Abstract

In this paper, we present an initial analysis of work that seeks to understand, through a novel combination of concepts, the processes that are driving the United Kingdom’s decarbonisation strategy for the automotive sector. As part of this work, we undertook extensive fieldwork interviews and documentary analyses that allowed us to explore the interlinkages in a context where policymakers seek to create a significant and sustainable new market (i.e., cars with zero tailpipe emissions) via policy incentives and where the basic technology exists (e.g., batteries), but where investment in technological development must come from the private sector, especially from several related industries within the automotive ecosystem. Moreover, these private sector actors have considerable self-interest in the shape of those policy incentives. For this work, we draw on the multiple streams framework (MSF), the multi-level perspective (MLP) and multi-level governance (MLG) to understand how technology, market and policy factors have jointly worked to put the British automotive industry on a specific trajectory. By adopting a pragmatist grounded theory approach, we find that this trajectory has come about through the interplay between technology innovators, problem brokers, bricoleurs, and policy entrepreneurs (PE) performing activities in different types of windows of opportunity – technology, problem, policy and market – to achieve the ultimate goal of a functioning market for electric vehicles. This paper aims to answer three interrelated research questions. What is the relationship between technological, policy, problem and market windows of opportunity and multiple industry trajectories and multiple streams? Who are the key agents at play inside each window? What does this mean for the relevant actors and their interrelations within a particular window?