Community-based initiatives and the politicization gap in socio-ecological transitions: Lessons from Portugal

Abstract Community-based initiatives (CBIs) are an embodiment and potential catalyst of societal change towards sustainability. In Portugal, they remain a largely untapped resource. This paper examines different nuances of CBIs’ societal change agency by proposing an innovative inquiry framework focused on substance, processes and outcomes via an actor, politics and governance-centered approach. Through an inward- versus outward-looking dialectical reflection on CBIs’ politicization dynamics, we analyze Portugal’s CBI landscape drawing upon previous research, databases and semi-structured interviews. We conclude that a politicization gap and the absence of both socio-political visibility and of favorable institutional and policy frameworks are crucial contextual premises hindering CBIs’ change agency. Notwithstanding, CBI’s transformative potential is undeniable. We find them perfectly positioned to mediate co-shaping processes between social innovators and incumbent institutions, contesting the latter’s unsustainable development logic. If CBIs and governments acknowledge the complementarity of their scope of societal change agency, CBIs’ transformational time may have arrived.