Sustainabilizing the government machinery? Exploring sustainability-oriented transformations of internal governance in Swiss cantons

This chapter sheds light on how the organization and working of the government machinery, i.e. its internal governance, are being transformed in a sustainability-oriented manner. Starting from a specific understanding of sustainability-oriented transformations of governance, four different ideal-typical practical governance arrangements found in a study on sustainability governance in six Swiss cantons are analysed with regard to their transformative potentials. On the one hand, the analysis shows that strategy and network-oriented governance arrangements may have the potential for inducing sustainability-oriented governance transformations. Management and problem-oriented sustainability governance arrangements, on the other hand, seemingly lack such potential. On the basis of these tentative results, observations on the possible role of different hierarchical settings for sustainability-oriented transformations are discussed and perspectives for future research are identified.