Assessing transitions through socio-technical configuration analysis – a methodological framework and a case study in the water sector
提出社会技术配置分析方法，用于跨时空映射和测量社会与技术要素的匹配过程，并以全球水务部门从集中式向模块化基础设施转型为例展示其价值。
Classic accounts of transitions research have predominantly built on reconstructions of historical transition processes and in-depth case studies to identify and conceptualize socio-technical change. While such approaches have substantively improved our understanding of transitions, they often suffer from methodological nationalism and a lack of generalizability beyond spatial and sectoral boundaries. To address this gap, we propose a novel methodology – socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) – to map and measure socio-technical alignment processes across time and space. STCA provides a configurational and dynamic perspective on how social and technical elements get aligned into “configurations that work”, allowing for the identification of differentiated transition trajectories at and across spatial and sectoral contexts. The methodology's value is illustrated with the empirical case of an ongoing shift from centralized to more modular infrastructure configurations in the global water sector. Building on this illustration, we outline potential contributions of STCA to configurational theorizing in transition studies, sketching the contours of what we believe could become a generative epistemological approach for this field.