Studying sustainability transitions has developed in three waves over the last decade. While the first was concerned with reducing greenhouse gas emissions of states, the second wave focused on the availability of technological options and the economic incentive systems that could make climate mitigation possible. The on-going third wave concerns the societal and political embedding of energy transitions and the recognition that low carbon transformation means economic, political and societal transformation as well. Recent scholarship in comparative political economy has started looking more closely at the different trajectories of sustainability transitions undertaken by Western democracies. This strongly institutionalist research in the ‘varieties of capitalism’ tradition suggests that the different politico-economic structures pre-determine the pathways different capitalist states might choose. Usually, the literature agrees that the so-called ‘coordinated-market economies’ tend to outperform Anglo-Saxon ‘liberal market economies’ regarding the pace, depth and ultimately the success of sustainability transition. However, these assessments are rather static and fail to describe and understand the dynamics taking place within these varieties of capitalism. The Paper proposes that social ‘embedding’ and ‘double movement’, two central notions of the recently re-discovered work of Karl Polanyi can complement the above analysis with adding a more dynamic view. From this perspective, the introduction of feed-in-tariffs e.g. in Germany has facilitated the re-embedding of clean energy policies and the departure from a purely free market logic. But coordinated market economies are also witnessing a Polanyian ‘double movement’, where relevant actors have essentially dismantled core policies on which the sustainability transition rests. At the same time, in liberal market economies the pendulum has moved towards embedding the initially strongly market based, and unsuccessful, sustainability transition. The Paper will pose the question about potentials of co-existence between different sustainability transition models in Europe.
