This paper aims to examine how and to what extent, a transition of Sweden according to the principles of Omställning Sverige (Transition towns Sweden), have the potential to contribute to a society with increased happiness. The paper is based on a qualitative textual analysis of the key texts in the Swedish Transition towns movement, Omställning Sverige. In the first part of the study the most important transition principles of Omställning Sverige were identified. Four key principles emerged: An altered view of economics, a spiritual change, a stronger local community and increased awareness. These transition principles were then analyzed through the lens of the scientific fields position on happiness, followed by a summarizing conclusion. The altered view of economics which Omställning Sverige advocates, where sustainability and quality of life are priorities over economic growth, is even necessary to secure our basic physiological needs. Such an economy has also improved conditions for economic stability, high employment and higher efficiency in the sense of happiness promoted in relationship to how many natural resources are used. The form of spiritual change that is highlighted represents a shift from a materialistic consumer culture towards a greater focus on altruism, fellowship and a stronger relationship with nature. Also this principle has the potential to promote human well-being because we feel good through empathetic behavior, strong social relationships, identifying with a larger natural world and because a consumer culture contributes to severe mental and social stress in the struggle for social status. Here, however, a deficiency in the Transition towns movement's message emerges. Omställning Sverige lacks a clear commitment to equality within society, which reduces the probability for the advocated mental shift to occur. The third transition principle, a stronger local community, also has the potential to make us happier because it promotes social cohesion and provides a secure foundation in life. However, there is no clear correlation between increased awareness of societal threats and happiness. Along with the increased awareness Omställning Sverige also advocates for a positive vision of the future, active citizenship and a belief in change. Such an approach has the potential to promote our happiness slightly. A positive vision for the future is also the best approach to promote active engagement to counter societal threats. In all the four aspects from which Omställning Sverige were analyzed, the advocated change has the potential to provide a happier society than if current policies were maintained. The main conclusion is therefore that an implementation of the Swedish Transition town movement's principles to a very high extent have the potential to contribute to a happier society. A recomendation to increase the emphasis on equality within the society is at the same time sent out to the transition towns  movement.

This thesis innovates on existing literature on the Transition movement by relinquishing stock academic definitions of its ends and means, which purportedly spell out what Transition 'is'. In its stead, it approaches Transition as phenomenon, namely as an evolving socio-material formation that proliferates a cultural repertoire to sustain a growing range of concerted everyday activities. This is the difference between an instrumental focus, whereby Transition is reduced to a strategy which is oriented towards an unchanging programmatic definition, and an orientational one; the latter attuned to the contingent process by which a movement expresses form and orientation in emergent fashion. The monograph and the introductory chapter contribute to this task in different ways. Everything Gardens and Other Stories undertakes a rich description of various practical realms of Transition and, to capture the coming into being of a phenomenon, it pays particular attention to its developmental trajectory. This entails focusing on the generative movement of the culture of Transition, as it emerges from the attempt to address embodied disquiets originally elicited by information about peak oil and climate change. That initial focus, however, forms merely a station along a path in which new sources of anxiety find validation and prompt further cultural production. The monograph also describes the tensions arising in the process, as a growing body of discursive and material resources have to negotiate an accommodation, in order to become reciprocally recognisable as participant parts enfolded in a common cultural milieu. The introductory chapter supports this account by fleshing out a methodological paradigm that helps direct attention to the unfolding of a socio-material phenomenon in its dilemmatic moments and continual negotiations. For this purpose, starting from canonical sources in phenomenology, it goes on to situate the 'unfolding' of a phenomenon in the proliferation of entanglements between actors, human and nonhuman. In the 'mattering' of a phenomenon so understood, dilemmatic moments call forth an ethical questioning and an ontological politics immanent to the very process of cultural production. This, it is submitted, is precisely how an orientational focus allows to access Transition as phenomenon, beyond the bounds of academic definitions.

This dissertation examines the question of how communities understand their risk related to global economic and environmental problems and how communities respond to those risks. Specifically, using comparative case study, this dissertation examines the sustainability efforts of two communities, Oberlin, Ohio and Berea, Kentucky. Both communities have created advanced sustainability efforts over more than a decade of work and both communities have well-developed partnerships with the colleges in their communities. It finds that communities are responding to both global risks related to climate change and energy price volatility, but also are making efforts to resolve more localized social problems and economic challenges. This research also demonstrates that communities are particularly interested in increasing their community resilience related to local energy and food production, but also have concerns with addressing the persistent inequalities that exist in their communities.

The Transition movement is a grassroots movement working to build community resilience in response to the challenges of climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and economic insecurity. Rather than focusing on the state as a site for contestation or change, the movement adopts a "do it ourselves" approach, prioritizing autonomy and prefigurative action. It also places importance on relationships and community in the context of local places. It is open-ended and characterized by an ethos of experimentation and learning. Transition shares these place-based and prefigurative features in common with many other contemporary movements, from the Zapatistas to alternative globalization movements, to popular movements in Latin America, to most recently the Occupy movement. Though often not seen as "political" by conventional definitions that understand social movements in relation to the state, I argue that Transition's choice of practical, place-based forms and commitments is an ethical-political one, based on the state's failure to meet crises of our times, and it has political effects. In exploring the movement in its own terms, this ethnographic study of the Transition movement in the northeast US demonstrates the ways in which activists are locating power and possibility in the local and the everyday. Operating in the terrain of culture and knowledge production, the Transition movement is engaged in an effort to shift subjectivities and social relations, and to resignify power, security, economy, and democracy. Paying attention to the Transition movement's specifically place-based, prefigurative features provides a better understanding of the potential of this approach and its political significance. It also sheds light on tensions, which in the US context include challenges in addressing racism, inequality, and the neoliberal state.

Au cours des années 2000, deux mobilisations parallèles ont contribué à renouveler le paysage de l’écologie politique : la décroissance en France, et les Transition Towns au Royaume-Uni. Nous proposons une approche comparative internationale de ces deux mouvements, d’abord distincts, mais qui se sont progressivement imbriqués à mesure qu’ils s’internationalisaient. Nous nous intéresserons particulièrement à la dimension catastrophiste de ces deux mouvements, entendue comme un mode de pensée politique fondé sur l’anticipation de ruptures écologiques majeures (pic pétrolier, mais aussi réchauffement climatique ou effondrement écosystémique) qui mettraient fin à la version moderne du projet démocratique. Loin de n’être qu’une posture intellectuelle, le catastrophisme s’incarne dans ces mouvements en des pratiques délibératives expérimentales qui invitent à questionner la temporalité continuiste dans laquelle se conçoit généralement la théorie démocratique.L’étude de ces deux mobilisations vise à nourrir une réflexion d’ordre plus théorique sur les outils dont dispose la science politique pour penser l’insertion des communautés politiques dans leur environnement. En nous appuyant sur les travaux pionniers de la green political theory, nous montrerons qu’une théorie politique environnementale pourrait contribuer à interroger la théorie démocratique en invitant à la réinsérer dans un contexte de déstabilisation écologique globale. / During the 2000’s decade, two social movements, the décroissance movement in France and Transition Towns in the United- Kingdom, have contributed, both in parallel, to a renewal of the green political landscape. This thesis is an international comparative analysis of these two movements, which were first distinct, then progressively overlapped as they evolved to become international. This research will focus in particular on the catastrophist dimension of these two movements, understood as a form of political thought based on the anticipation of major ecological shifts (peak oil, climatechange, ecosystems collapse, etc.) that would put an end to the modern version of the democratic project. Far from being an intellectual framework only, catastrophism also gives rise to experimental deliberative practices that put into question the hypothesis of continuity that generally pervades theories of democracy.The analysis of these two movements aims at proposing new material to provide for a theoretical reflection on the intellectual tools that political science uses to investigate the ecological embeddedness of political communities. Dwelling on the pioneer work of green political theory, we will suggest that a théorie politique environnementale could contribute to reconsider theories of democracy, with an invitation for them to fit within the framework of the global ecological disruption.