This paper seeks to critically assess how “radical” sustainability approaches that challenge “mainstream” development trajectories—and politics—are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche–regime dynamics. In our in-depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an “independent” group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non-partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its “Flatpack Democracy” model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche “protagonists” through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche–regime interface, which helped to create a community-level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within “liminal transition spaces”, interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio-political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross-purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much-needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.

中文翻译：

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扁平化民主：转型边界上的权力与政治

本文旨在批判性地评估挑战“主流”发展轨迹和政治的“激进”可持续性方法是如何在地方政府内部制定和竞争的。我们探讨了这些方法在多大程度上解释了角色边界和政治身份的整合、分解或转变，以及它们对利基-政权动态政治的影响。在我们对 Frome（英国萨默塞特）Independents 的深入研究中，一个“独立”团体于 2011 年控制了镇议会，并在其行政职能范围内巩固了一种无党派方法，称为“Flatpack 民主”模型，我们仔细研究对抗主义和地方政府内部权力动态的交集。研究结果揭示了利基“主角”通过过渡治理的协调和整合，在利基 - 政权界面上战略性地和机会主义地编织成新形式的本地化政治身份，这有助于创建一个社区——过渡治理层级制度。我们建议非正式的制度资本，例如个人关系的作用，可以影响合法性、问责制或可持续性议程的验证。我们的研究结果还推动了关于“阈限过渡空间”内的过渡阈值、以前的知行方式和新方式之间的间隙空间的辩论。在这里，决定社会政治规范的基本规则尚不清楚，协作行动可能会在不同目的下发挥作用和/或多种形式的（变革性）权力在不同的时刻或过渡的实例同时行使。也就是说，在过渡管理的日常政治中，围绕民主化的脆弱和不完善过程，仍然存在急需的理论辩论。