Josef Philipp Trein, Phd, currently works as an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Policy, University of Lausanne. He is a Senior Fellow of IES (Institute of European Studies), University of California, Berkeley and one of the leading experts that RECODE MLG project brings together. His previous research examines why governments integrated and coordinate different sectorial policies. Furthermore, his work analyzes the politicization of new technologies in the policy process. In the RECODE MLG project he oversees Work Package 2 (WP2-Conceptual development), one of the eight work packages that focus on the project`s key objectives.
Could you briefly describe your role in the project and how your background in political science informs your contribution in RECODE-MLG project?
JPT: I am leading WP2 of the project, which focuses on theorizing co-creation in multilevel governance, together with my colleagues Marjan Marjanovic, Sean Müller, and Yannis Papadopoulos. My background is in political science with a focus on comparative public administration and policy.
The project brings together an interdisciplinary consortium. How do you see political science interacting with other disciplines when it comes to understanding and navigating the twin transition?
JPT: Political science helps link technological and environmental insights to questions of legitimacy, coordination, and democratic accountability.
The concept of the “twin transition”, digital and environmental, is widely embraced in EU policy discourse. From a social science perspective, what are some of the tensions or blind spots in this framing?
JPT: The framing often underestimates political conflict, distributional effects, and the administrative capacities needed to implement both transitions simultaneously. Politicians, including those at the EU level, tend to frame these policy goals very ambitiously. At the same time, existing rules, interests and fiscal constraints make it difficult to implement this transition through public policies. Furthermore, the transition always requires collaboration between state and non-state actors, which is what we study in this project.
You study the politicization of e‑government, AI, and algorithmic governance. How do you see the twin transition (digital + environmental) creating novel interactions or tensions between these domains? For instance: Can digital governance tools facilitate environmental transitions, or might they amplify governance complexity?
JPT: Digital tools can support environmental goals, but they also introduce new layers of complexity, politicization, and potential power asymmetries. Furthermore, digital tools cost money and need energy. Upgrading the digital infrastructure takes time and might need additional energy that weighs on the environment. Such trade-offs are sometimes neglected.
Multilevel governance can be a buzzword in EU circles. What does it really mean in practice, especially when it comes to democratic accountability and inclusiveness? What challenges arise when trying to align governance efforts across local, national, and EU levels, especially when these actors may have different priorities or capacities?
JPT: In practice, multilevel governance means that decisions are distributed across local, national, and EU levels, each with its own priorities and institutional logic. This creates persistent coordination challenges, especially when responsibilities overlap but capacities differ. Ensuring democratic accountability requires mechanisms that make these interactions transparent and allow citizens to meaningfully influence decisions made beyond their immediate political arena.
Co-creation is often promoted as a participatory solution, but it can also mask deeper structural power imbalances. How is the project critically engaging with the promises and limitations of co-creation? In your view, what conditions need to be in place for co-creation to be more than a symbolic gesture?
JPT: Co-creation can broaden participation, but it often risks reproducing existing power asymmetries if better-resourced actors dominate discussions and participation does not influence results. In our project, we are analyzing these dynamics critically to understand when co-creation actually shifts influence and when it merely legitimizes pre-decided strategies. Genuine co-creation requires clear rules, balanced representation, and a commitment to integrating participants’ input into real decisions.
Your work on policy innovation labs highlights both the promise and risks of co-creation (e.g. dominance by better-resourced actors or superficial inclusion). In your view, what are the most critical design features needed to make co-creation meaningfully democratic, especially in multilevel settings
JPT: There needs to be a realistic view on what co-creation can achieve and not achieve. Authorities, which use co-creation to increase citizen participation need to be sure that they can implement the result in a way that (most) participants feel they were heard. Otherwise, co-creation may have an opposite effect. Rather than contributing to innovation, it may de-legitimate the government and reduce trust in authorities.
In your paper “Why policy failure is a prerequisite for innovation”, you explore how failures in existing systems can open space for novel ideas. Given that, how should countries seeking twin transition resilience treat “failure” or “non-compliance”, as danger or opportunity? How do you decide when to “let a failure happen” to open space for innovation?
JPT: The paper does not argue that politicians should avoid reforms or passively wait for policies to fail. Rather, it highlights that the structure of democratic processes, the complexity of many policy problems, and human cognitive biases make a certain degree of failure likely before meaningful improvement occurs. This dynamic is especially pronounced in issues like climate change, where the necessary measures must be taken long before their benefits become visible. And it is precisely in this context that co-creation becomes essential.
Over the lifetime of our project, what are the key hypotheses or “danger zones” you’d propose we test (or flag) in empirical work? What would you like our project to push forward in terms of theory or policy-relevant insight?
JPT: We should pay particular attention to where digital and environmental objectives conflict—for example, when digitization increases energy demand or administrative complexity. Another danger zone concerns uneven capacities: some jurisdictions may innovate while others struggle to keep pace, creating fragmentation. The twin transition might unfold in very different ways and paces throughout the EU.
Based on your initial findings, what insights or questions do you think policymakers should be paying more attention to? What do you hope will be the long-term scientific contribution of this project, especially in terms of rethinking governance in the context of rapid digital and environmental change?
JPT: Policymakers should avoid using participatory instruments as window dressing exercises. Also, in some contexts co-creation might not be advisable, especially if it increases existing problems and cleavages. Our goal is to find out under which conditions co-creation can really contribute to digital and sustainable transformations.
