Navigating paradoxes in ‘doing’ transition policy: aligning institutional logics

Doing transition policy is challenging in practice, because incumbent institutional logics of government often hinder collaborative and experimental governance approaches. We ask: how do national policy practitioners ‘do’ transition policy from within incumbent policy regimes? We present a qualitative case study on Dutch national transition policymaking. We observed that policy practitioners faced five paradoxes: they navigated between (1) gaining legitimacy through accountability or experimentation; (2) gaining authority through politics or society; (3) framing identity as uniform or pluriform government; (4) directing attention to generic or place-based solutions; and (5) deploying sectoral or systemic policy strategies. These paradoxes emerge in a clash of incumbent logics underpinning the dominant policy regime, and minority logics that support experimental and collaborative modes of governance. Policy practitioners deploy various strategies to deal with these paradoxes, including niche empowerment strategies. Our contribution articulates the ambiguities in policy practice, where policy practitioners need to align multiple logics.