Social Tipping Dynamics in a German Coal-Phase Out Region

Tipping points exist in both natural and human systems. In the social context, tipping point processes are often associated with major disruptions of political and economic structures such as financial crisis (e.g. in 2008), revolutions or state collapse (e.g. dissolution of the GDR and German reunification). Yet, they can also manifest on regional or local levels, for example when previously dominant industries disappear. In such cases, some regions manage to bounce back and prosper, whereas others enter a downwards spiral: evidently bringing about positive social tipping points is not trivial. These are created and brought about by deliberate measures and purposeful actions from individual or collective public or private actors intervening in a system to facilitate a trajectory towards societal welfare. Often, policy actions seek to trigger such new developments, to transform a region into a new social and economic future; the EUR 40 billion spent by the German government to transform coal-dependent regions during the phase-out of coal are a prime example of this. We however observe that interventions, including very substantial ones, are not always successful, and sometimes the same type of intervention is successful in one time and place but not in another. There is still no systematic knowledge about how the regional tipping points that we can observe ex post are brought about: what interventions are more likely to succeed in what context? In this paper we apply our preliminary social tipping framework to investigate tipping dynamics in the German coal-phase out region Ruhr. We analyse the socio-economic and political trajectories of two cities – Essen and Duisburg – to identify why these neighbor cities, both previously strongly dependent on coal, took very different development paths after the coal mines closed. To do this, we apply a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators and investigate both “hard” economic data (e.g. unemployment, sectoral value creation, etc.) and soft social and political data, including the development visions of the two cities, the development of the communal self-image and “city narrative”. We show that in the two cities have not developed very differently in terms of economic growth and unemployment, but whereas Essen strongly seeks to steer a way into a green and prosperous future, such a powerful, forward-looking narrative is less pronounced in Duisburg. In this, a clearly identifiable narrative tipping point was when Essen was recognised on behalf of the region as the European Capital of Culture in 2010 and won the Green Capital Award in 2017. Beyond the empirical contribution, our work shows that soft factors are important drivers of regional transitions, while it also helps explain how coal-phase out communities can be set onto new, positive trajectories – climate-friendly and still prosperous.