arbiter
JournalsAccount

Escaping and creating lock-ins in accelerating low-carbon transitions: conceptual reflections and empirical insights from electricity and auto-mobility transitions in Europe, the USA and China

Frank W. Geels

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society2025https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf011article
AJG 3ABDC B
Weight
0.46

Abstract

While escaping the lock-ins of existing systems is essential for accelerated low-carbon transitions, the paper argues that acceleration also requires creating new lock-ins of emerging niche innovations which need to be stabilised before widespread diffusion. The paper makes three conceptual contributions to the lock-in literature: it distinguishes and assesses three specific debates (on locked-in entities, determinism and agency and unlocking), it mobilises insights from multiple social sciences regarding these debates and it identifies interactions between the debates and integrates relevant insights in the multi-level perspective. The paper confronts and illustrates these contributions with empirical analysis of accelerating low-carbon transitions in electricity and auto-mobility systems in Europe, the USA and China. It finds that low-carbon niche innovations became locked-in to dominant designs before widespread diffusion, that accelerated diffusion involved techno-economic and agentic drivers, and that existing systems were unlocked more by niche innovations and regime destabilisation than by external landscape pressures.

4 citations

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf011

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{frank2025,
  title        = {{Escaping and creating lock-ins in accelerating low-carbon transitions: conceptual reflections and empirical insights from electricity and auto-mobility transitions in Europe, the USA and China}},
  author       = {Frank W. Geels},
  journal      = {Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaf011},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Escaping and creating lock-ins in accelerating low-carbon transitions: conceptual reflections and empirical insights from electricity and auto-mobility transitions in Europe, the USA and China

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.46

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.37 × 0.4 = 0.15
M · momentum0.60 × 0.15 = 0.09
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.