government with a mandate strong enough to declare the end of neoliberalism, and the birth of a new socio-economic system.
10. Change is protected and sustained. Ongoing support from strong communities and institutions prevents regression into the patterns the movement seeks to replace.
Underlying and interwoven throughout all three phases.
Ongoing conversation on the form the new socio-economic model should take. Running throughout, and in parallel with steps 1 to 10, online and in person social infrastructure is utilised to facilitate a growing conversation on the form the new socio-economic model should take. These deliberations – which are already in motion – are where, to paraphrase Milton Friedman, ‘the ideas that are lying around’ are being developed and tested ready for implementation.
