TOLGANBAEVA GULMIRA ADYLKANOVNA

The article discusses the concept of a multi-actor perspective (hereinafter referred to as MAP), proposed by the representatives of the Dutch research institute for transitioning to sustainable development. The author compares MAP to the more widely used analytical tool MLP (Multi-Level Perspective) and highlights the characteristics of MAP. These characteristics include the analysis of different types of transition management actors (state (government), market (business), community, and the third sector) at different levels of their aggregation (sectors, organizational actors, and separate (individual and group) actors). Sectors are considered specific «institutional contexts» or «discursive fields» where organizations or individual actors interact. Sector boundaries are not fixed and are challenged periodically by actors, blurred and changed, creating competition and cooperation between various actors. The author believes that MAP should be considered as a specific type of communication model between government and society during the transition to sustainable development, as it addresses not only the problems of redistribution of power and authority between the participants during the course of transition but also allows us to understand the communication models for managing the transition to sustainable development. The value of MAP in studying the processes of managing the transition to sustainable development is that it reveals not only vertical but also horizontal communication, provides an opportunity to uncover the links of different types of power, identifies the potential of the third sector and the potential of poorly organized communities for transitioning to sustainable development.

The article analyzes the scientific approaches of Dutch scientists to the problems of managing the transition to sustainable development. Based on the analysis of research in the Netherlands, the author concludes on the methodological dominance of the coevolutionary concept and the theory of complex systems. The transition to sustainable development is seen as coevolutionary social change. Coevolution of sustainable development implies the possibility of transforming the processes of coevolution into a more sustainable way of development. The essence of managing the transition to sustainable development is goal-oriented modulation and directed coordination of all actors involved in this process. Transition management is viewed as a particular form of multilevel governance in which state and non-state actors work together to co-produce and coordinate policies in an iterative and coevolutionary way at different levels. The necessary qualities of such management are adaptability, reflexivity, and coherence of actors’ positions. Adaptive transition management involves the social learning of management actors based on problem structuring and strategic experimentation. Transition management combines elements of long-term planning, elements of incremental market approach, and social network interaction management techniques. Distinctive characteristics of such management are heterarchy, three-tiered structure, and distributed administration. Since transition management is aimed at long-term change of functional systems in a gradual way, with the use of variations and their selection, its implementation is possible in a society whose interests are well organized, and there is no authoritarian management. The considered scientific foundations for managing the transition to sustainable development are used in the Netherlands to manage the transition to sustainable energy, sustainable mobility, sustainable agriculture, sustainable water use, and the transition to biodiversity and natural resources. In Russia and Kazakhstan, it is possible to use this approach to select, organize and structure management styles and tools for managing the transition to sustainable development.