Institutional-Political Scenarios for Anthropocene Society

The Organizational Field

Mainstream institutional theory, as displayed in Table 1, views an organizational field as “a community of organizations that partakes of a common meaning system and whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside the field” (Scott, 1995, p. 56). It may include constituents such as the government, critical exchange partners, sources of funding, professional and trade associations, special interest groups, and the general public—any constituent which imposes a coercive, normative or cognitive influence on the organization (Scott, 1991). Centered around the physical proximity of actors (Warren, 1967), common industry sectors (e.g., SIC codes) or consequential issues (Hoffman, 1999), fields are richly contextualized domains in which collective understandings regarding matters of importance for the field and society emerge.

But a more political reading of fields sees them as relational spaces where multiple and often competing interests engage with other actors who may hold divergent ideas about the nature of the world around them (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011; Wooten & Hoffman, 2008). Therefore, the definition of field membership becomes consequential as it determines who has voice in defining the problems we face and the available suite of solutions that can applied to solve them (Lawrence, 1999). The process of engagement resembles an institutional “war” (White, 1992) within “arenas of power relations” (Brint & Karabel, 1991, p. 355) where actors address criticisms or valuations through negotiated processes of justifications and compromise (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006). As such, an analysis of Anthropocene Society must recognize that there are multiple field constituents that compete in multiple politically inflected fields over the institutions that define what the Anthropocene means for who we are today and who we will become tomorrow (Zietsma & Lawrence, 2010).

Beyond adding a more contested conceptualization of the field, there are two additional limitations to mainstream institutional theory’s conception of the field that must be addressed. One additional limitation is that institutional theory directs all attention to those with “voice” in institutional debates. In other words, it focuses on the elites of society that have the power to project and protect their interests within field level debates by defining the issues and develop the solutions. But the impacts of the Anthropocene will be felt across the social spectrum, with differential impacts on the poor, disenfranchised, and disconnected. Elites of rich countries, for example, will be far more able to adapt to the impacts of climate change than those in the low-lying areas of developing countries (e.g., Bangladesh) or poorer cities (e.g., New Orleans). The bias in institutional theory toward these elites creates a blind spot to considering issues of equity, fairness, and environmental justice in institutional outcomes (Bullard, 2005; Taylor, 2000), one that is compounded with its inability to recognize the interests of future generations (Lovbrand et al., 2015). Institutional theory will only take notice of such groups when they are sufficiently aggrieved and able to amass the requisite power to voice their concerns. But certainly, foresight of such environmentally induced aggrievement is important for understanding the emergence of social instability, social movement mobilization and institutional action.

In addition, the field ignores the “interests” of the natural environment within what is an inherently social construct. Within institutional theory, social actors interpret, assess and represent the interests of the natural environment. “Nature” itself does not have voice. While scientists and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may play a role in articulating the concerns over climate change and other natural environment problems (Hoffman, 2011; Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012), the contested nature of these debates and the willingness of some to discount or outright reject the results of scientific analyses that contradict their worldview leaves the social dimension of Anthropocene Society woefully inadequate. In fact, some speculate that the introduction of nature by giving voice to nonhumans and future generations within the development of institutional orders creates challenges for the orders of worth framework (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006) as it requires which evokes notions of deep ecology (Lafaye & Thévenot, 1993).

Furthermore, the emergence of catastrophic events, such as Hurricane Harvey in Houston, cannot be deemed irrelevant to field level debates, whether social actors articulate their presence or not. Where prior attempts to integrate the natural environment into social analyses (Catton & Dunlap, 1980) had limited success (Hannigan, 2014), the new context of the Anthropocene elevates the natural environment as something that is no longer an “external” constraint or limitation. It is now “internal” to our social structures as humans take charge of ecosystem operation and stability (Nyberg & Wright, 2016). As such, it cannot be ignored in any accurate social modeling.

A second limitation in mainstream institutional is the enduring, underlying view that fields mature, becoming more isomorphic and static (Donaldson, 2001; Westwood & Clegg, 2009). In the work of White (1992), network relations could give rise to structural arrangements that make particular types of fields identifiable and even robust (Padgett & Ansell, 1993; Simmel, 1955). But in Anthropocene Society, the natural environment will intrude on and become part of these fields in fundamental ways, creating an increasingly dynamic nature of a politicized relational field. Periodic, unpredictable events around climate change and the other threshold barriers will increase in frequency and strength. These include more severe storms, rising sea level, droughts, wildfires, species migration and extinction, and the migration of vector-borne diseases. Such events could become triggers for coalescing social constituents into loose networks toward action (Perrow, 1999). But the variability in these events, their slow surge-like nature, and the inability (or unwillingness) of many in society to ascribe these events to the Anthropocene all tend to dampen social mobilization (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011). A fundamental acceptance of the Anthropocene Era would mean the incorporation of notions of shifts, variation, complexity, and the consequent need for adaptation directly into conceptualizations of relational fields and their dynamic structures.

Institutions and Logics

Field level contestation, if stabilized and cohering around a set of beliefs and practices, becomes a form of institution, which in turn provides increased stability and collective meaning to social behavior along three dimensions: the regulative (e.g., regulation), normative (e.g., occupational standards, educational curricula), and cognitive (e.g., taken for granted cultural rules) (Scott, 1995; Zucker, 1988). Taken as a whole, these three “pillars” of an institution form a composite within a given context. If encompassing at the field level, an institution is termed a “logic” (Thornton, 2001). This logic entails considerations for the issues within the field that are perceived as important, the bases of legitimacy and authority for beliefs and the likely strategies, norms, and control mechanisms for guiding action (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 56). Indeed, there are some generic logics that seem to be observable in various broad areas of social life around which collective belief and action tend to cohere. These include our collective conceptions of the nature of the State, the market, corporation, profession, family, and religion (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012).

Similarly, when focusing on orders of worth, Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) have identified six that underpin social structure:

the market (in which “worthy” objects are considered in terms of profit maximization and competition); the industrial (emphasizing science, productivity and instrumental relationships); the domestic (which values attachment, hierarchy and honesty); the civic (emphasizing civic solidarity, the collective and delegation); the inspired (emphasizing charisma, creation and uniqueness) and an order based on fame (reputation, public opinion and success). (Finch, Geiger, & Harkness, 2017, p. 75)

To these six orders, Thévenot, Moody, and Lavaye (2000) have added a seventh “green” order which emphasizes sustainability, the ecosystem and future generations.

Within any specific relational field, two or more specific variants of these logics or orders are likely to coexist or compete as filters for perception and frames for action (Pache & Santos, 2010). As the tensions around this competition increase, these logics or orders can be reconciled through three different types of agreement:

clarification in one—dominating—world only at the expense of the other competing worlds; the local arrangement aimed at a temporary and local agreement around specific decisions; and the compromise aimed at a more durable agreement constructed on the basis of different worlds. The compromise is consolidated by specific constructions (dispositifs) that present a common justification based on different worlds. (Jagd, 2011, p. 347)

As such, our perceptions of the nature of the Anthropocene, its threats, opportunities, realities and illusions will be shaped by the institutions, logics and orders of worth that prevail within a relational field.

In our political reading of institutional theory, every logic within a field also ensconces power relations and solidifies inequalities (Clegg, 2010; Munir, 2015) through which agency, types of control, and methods of contestation are either defined or shaped by the dominant logic(s). For example, if the predominant logic is based around the capitalist market logic or order of worth, it will be anchored on the notion of individual competition in free (mostly unregulated) markets, where “financial risk” and “economic impact” would become the most immediate translations of the natural world into social facts. The pursuit of this self-interest by privileged individual agents (such as corporations, banks, and stock exchanges), even if it leads to inequities in outcomes, will be considered morally just (Friedman, 1970; Rand, 1957). This is linked to Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) notion of “principles of justification,” which are associated with different orders of worth. Yet, these justifications, like claims to legitimacy, are ultimately more instrumental and self-interested in this political reading of institutions. In other words, taking up our prior example, the responsibilities of business, and business managers is viewed to be to themselves and their shareholders, with little to no regard for concerns like social responsibility and collective concern. As such, social structures and institutions would be biased toward the benefit of certain constituencies (e.g., those with financial resources) more than others (Piketty, 2014).

Alternatively, if the predominant logic were structured around a particular religion or order of worth centered on the inspiration or civic worlds, the social facts regarding the Anthropocene would be expressed around scripture, God, and virtues (e.g., love, charity and hope), such as those expressed in religious texts such as the Bible, Torah, or Quran. So, while the market logic may result in clean technology innovations, like electric vehicles, LED lightbulbs or “clean coal” sequestration that direct financial benefits to the developer, the religious logic or inspiration order may highlight the “new paradigms and forms of power derived from technology” and the poor’s lack of “financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters” (Pope Francis, 2015, p. 14). In short, the religious logic highlights that the poor have full voice in their sense of the field, but have no voice in a field dominated by a market logic.

Institutional Change Mechanisms

Change in the field is often precipitated by “cultural anomalies” (Hoffman & Jennings, 2015) which create contradictions within the social environment (Seo & Creed, 2002) and force organizations to reanalyze their surroundings (Kuhn, 1962) and seek to either dominate or compromise toward a durable agreement (or “settlement”) constructed on the basis of multiple orders (Schildt & Perkmann, 2017). These disruptive events can take many specific forms: hostile takeovers (Davis, 1991), regulatory changes (Edelman, 1992), environmental catastrophes (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001), rituals (Anand & Watson, 2004), or terrorism (Bail, 2012) and help push fields into what Kuhn (1962) refers to as “revolutionary science,” a period in which the exploration of alternatives to taken-for-granted assumptions takes place to make sense of the anomalous event (Pride, 1995). While the field and institution-specific dynamics that result from these shocks are less focused, planned and agentic than some suggest (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Thornton et al., 2012), they are cultural challenges which are perceived and acted upon through social filters and resolved through complex political dynamics and conflict.

A challenge within the Anthropocene is that no single event is likely to create complete disruptions of the interlocked, complex institutional orders in society (Perrow, 2010; Stockholm Resilience Center, 2016). Paradoxically, because the Anthropocene is marked by a constellation of disruptions, one response has been to accept these cumulating events as the “new normal.” Therefore, theorizing the ways in which such complex event ecologies can precipitate revolutionary change within Anthropocene Society is needed to expand institutional theory in new and novel directions.

From a more political perspective on institutional processes, institutional entrepreneurs look to periods of flux as opportunities for strategic action in which they seek to solidify their position by either reproducing the status quo or by acting as brokers for new forms of relations (DiMaggio, 1988; Fligstein, 1997; Fligstein & McAdam, 2011; Jennings, Lounsbury, & Sharifian, 2014; Lawrence, 1999). Such actors craft strategic responses and tactics that allow them to shape the discourse, norms and structures that guide organizational action and beliefs (Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004; Oliver, 1991). But these institutional entrepreneurs do not act alone or in isolation. Individual agents form political networks and coalitions to act as “important motors of institution-building, deinstitutionalization, and re-institutionalization in organizational fields” (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003, p. 796). Organizational change agents became parts of these collective movements, using shared and accumulated resources and power to “overcome historical inertia, undermine the entrenched power structures in the field or triumph over alternative projects of change” (Guillen, 2006, p. 43) in opposition to others in similarly configured collective movements (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996; Zald & Useem, 1987).

In Anthropocene Society, it will be particularly important for institutional entrepreneurs to leverage field level instability and shocks through a recognition of the key institutional elements of the event, and the use of evocative messaging or strategic framing (Dutton, Ashford, O’Neill, & Lawrence, 2001) that is delivered by powerful actors to reach critical audiences (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2012; Molotch, 1970). Such framing, however, would need to be coordinated over time and place, and have access to communication channels and powerful change agents to precipitate action (Nyberg & Wright, 2016). Not all actors possess the political power to access such cultural resources. By implication, the work of institutional entrepreneurs must become one of defining Anthropocene events in terms and language that can re-frame and re-direct interests and actors in fields to re-theorize elements of logics. The linkage of actors would need to include not just the educated or allied, but also those who are uneducated and opposed to the mission of change or see little benefit in it (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008).

This brings us back to considerations for environmental justice (Bullard, 2005; Taylor, 2000) that permeate each institutional element of our analysis of Anthropocene Society. As the environment becomes a collective good that is threatened on the global, not just local, levels, one in which damage by one is felt by the entirety of humanity, the maintenance-focused nature of mainstream institutional theory fails to capture the moral and ethical considerations that accompany this new reality. When considering Anthropocene Society, the cool detachment of many institutionalists in their analysis of society must give way to a consideration of whether these fields, and institutions and logics help to create an environment that is inhospitable to human life, particularly in communities without a voice in extant field-level discourse. Some studies have already begun to predict that certain regions of the world (such as Southwest Asia) may be unfit for human habitation within the predictable future (Pal, Elfatih, & Eltahir, 2016; Siam, Elfatih, & Eltahir, 2017). But we rarely hear that concern voiced in mainstream institutional analysis. Perhaps one way to begin a correction is to imagine simple caricatures of Anthropocene Societies toward which we might work collectively or fall into unwittingly.

The Collapsing Systems Scenario

As shown in Table 2, this emerging Anthropocene scenario is marked by increasing complexity and chaos within the institutional environment, which proceeds toward dysfunction and likely collapse in multiple social and environmental domains. Several past collapses have been documented in Diamond (2005) and Kolbert (2014), and some future possible collapses have been alluded to in Perrow (2010) and Wright and Nyberg (2015).

In this scenario, the clarity of social relations breaks down as no one actor or movement emerges that is able to define the problems or solutions that address them. This results in a breakdown of social order that cascades into ecological domains, causing further breakdowns in the ecosystem. These breakdowns begin with isolated collapses, but through linked systems, begin to have greater consequences for more distant parts of the economy, world community and global natural systems. The speed of change increases as does the lack of control. For those who seek a stable social, economic, and environmental future, this is the most dangerous and dystopian of all scenarios. For those who wish to preserve their position within the field and continue behavior and thought as before (at least for the short term), this allows maintenance of the status quo, but only temporarily as collapses in social and environmental systems make the status quo untenable. Yet, conflicted and contested debates continue and confused inertia blocks any action. Such arrangements can be maintained as long as those obstructing agreement or action maintain their political power.

In the Collapsing Systems Scenario, the organizational field is a constellation of multiple fields, each increasingly independent and complex, linking multiple actors in less predictable ways, thereby causing increasing uncertainty (Greenwood, Jennings, & Hinings, 2015). The fields include actors focused on the production and distribution of goods, but also state actors, corporate actors, scientific agencies, religion, and NGOs, along with virtual fields of information. As such, there are key mega-institutions that stand within some fields, such as the United Nations, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund which seek to present a view of the emergent reality based on existing institutional structures, but their voices, most notably those from scientific institutions, are unable to deliver knowledge with certainty or authority (Hulme, 2012) and are blunted by actors offering contrary assessments, such as the fossil fuel and electric utility industries (Oreskes & Conway, 2012) or ideological and libertarian interests. We can see elements of this confused social order in today’s debate over climate change as a “climate change counter movement” seeks to sow doubt about the reality of climate change and challenge the legitimacy and integrity of scientific institutions and analyses (Brulle, 2014). Amplifying this confusion and distorting the debate are social media channels such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter that further destabilize field level discourse by introducing an increasingly diverse range of viewpoints and “facts” of varying legitimacy. Again, we can see elements of this influence today through the labeling of inconvenient truths and uncomfortable realities as “fake news,” the de-legitimizing of expertise by equating it to mere opinions, the decimation of evidence-based reasoning and analyses that are so critical for making thoughtful and objective-as-possible decisions, and the hyper polarization of perspectives and worldviews that have made any kind of meaningful dialogue or debate fruitless, if not impossible. And finally, many impacted constituents will be left out of the debate, causing social protest and disruption of mega-institutional discussion, which further destabilizes the field.

The institutions and logics of the field will not solidify around denial of the Anthropocene. Instead, they become increasingly fragmented and diverse, creating confusion and discord that obstructs the emergence of any institution that can take hold as collectively accepted. The clarity between the center and the periphery of the field becomes harder to decipher, both institutionally and geographically. Institutionally, incumbent power brokers (such as academic and scientific bodies) find their positioning diffused as previously fringe actors find opportunity to move more centrally into fragmented fields, reaching some populations of constituents and excluding others. Geographically, regions of the world become contested as their resources become impacted by Anthropocene events. Those places that are not central to material, virtual, or cultural debates will be disadvantaged and marginalized.

The main disruptive events in the Collapsing Systems Scenario are around systems perceived as key to social life and social order. These include energy, food, and water, which are linked to natural (material) features of the Anthropocene environment. Examples may include the threat of complete water loss in cities like Cape Town, Bogata, and Sao Paulo. These threatened system can also include virtual ones, such as the Internet and access to (and control of) information. Crashes, hacks, bottlenecks, and firewalls are all part of a systems collapse that can cascade into other systems areas. Increasing anarchy of access and attention are also forms of systems failure as the rapid switching of subjects for political, corporate, and community attention become disruptive for planning, budgeting and executing.

Institutional entrepreneurs under Collapsing Systems are abundant, both in number and type. Where 20 years ago, those who started new firms were deemed to be entrepreneurs, in this scenario anyone who creates a material, social, or virtual service is an entrepreneur, particularly if it goes “viral.” Where institutional entrepreneurs are traditionally those who are able to challenge or change current institutions using their entrepreneurial activity (Maguire & Hardy, 2009), our political variant of institutional theory treats entrepreneurs as inherently motivated by self-interest and use politically grounded action, yet embrace new modes of control (most notably, social media). As such, anyone with a significant and influential following on social media embodies a new form of institutional entrepreneur. This may include those with strong presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or through the creation of blogs or other online content. The Drudge Report, for example, was able to supplant major media outlets as a source of information to broad audiences that sought its specific type of content.

Dimensional changes in the Collapsing Systems Scenario can be described only in temporary terms given the highly unpredictable and increasingly chaotic impacts of the various systems interactions. For that reason, this scenario is unstable by definition as the disproportionate impacts of environmental disruption become clearer and field structures shift with the creation and dissolution of movement constituents. Indeed, the great differentials between north and south, polar and equatorial, oceanic and terrestrial, developed and developing will exacerbate field level fragmentation. In general terms, key naturally-linked systems (such as power grids, food supply, and water availability) in different parts of the world will likely fail at an increasing rate, as has been predicted by international agencies such as the IPCC (2017). Various social systems linked via the Web are likely to be disrupted by impinging larger social worlds (variants of Facebook, Snapchat, or other social media influences), further drawing the attention of societal members away from the natural world as they spend time trying to make sense of an overwhelming assault of information from the virtual world.

The Market Rules Scenario

In this scenario, which is probably among the most likely, the institutions and values of economic and business predominate and environmental redress will only be taken for monetary reasons. As a “green” order or logic challenges specific market interests, a compromised outcome will lead to the treatment of the environment as an economic asset, valuable for the resources it provides to humankind, or as an area where cost reduction and limiting externalities are important. Motivations for action would be based on the extent to which they create jobs, increase market activity or satisfy other logics of business strategy. The overarching goal of continuous economic growth would remain sacrosanct with the environment seen as merely an economic input, one levered with innovation and technology, to create growth. Impositions that restrict human development would be limited. Conflict and social contest around the emergence of Market Rules would take place among pro- and antimarket forces. For those who are suspicious of corporate power and particular economic rationales for action, this scenario provokes great apprehension (Munir, 2015; Stiglitz, 2012). For those who want to pursue a solution to the Anthropocene challenge using presently dominant logics, this Scenario will appear to be the most expedient way forward. But, social orders based on market logics are typically of short duration and quite flexible as consumer interests shift and evolve (Thévenot et al., 2000).

At the organizational field level, we would see increased power for multinational corporations in defining the reality of society’s impact on planetary boundaries (Bansal & Clelland, 2004) but only insofar as they impact wealth for the winners in the market domain (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011?). Though we can expect certain environmental NGOs to maintain voice in institutional debates by introducing green values or orders, they will do so in ways that appeal to specific market interests, logics and orders. As such, we will begin to see some cleavage between incumbent firms based on old technologies and new entrants based on new technologies, as can be seen today as the fossil fuel and internal combustion drivetrain sectors face market competition from sectors in renewable energy, electric drivetrains and alternative forms of mobility (which are themselves supported in various ways by environmental actors and NGOs). As such, consumers and market demand would be critical drivers of the direction that this scenario takes. National and transnational trade agreements would also become a critical instrument for normalizing our collective environmental impact based on a continued belief that market success defines society and benefits all. The role of government regulation within Market Rules would lean toward libertarian ideals that hesitate to regulate a market externality because of an overarching view that we, as humans, cannot design a structure that will appropriately take us in the proper direction of human social destiny (Vargish, 1980).

The institutions and logics of Market Rules are a mere expansion of prior institutionalized concepts of corporate environmental concern including pollution control, waste minimization, environmental management, and corporate sustainability (Greenwood et al., 2015; Soderstrom & Weber, 2011; World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987; Young & Dhanda, 2013). An attendant belief is that the market always yield socially positive outcomes (Cox, 2016) and market success would eventually lead to environmental remediation and technologies that reduce our impact on the environment (Simon, 1981) or even create some environmental benefit (King & Lenox, 2001; Porter & van der Linde, 1995). Unfortunately, many metrics of the market agenda, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Return on Investment, and discount rates, do not capture the full scope of environmental impact and act as limited guideposts for solving the problems we face (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Hamilton, 2016).

Disruptive events in Market Rules would not be of an environmental nature, but would be those around which the economy is impacted: market collapses, commodity crashes, price spikes, and firm failures. Some of these collapses would be due to Anthropocene threshold events, such as droughts, storms, floods, and fires, but these events will only be engaged in terms of short term monetary horizons (Slawinski, Pinske, Busch, & Banerjee, 2017). As such, the interests of actors with low or no voice in market oriented fields (such as disadvantaged urban communities and developing countries with limited economic base) will be minimized. Only those voices whose market interests are threatened would enjoy legitimate voice (such as consumers, merchants, and sellers).

The entrepreneurs who would be more influential in defining these events will be those who can articulate their monetary and strategic importance; and in particular, to those segments of society whose financial interests are threatened by Anthropocene impacts or those who can profit from them by serving specific and legitimate markets, such as those providing grass-fed beef (K. Weber, Heinze, & DeSoucey, 2008) or organic wines (Delmas & Grant, 2014) today. Companies providing new climate saving products such as electric cars (e.g., Tesla) and rooftop solar arrays (e.g., Solar City) will enjoy greater success as they know how to use market rules (or manipulate them) to produce these goods and serving those consumers who desire them. As such, Market Rules is a scenario that engages the economic elites to the exclusion of vast segments of the global population. Insurance firms and management consultants, in particular, would help this business framing to emerge, monetizing Anthropocene events as business opportunities or risks (Kim, Kim, & Kim, 2013).

The dimensional changes in this scenario will be a reversed trajectory of some specific aspects of planetary boundaries as measured by economic indicators, for example, GDP). But the broader reversals where no economic, or “business case” is viable will be overlooked. The overall import and urgency of Anthropocene issues on a planetary scale would be diminished as merely the same as problems that corporations have faced in the past (Wright & Nyberg, 2015, 2016). Under Market Rules, the velocity at which society is heading toward systems collapse may diminish, but the direction and inevitability of that collapse will not be averted (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013).

The Cultural Re-Enlightenment Scenario

This scenario is, in many ways, the opposite of Collapsing Systems. In the Re-Enlightenment scenario, the foundational elements of our institutional order are reexamined, compelling change deep within the structures of our collective understanding of the world around us (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013). This would involve a cultural transition of perspective akin to the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011) which was built on a shift from perceiving nature as subsuming the human endeavor, to one in which humankind embarked on the “conquest of nature” (Mirzoeff, 2014). But the Anthropocene Era is an acknowledgment that the scientific method that was essential to the Enlightenment is no longer fully adequate to understand the natural world and our impact upon it. Instead, we would come to recognize that: “The Anthropocene is not a problem for which there can be a solution. Rather, it . . . signals a profound shift in the human relation to the planet that questions the very foundations of these frameworks themselves” (Rowan, 2014, p. 9). The exact form of this variant of Anthropocene Society is more winding, its directions are more difficult to anticipate, and its timescale is much longer than the other three scenarios. But it emphasizes the premise that changes to societal beliefs and practice are necessary for a full adjustment to the Anthropocene era. As such, the Cultural Re-Enlightenment scenario is meant to depict a broader culture shift that represents some sort of multiplicative variant of Market Rules that emerges over a long time period. It does not represent the dominance of environmental values or a green order per se. Rather it represents a broad cultural shift based on compromise for a more durable agreement among all domains of social activity where each conforms and compromises with the interests and logics of the other.

The organizational field of Cultural Re-Enlightenment will include a constellation of actors who are more varied, diverse, and vertically structured than in the other scenarios. There would be a hierarchical arrangement among organizational groups, with science education, ethical action, religion, and community responsibility organizations at the apex (Karlsson, 2013) and economic growth or technocratic engineering being directed by their focus. In some ways, we might expect the operation of state-level institutions and critiques of the market (Piketty, 2014; Sachs, 2008; K. Weber, Davis, & Lounsbury, 2009) to lead to a renewed focus on the consideration of nation-state legitimacy and global integration. Furthermore, we might expect many voices emerging from new and distinct domains that include less prominent voices using means and channels that lie outside the contemporary mainstream. Other presently marginalized groups will similarly enter field level discourse, many using new forums and channels such as the Internet (Howard et al., 2011; Stepanova, 2011).

The institutions and logics of Cultural Re-Enlightenment will be marked by new institutions and social arrangements for coordination (Galaz et al., 2012; Johnson & Morehouse, 2014), predicated on the idea that the market and technology are merely the proximate cause of our dominating influence on the environment. Ultimately it is our social beliefs and values that define their purpose, role, form, and impact (Bazerman & Hoffman, 1999). This path emphasizes that changes in social structures are required to lead to a better human future through better governance (Biermann et al., 2012), values and beliefs (Alcaraz, Sugars, Nicolopoulou, & Tirado, 2016), and a variety of new or amended societal institutions (Hoffman & Jennings, 2015; Hulme, 2009). Over the longer-term, this trajectory of Anthropocene Society will bring contemporary considerations for sustainability into a new orientation, one that requires, not an adjustment of social systems to the limits set by the biosphere, but recognition of the planetary boundaries beyond which social systems should not go but already have, leading to new forms of moral reasoning (Ellis & Trachtenberg, 2013) and “a shared view of human and Earth histories [that] calls for a renewed engagement with ethics” (Schmidt, Brown, & Orr, 2016), most notably within the domains of religious values (Pope Francis, 2015) and personal ethics (Jonas, 1973).

In fact, we may be seeing early signs of the emergence of such changes through documents such as Pope Francis’s (2015) encyclical letter Laudato Si, which seeks to bring ecological considerations into Catholic social teaching. In that document, the pope acknowledged that our “way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us” and that “a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature” is necessary to protect our “common home.” The values projected in this document were subsequently echoed by Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist leaders that offered similar messages in their faith traditions.

Global environmental governance will move toward supporting, coordinating, and regulating “the introduction of novel technologies, management practices, organizational structures and institutional solutions that profoundly change the system in which they arise” (Galaz et al., 2012, p. 84). Possible normative responses would involve a greater awareness and understanding of human and natural systems and the modeling and monitoring of dynamics within and across them (Galaz et al., 2012) such as a move toward carbon neutrality and then toward carbon negativity. More pointedly, Cultural Re-Enlightenment may signal “the limits of the neoliberal market for adequately and sustainably dealing with the major environmental threats we face” (Palsson et al., 2013, p. 9), with more attention to unprecedented levels of global cooperation based on a new sense of global ethics around collective responsibility and social equity.

Disruptive events within the Cultural Re-Enlightenment Scenario will be viewed and interpreted as “cultural anomalies” that will compel action to question taken for granted assumptions about our relation to nature (Hoffman & Jennings, 2011). Events like hurricanes, the breakup of ice sheets, the opening of the Northwest Passage, or California’s multiyear drought will emphasize broad scale systems failures and will compel the mobilization of resources and action over meaning construction. The constituencies that engage in the debate around the definition of these events will be reordered from past configurations that created uncertainty and confusion toward trusted expertise in interpreting their meaning.

The main entrepreneurs for establishing these new Anthropocene institutions and practices will be more localized with social experiments emerging to find new ways of thinking and living that challenge outmoded and historic ways of knowing the world around us. These entrepreneurs would be focused on behavioral education, value appeals and regional policy implementation. They would likely lead to somewhat vociferous social movements, which would vie with those advocating for more individual freedom (e.g., libertarian groups). In the process, capitalism would be transformed and new forms of “market” exchange would be developed that involve broad scale systemic change (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Schnaiberg & Gould, 2000).

Dimensional changes within Cultural Re-Enlightenment would include a shift in the trajectory of our approach to planetary boundaries, which would be addressed at a more foundational level than in the other scenarios, but not in such an immediate, targeted, and rationalized fashion. It is an approach that moves well beyond the goals of the Brundtland Commission definition of sustainable development that continues on the same path of economic development and approaches. Instead it moves toward what Ehrenfeld (2009) refers to as Flourishing,

meaning not only to grow, but to grow well, to prosper, to thrive, to live to the fullest. It is a dynamic word, representing change and striving, not the static sentiment that is projected by the word sustainable, but a constant reaching for what it truly means to be a human being living in an interconnected and complex world. It is a future built not just on technological and material development, but also on cultural, psychological, and spiritual growth.

Interestingly, given the normative and constantly evolving nature of this archetypal Anthropocene future, those experiencing Cultural Re-Enlightenment will continually debate and redefine acceptable planetary boundaries to reflect a less instrumental determination.

The Mix of Scenarios

A first area for theorizing, empirical study, and practitioner consideration is the three scenarios, which anchor our contribution to thinking about Anthropocene Society and need further theoretical formulation and investigation. While derived from extant work and social observation, the scenarios are theoretically diverse. Like logics and orders, each scenario is encompassing of more than one specific field and spills over into other social domains. Yet like social orders, each scenario entails types of beliefs, related social structures, and actions. Furthermore, they are part of a domain that is undertheorized in institutional theory as a generic logic or order: the environment (Jennings & Hoffman, 2017) or green order (Thévenot et al., 2000). So, each scenario may be a unique domain or it may encompass other domains, such as the market, community or religion. If the latter is true, then each scenario itself would appear to rely on a dominant logic, but one that is complemented by others, including one based on environmental values. If the former is true, some key empirical questions for investigation become evident around what type of scenario predominates in today’s Anthropocene Society, and what might we envision for the future. Answering such questions requires the recognition that some scenarios represent archetypes, which are pure forms based on the dominance of one set of logics or orders and the submission of other, less powerful logics or orders. So, any assessment of the present or future requires the recognition that we may have a mix of forms and will be built on a bricolage of prior scenarios and archetypes that constitute, not a single social order, but an interweaving of multiple orders that emerge through political contest (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006).

An examination of their multiple forms in the present would require measuring the different logics and orders using survey data of course measures of the dimensions answered by a large number of respondents in different countries. We would expect large regional and demographic variations in the types of logics and orders held. It would also be intriguing to know whether individuals and groups held more than one logic or order, under what conditions and how (and why) they change over time. An examination of possible futures also requires additional empirical investigation into the evolving structures just discussed. Key elements, such as who has voice and how disruptive events might change that field level structure can guide the imagining of several possible scenarios. Future realities will be sewn together into a partially sensible pattern, moving beyond a high degree of rationalism found in original expressions of institutional theory (Parsons, 1937; M. Weber, 1919/1978), and toward more flexible, paradoxical and bounded rationalities (March & Olsen, 1989). This treatment will also allow for hybrid practices and forms, which 20 years ago would have been considered a flawed outcome of a partially failed institutional process. The tracking of relative levels of confusion and stress associated with various terms and their clusters (Lefsrud, Graves, & Phillips, 2014) will be more important than the tracking of any rational discourse around these themes.

Disruptive Events

A second area for consideration is around disruptive events. In our political variant of institutional theory, disruptive events play a large role at the interface of the field and specific institutions within it. This is even more true where the Anthropocene is concerned, for the events are more frequent and linked in moving constellations. Theoretically, it would be intriguing to explore whether such constellations will continue to be seen as increasingly disruptive events, or more normalized occurrences (e.g., the “new normal”), and hence require more frequency or amplitude to capture attention. In part, this depends on the theory of organizational and individual attention used, for some versions of institutional analysis argue that bounded rationality leads to saturation and sequential attention, while others argue that learning leads to reconfiguration of events so that they can be apprehended (March & Olsen, 1989; Ocasio, 1997).

For instance, climate change is linked to temperature rises, ice melting, sea-level rise, flooding, droughts, and peak storm events. But these weather anomalies are often disputed by segments of society as being the result of normal weather variation and not a human induced shift in the biosphere. So, what will be the perceived constellation? In fact, when it comes to disruptive events, the framing and called-for actions of institutional entrepreneurs are likely to play a particularly large role in how such events work within any particular scenario, for the threats may only be seen once they are framed as problems. So, it may be that the spawning rates of new environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and the diversity of their domains, will become a practical indicator for the direction being taken by Anthropocene Society.

Resistance to Change

A third area for consideration is cultural resistance to change, particularly to those efforts by institutional entrepreneurs. In each scenario, there are those who gain and those who lose political, ideological, or economic status and resources and will therefore be resistant to the emergence of the norms, values, and beliefs of that scenario. In our theoretical framework, we did not specify these sources of resistance explicitly, but noted that every scenario involved interest and agency, and therefore inequities. Theoretically, this becomes a bit problematic, as varying forces of resistance would prevent the move away from any particular scenario and into Cultural Re-Enlightenment, depending on whose interests are served or stressed. We might expect, for example, that general critics, business executives, and scientists would be the source of resistance to improvements in the Collapsing Systems and Market Rules Scenarios respectively as efforts seek the move toward the Cultural Re-Enlightenment scenario. So, there is a theoretical opportunity for specifying how resistance works in each scenario.

Pace of Change

A fourth area for study is temporality or the pace of change. The Anthropocene, as noted in the introduction, is based on conceptualizations that look deep into our past, present, and near future. The Planetary Boundary perspective to which we subscribe uses notions of exponential change and thresholds, which raises the issue of time more dramatically. So, the time scale, temporal knock-on effects, and threshold points of change are all important to specify in future research studies. One difficulty in doing so is that we do not have good global level theory for linked systems like weather, water, and food (Stafford-Smith et al., 2016), making thresholds and peak events only observable post hoc (Kolbert, 2014; Rockström et al., 2009). In the bigger picture, temporality would also require different possible conceptions of time that are more in keeping with each scenario (Lawrence, Hardy, & Phillips, 2002). In each case, temporal scales and modes vary and boundaries are marked by clear milestone indicators. The Collapsing Systems Scenario is inherently based on nonlinear, accelerating thresholds across linked dimensions; whereas the Market Rules Scenario may use temporal scales based on business cycles and, Cultural Re-Enlightenment Scenario may be based on a circular, longwave scale (Bansal & DesJardine, 2014).

Finally, we might expect each scenario to be more or less durable and open to change. Market Rules, for example, may be the most unstable as it rests on economic dominance and will shift with the whims and desires of the market. Collapsing Systems will be maintained as long as disruptive forces and actors hold power and resources to continue obstructing collaboration and compromise. Cultural Re-enlightenment may be the most durable but the most difficult to attain as it rests on compromise among multiple interests and orders of society.