This is the accepted version of the journal article: Kimmich, Christian; Ehlers, Melf Hinrich; Kellner, Elke; [et al.]. Networks of action situations in social-ecological systems : current approaches and potential futures. 2023. DOI 10.1007/s11625-022-01278-w This version is available at https://ddd.uab.cat/record/271404 under the terms of the license “This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01278-w. Use of this Accepted Version is subject to the publisher’s Accepted Manuscript terms of use https://www.springernature.com/gp/open- research/policies/accepted-manuscript-terms’ Networks of action situations in social–ecological systems: Current approaches, potential futures Christian Kimmich1,2,*, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers3,4, Elke Kellner5,6, Christoph Oberlack7,8, Andreas Thiel9, Sergio Villamayor-Tomas10 1 : Institute for Advanced Studies, Regional Science and Environmental Research Unit, Josefstädter Str. 39, 1080 Vienna, Austria; kimmich@ihs.ac.at 2 : Masaryk University, Department of Environmental Studies, Jostova 10, 60200 Brno, Czechia; kimmich@fss.muni.cz 3 : Agroscope, Socioeconomics Group, Tänikon, 8356 Ettenhausen, Switzerland; melf- hinrich.ehlers@agroscope.admin.ch 4 : ETH Zürich, Agricultural Economics and Policy Group, Sonneggstrasse 33, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland 5 : School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, 777 E. University Dr., Tempe, 85281, Arizona, United States; ekellner@asu.edu 6 : Wyss Academy for Nature, University of Bern, Kochergasse 4, 3011 Bern, Bern, Switzerland 7 : Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, 3012 Bern, Switzerland; christoph.oberlack@unibe.ch 8 : Institute of Geography, Hallerstrasse 12, 3012 Bern, University of Bern, Switzerland 1 9 : International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Governance, University of Kassel, Steinstraße 19, D-37213 Witzenhausen, Germany 10 : Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; sergio.villamayor@uab.cat * : kimmich@ihs.ac.at Abstract “Action situations” – instances of decision-making and agency – have become central to studying social–ecological systems. This Special Feature collects research using the Network of Action Situations (NAS) approach to structure the way these action situations are embedded into broader interdependent instances of decision-making in different policy or discursive realms, spatial and jurisdictional context, or at different institutional levels. In this editorial we summarize the key themes that emerged throughout the collection of the 17 articles included in this Special Feature. The editorial emphasizes the value of NAS in appropriately and sensitively reconstructing relations while pursuing consistency in modes of analysis. It highlights as key themes the complementarity of and disconnects between situations, temporality of NAS, and how NAS can structure the analysis of power in SES. Going further, we suggest expanding on the relational turn, developing NAS archetypes, and studying polycentric governance theories and hypotheses using the NAS approach. Key-words: Situational analysis; Situation-relational networks; Ecology of games; Polycentricity; Social–ecological systems; Networks of action situations 2 1 Introduction Action situations are “the social spaces where individuals interact, exchange goods and services, solve problems, dominate one another, or fight” (Ostrom 2011: 11). Action situations have become an important unit of analysis in the social sciences, such as in actor-centred institutional analysis (Scharpf 1997; Mayntz 2004; Ostrom 2011), actor perspectives in development sociology (Long 2003), transaction-oriented (Commons 1931; Hagedorn 2008; Lejano and Stokols 2013), and process-oriented research (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2010; Weik 2015; Carter et al. 2016). The power of situations in shaping behaviour is also at the core of situationist perspectives in social psychology (Kelley et al. 2003; Rauthmann et al. 2014) and political science (Farr 1985). Changing situations can induce transformative behavioural, institutional, and biophysical change. The structure of an action situation (AS) is shaped by social and biophysical conditions (Ostrom 2011). Any single AS can be influenced by multiple linked situations (McGinnis 2011). Experiences from related situations can be transmitted, for example in spillovers of pro- environmental behaviour (Truelove et al. 2014). Situations can also be physically connected, like in irrigation systems (Pham et al. 2019). Hence, we need to consider the broader network of situations that affect a situation of interest. Such Networks of Action Situations (NAS) are the topic of this Special Feature. Empirical studies show that many sustainability challenges are more constructively tackled if we study the actors’ multiple institutionally or physically connected situations (Kimmich et al. 2022). However, different methods are used to identify and analyze NAS across different sustainability problems in diverse social–ecological systems. To advance research on NAS, this Special Feature aims (1) to document the portfolio of existing situation-centred network research approaches, (2) to consolidate common knowledge and shared understandings of current conceptualizations and methods, and (3) to identify types of ASs in empirical cases that 3 are critical for sustainable development. This editorial summarises the articles in this Special Feature, displays their key contributions, and provides an outlook for future NAS research in sustainability science. 2 Key themes across contributions First, the Special Feature systematically reviews empirical research on NAS until 2021 (Kimmich et al. 2022). Out of 72 articles explicitly dealing with NAS, 23 present empirical research using a NAS approach. The need for a case-sensitive approach is clearly visible in each study, but lack of systematic reporting made it difficult to identify some of the methods used, such as for identifying relevant ASs, boundaries, or links. The review discusses the NAS approach within the broader “ecology of games” literature, including its qualitative and quantitative strands, and provides a checklist for future NAS research. The subsequent contributions extend the NAS approach along three theoretical dimensions. First, the temporality of relations between ASs is critical for understanding governance challenges of co-evolving sustainability problems. Baldwin et al. (2022) study how changes in national forest planning led to a shift from timber production to recreation and ecosystem management and institutionalized public participation in US Forest Service planning. Their comparative case study constructs conceptual maps of historical NAS from archived documents. Delaroche et al. (2022) demonstrate how the intertemporal challenges of governing multiple SESs can be tackled in a NAS approach. They study the spatial and temporal interrelations of managing agricultural expansion, reducing deforestation, and mitigating urban floods in the Brazilian Amazon. Ruseva (this issue, forthcoming) uses the NAS approach diagnostically for understanding interactions among decisions for forest carbon commoditization in a subnational climate mitigation system. She shows how technically 4 complex rules create interdependencies via multiple long-term contracts and how participation costs increase relative to uncertain future payoffs. A second strand focuses on complementarities and disconnects of ASs. Ortiz-Riomalo et al. (2022) analyse social–ecological outcomes of participatory interventions in two watersheds in Peru and Colombia. Disconnects between ASs hindered emergence of collective action in Colombia, whereas the intervention in Peru coordinated actors across linked ASs and collective action emerged. Warbroek et al. (this issue, forthcoming) focus on ASs in the implementation of renewable energy in the Netherlands. They find that intrasectoral institutions produce sector- specific ASs and imply less integrative outcomes, which could be achieved through redesign of rules for integrative ASs spanning across sectors. Kasymov et al. (2022) analyse Mongolian herders’ mobility choice in relation to pasture use and conservation policies. Using game- theoretic models of herding mobility and the political economy of policy implementation, they find that a critical mass of complying herders leads to institutional complementarity across ASs. Kellner (2022) combines the NAS approach with systems thinking to identify leverage points for shifting water–energy–food nexus cases towards sustainability. In transdisciplinary co-production, this approach facilitates joint understanding of system dynamics and envisioned impacts of potential interventions on the NAS and their outcomes. Unnikrishnan et al. (this issue, forthcoming) show that the NAS approach helps to diagnose interdependencies in mid- to large-scale SES. Their analyses of connected lakes in India and wheat-breeding systems in Germany suggest that resource systems operate at different (nested) scales and that ASs account for interdependencies in such SES. Hoffmann and Villamayor-Tomas (2022) review the literature on the effects of technological modernization investments on water use conservation across irrigation associations. Although they find direct linkages between the modernization–investment and water-saving ASs, most of them happen through situations typically associated with the collective management of irrigation systems (like the water 5 application or infrastructure maintenance situations). Cazcarro et al. (this issue forthcoming), explain the relative lacks and challenges for public treatment plants in Aragon, Spain, to cope with peak overloads from the wine industry by pointing to specificities of the waste production situation and deficits in in-house treatment and regulatory enforcement situations, where coordinated investment also points towards a promising solution. Hedlund et al. (2022) address collaborative water governance in the Norrström basin, Sweden, and show how policy actors associated to different problem issues often avoid collaborating when the issues exhibit reinforcing interdependencies due to a perceived sense of infeasibility and how they do not consider counteracting interdependencies (‘trade-offs’) at all when collaborating. A third strand of contributions highlights strategic actors, power, and discourses. Oberhauser et al. (2022) offer a diagnostic of the overexploitation of groundwater resources in Azraq, Easter Jordan, and reveal that a diversity of ASs, including water, agricultural, environmental, energy, and land governance, but also the monarchy’s underlying social contract and the informal concept of wasta, influence outcomes on the ground. Robinson et al. (2022) study institutional arrangements of climate adaptation in small island states. They identify four ASs central to collective action in climate adaptation in each of the studied islands and found that few strategic actors involved in all situations lead to reinforcing arrangements. Partelow and Manlosa (2022) introduce a process-based, relational perspective of commoning to structuralist analysis of NAS. They argue that merging the analysis of commoning and associated power with the analysis of NAS requires epistemic pluralism because power structures human relations in many ways. Hurlbert and Akpan (2022) integrate non-human objects’ agency and discourses in NAS in their analysis of alternatives and futures of electricity production in Saskatchewan. They show how discourses in other provinces, respectively the national government, shape discourses about local non-human actants. Finally, Mendez et. al. (this issue, forthcoming) use the NAS approach together with analysis of power to understand 6 the stalemate of water and wetland governance in the Doñana estuary-delta social–ecological system in Spain. They identify governance, institutional, informational, and power mechanisms that prevent further degradation of the SES and, paradoxically, pose both risks and opportunities for sustainability associated with the implementation of large infrastructural projects. 3 Diverse paths and common grounds The studies in this Special Feature display several methodological approaches, which this section highlights in addition to pointing out unique approaches. Although the contributions are diverse, there is common ground, as the structured account of the articles summarised in Table 1 suggests. The table also helps to quickly identify studies that are of interest to different readers. 7 Table 1: A structured account of all contributions to the Special Feature. Author(s) Issue / Research Method Data Types of ASs Levels of Types of links Identification of ASs and the sector Design ASs between ASs NAS Temporality of relations between ASs Forestry Comparative Qualitative Document Planning Collective, Institutional Inductive: social interactions or multi-site analysis, jurisdictions: constitutiona (with causal influence on case study secondary data e.g., National l outcomes); jurisdictional forest planning, boundaries; governance US Forest functions Service planning, Baldwin et al. Regional forest 2022 planning … Agriculture, Comparative Geospatial Interviews, Governance Operational, Institutional, Inductive: social interactions forestry, or multi-site analysis, ethnography, functions: collective physical, social (with causal influence on water case study qualitative field site visits, appropriation, outcomes); resource systems or document monitoring, uses; jurisdictional boundaries; analysis, survey, rule- making. activities in value chains; Delaroche et secondary data, telecoupling al. 2022 GIS Forestry, Single case Qualitative Interviews, Governance Operational, Social, Inductive: social interactions climate study document functions: e.g., collective institutional (with causal influence on analysis, provision, outcomes); governance process tracing production, and functions financing; verification, registration, and Ruseva, 2022 issuance… Complementarities and disconnects between ASs Water Method or Conceptual Interviews, Stages in Operational, Institutional, Inductive: social interactions model advances secondary participatory collective informational, (with causal influence on development with literature, process: e.g., choice physical, social outcomes) (with empirical transdisciplinary knowledge empirical illustration methods, action generation, Ortiz- illustration) research coordination, Riomalo et al. collective 2022 choice, and 1 connected processes Water, Single case Qualitative Interviews, Mixed: Operational, Institutional Resource systems or uses; energy, study document integration of collective sectors climate analysis water, energy, building, environmental and farming sectors in energy infrastructure Warbroek et planning and al. development Pastoralism Method or Formal Interviews, Governance Collective, Institutional Intended outcome of policy model game- survey functions: e.g., constitutiona design; resource systems or development theoretic leasing and l uses; governance functions (with model certification; Kasymov et empirical building, establishing user al. 2022 illustration) qualitative groups… Water, Single case Conceptual Interviews, field Governance Operational, Informational; Inductive: social interactions energy, study advances site visits, functions: e.g., collective, social (with causal influence on food with document national laws constitutiona outcomes); resource systems or (nexus) empirical analysis, and strategies, l uses illustration transdisciplinary interactions to methods develop water rights; management Kellner, 2022 decisions… Water method or Conceptual Interviews, (n.a., theoretical (n.a., n.a. Inductive: social interactions model advances document paper) theoretical (with causal influence on development with analysis, paper) outcomes) (with empirical secondary data, Unnikrishnan empirical illustration GIS et al. 2022 illustration) Hoffmann Water comparative Network Secondary Management Operational, Institutional, Inductive: social interactions and (irrigation) or multi-site visualization literature functions: e.g., collective informational, (with causal influence on Villamayor- case study , qualitative water allocation, physical outcomes); resource systems or Tomas 2022 cropping, uses; governance functions 2 infrastructure maintenance… Drinking single case Quantitative Interviews, Value chain: Operational, Institutional, Inductive: social interactions water study and document e.g., wine collective informational, (with causal influence on (pollution), qualitative analysis, production, physical outcomes); activities in value agriculture, secondary data upstream chains; governance functions wine treatment industry enforcement, downstream Cazcarro et treatment al. 2022 investments… Water single case Social Interviews, Mixed/policy Operational Institutional, Inductive: social interactions study network survey issues: e.g., physical, social (with causal influence on analysis, Environmental outcomes); intended outcome qualitative monitoring of of policy design non-native species, Maintaining fish connectivity, Protection of Hedlund et al. cultural 2022 heritage… Strategic actors, power, and discourse Ground single case Qualitative Interviews, Mixed: donor Operational, Institutional, Resource systems or uses; water, study secondary group, water collective informational jurisdictional boundaries irrigation, literature governance, energy, energy urban governance, social contract, Oberhauser et science and al. 2022 policy advice… Climate comparative Qualitative Interviews Governance Collective, Institutional, Inductive: social interactions change or multi-site functions: e.g., constitutiona informational (with causal influence on adaptation case study adaptation l outcomes); intended outcome policy making, of policy design; jurisdictional Robinson et adaptation boundaries al. 2022 funding, 3 adaptation research… Tourism, two Qualitative Interviews, Governance Operational, institutional, n.a. aquatic illustrative document functions: e.g., collective functional food single case analysis, field self- production studies site visits, organization, secondary coral reef use, Partelow and literature, waste Manlosa production and 2022 management Energy single case Statistics, Interviews, Mixed: e.g., Operational, Institutional, Resource systems, production study qualitative focus groups, transnational collective informational jurisdictional, and narrative survey, regulatory secondary data spaces, Canadian federal jurisdiction, Hurlbert and media, power Akpan 2022 production… Water, single case Game Document Mixed: e.g., Operational, institutional, Inductive; jurisdictional wetland study theory, analysis, Scientific collective, informational boundaries; resource uses; conservatio qualitative primary and commission, constitutiona activities in value chains n, ports, (analytic secondary knowledge l agriculture narrative sources generation, approach) water planning, Mendez et al. supranational 2022 government 4 Many studies addressed more than one issue or sector, highlighting the relevance for nexus research, while six studies focus on one sector or issue. The NAS approach is used for empirical purposes or to develop a new method or model. Research designs of empirical articles include single, comparative, or multisite case studies. The variety of mostly qualitative and mixed methods mainly generate data from interviews and document analysis, followed by survey and secondary data, clearly displaying the pluralist tradition of situation-centered research (Beckmann and Padmanabhan 2009; Poteete et al. 2010). Two studies also employ game- theoretic models (Kasymov and Ring, 2022; Mendez et al. this issue, forthcoming), and one uses quantitative multilevel network analysis (Hedlund et al. 2022). This conceptual network diversity is also in line with the pluralist approach to the ecology of games that currently exists and has been discussed in the review article in this Special Feature (Kimmich et al. 2022), including qualitative approaches (Dutton et al. 2012), quantitative network analyses (Mewhirter et al. 2018; Berardo and Lubell 2019; Angst et al. 2022), the game-theoretic strand of nested (Distefano and D’Alessandro 2021) and connected games (McGinnis 1986; Khachaturyan and Schoengold 2018; Venkateswaran and Gokhale 2019), and the analytic narrative approach (Bates et al. 2000; Kimmich 2016), among others. Types of ASs and NAS vary considerably across the studies. Types of ASs include governance and management functions, different stages of participatory processes, and many others. The situations mostly address operational choice and collective choice, but five studies also cover constitutional choice. The studies mainly attend to institutional, social, and informational links between ASs, whereas five studies also capture physical links. Most of the studies delineate the boundaries of ASs along the social interactions that influence the outcome of interest. ASs are often identified from use or governance functions for different resource systems such as water or energy systems. Others delineate the boundaries of ASs along 1 jurisdictions or identified ASs along value chains. Three studies identified ASs from a policy’s intended outcomes, but most combined multiple logics to construct boundaries. 4 Implications for sustainability science Boundary specification can become even more challenging when using NAS approaches in transdisciplinary research, as social network analysis in a participatory setting suggests (Prell et al. 2021). More fundamentally, quantitative methods that capture the complex NAS structure are only recently emerging (as discussed in Kimmich et al. 2022). This leads us to at least five contributions that NAS can make to sustainability science. 4.1 NAS in a relational turn A relational, process-oriented perspective to NAS research has been most explicitly proposed by Partelow and Manlosa (2022) in this Special Feature. Their focus on commoning rather than commons helps to explicate manifestations of power and the inseparable relationships of society and nature. This resonates well with the relational turn recently suggested for sustainability science (West et al. 2020). Whereas some NAS research remains substantivist and interactionist, most empirical studies in the review and in this Special Feature expand on the relational turn needed to address current sustainability concerns. Because the NAS approach helps identifying connected ASs it prevents omission of key governance variables impacting ASs (Delaroche et al. 2022). Institutional silos arranged around a particular sustainability problem or established sectors are typically not fit for purpose when multiple sustainability problems need to be addressed (Kellner 2022, Warbroek et al. this issue, forthcoming). Looking at NAS in governing relational resources such as groundwater can uncover adjacent ASs of resource users in and peripheral ASs that are important context (Oberhauser et al. 2022). Principal–agent relationships can extend from one action situation to 2 another, especially when monitoring is critical to governance (Ruseva this issue, forthcoming). Spatially distant biophysical relations of different sustainability problems are a challenge that can be addressed with the explicit study of information flows and telecoupling that connects different ASs (Delaroche et al. 2022). Relating ASs effectively requires integrative institutions and ASs that connect the siloed ASs through reinterpretation of rules and mutual learning (Warbroek et al. this issue, forthcoming). Network analysis can identify ties between actors and ties with issues to suggest reinforcing or contradictory interdependencies of policy issues and respective ASs (Hedlund et al. 2022). Actor–network theory can add to NAS, because it helps to explore relations of both human and non-human objects in mid-range explanations of institutional change in NAS (Hurlbert and Akpan 2022). Also the commoning perspective is centred around unfolding relationships that can take non-human objects and their context into account in process analysis of socio– ecological issues (Partelow and Manlosa 2022). 4.2 Studying power in NAS Making complex NAS transparent can help overcoming power of inside experts and facilitate experimentation and innovations (Ruseva this issue, forthcoming). However, power to influence a social–ecological system can be unevenly distributed in a NAS (Unnikrishnan et al. this issue, forthcoming). A case from Jordan identified an important role of ad-hoc ASs founded on informal rules that sit in permanent NAS and reproduce traditional power relations that challenge sustainability in non-democratic systems (Oberhauser et al. 2022). Likewise, the combination of a NAS approach with a polycentric and discursive view on power can uncover power relations that undermine sustainability-supporting formal arrangements and knowledge (Mendez et al. this issue, forthcoming). The analysis of commoning also suggests that power can be insufficiently attended to, when only devising formal concepts that neglect power (Partelow and Manlosa 2022). Finally, participatory governance of social–ecological systems 3 requires empowerment of stakeholders that depends on how ASs are arranged in a NAS (Ortiz- Riomalo et al. 2022). 4.3 Going beyond panaceas through NAS research The NAS approach invites analysts to look beyond local cases and to identify governance factors that originate from other locations, sectors or environmental issues (Delaroche et al. 2022). Attention to issues and evolving insights into them require evolving NAS and respective flexibility of institutions (Warbroek et al. this issue, forthcoming). However, care is needed that identification of NAS is not guided too much by formal institutions, because informal institutions can be important in explaining governance networks (Oberhauser et al. 2022). Further research is frequently recommended to verify whether NAS-related findings apply in other spatial, topical and social contexts (see, e.g., Hurlbert and Akpan 2022). It is also important not to delimit boundaries of a NAS too strictly, as more distant ASs can significantly impact on a case (Ortiz-Riomalo et al. 2022). While standardised approaches certainly help to diagnose potentially cross-cutting features of cases (Unnikrishnan et al. forthcoming, this issue), they can imply omission of particularities of cases, when not going beyond standardised conceptions, because NAS can vary greatly between cases (Hoffmann and Villamayor-Tomas 2022). Ultimately, solutions to sustainability problems may become even less simple when the NAS approach uncovers the complexities of cases. This suggests caution when extrapolating from individual cases (Cazcarro et al. this issue, forthcoming). 4.4 Towards NAS archetypes The diversity of case-specific terminology, content and numbers of ASs is representative of the current state of the art in this field (Kimmich et al. 2022): ‘knowledge generation’, ‘coordination’ and ‘collective choice’ are the three focal ASs in Ortiz-Riomalo et al. (2022), 4 for example, whereas Kellner (2022) traces how 11 ASs explain coordination gaps between food, water, and energy uses of water resources. Such case-specific NAS often explain specific outcomes, rather than general questions, for example about participation or learning. However, the growing diversity of NAS studies raises the question whether archetypal ASs or situation networks exist, i.e., ASs that arise recurrently in the governance of social–ecological systems. The NAS approach may remain ‘only’ an analytical approach that helps researchers to analyse empirical cases. If, by contrast, archetypal situations and networks exist, then the NAS approach may contribute to the development of middle-range theories over time (Cumming et al. 2020). An archetypal NAS could be the integration of sector-specific governance approaches (Warbroek et al. this issue, forthcoming), for example. There also appears some promise in identifying archetypal NAS even when NAS tend to be different across cases of a similar issue area such as irrigation modernisation (Hoffmann and Villamayor-Tomas 2022). NAS archetype development can also build on experiences with situation archetypes. Rauthmann et al. (2014) recently proposed a situation taxonomy in psychology. Bruns and Kimmich (2021) deductively derived archetypal situations, including coordination, assurance, and social dilemmas, among others, but it remains unclear to what extent such archetypes explain the diversity of empirical situations that involve a multitude of actors, choices, or frames, among others. 4.5 NAS to open the black box of polycentric governance? For decades, using the lens of polycentric governance, institutional analysts have addressed interactions between de facto autonomous but interdependent agents, wondering how such constellations perform in comparison to more centralized, hierarchical or more decentralized, market-based governance (Ostrom et al. 1961). These constellations have been evaluated 5 regarding effectiveness, legitimacy, and transparency. More recently, also system-level criteria were mobilized, such as adaptiveness and resilience. The concept of ASs has been extensively used to evaluate the inner workings of collective action among individual and collective actors (Ostrom 2011). In contrast, the analysis of interactions between ASs, as we observe it in polycentric governance, has been lacking an equally consistent conceptual lens. In this regard, we argue that NAS provides a promising level at which to conceptualize and open the black box, i.e., the inner workings of polycentric governance. Thus far, the literature on polycentric governance particularly emphasizes its structural features, for example within a heterarchy typology (Cumming et al. 2020). In contrast, we argue that NAS can help us to disentangle the structural constellations within polycentric governance and their connections to contextual elements, such as characteristics of the agents and rules that structure polycentric governance. Further, it allows us to track the polycentric processes to their performance, a key gap in the field. The contributions to this Special Feature illustrate their potential to extend research on polycentric governance. We suggest using NAS to consistently operationalize research on polycentric governance. Characterizing a NAS and its context in such a way may help us to unpack and typify the complexity of polycentric governance and to understand the conditioning factors and roles of hierarchical, competitive, or cooperative connections between ASs. 5 Conclusions As illustrated through this editorial and the detailed original research presented in this SF, embedding micro-analytic situational analysis into NAS has triggered fruitful insights into the adjacent and contextual drivers of actors’ interdependent decision-making. In our view, this provides a useful frame also to disentangle questions of relationality, power, and polycentric governance. The approach allows scholars to fruitfully navigate case specificity and 6 convergence on common adjacent and contextual elements and relational aspects that drive processes and outcomes. The identification of archetypes of NAS may eventually help diagnosing settings more systematically and identifying leverage points for changing their course, a key concern in sustainability science (Leventon et al. 2021). The NAS approach could provide a crucial structuring device to such analysis, particularly where it addresses processes constituting ASs at different levels of governance in interrelated situations. Coupling NAS with systems analysis and analysis of feedbacks over longer periods of time seems promising to navigate the situational and dynamic complexity and diversity of social–ecological systems. These and many more aspects of furthering situation-centred analysis of sustainability transformations are highlighted within this Special Feature. Acknowledgements The editors appreciate the authors’ thorough engagements with the topic of this Special Feature. CK acknowledges the Horizon 2020 MSCA-ITN project i-CONN on interdisciplinary connectivity science (Grant no. 859937). EK acknowledges financial support from the Horizon 2020 MSCA-IF-2020 (Grant no. 101027966). CO acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council (Grant no. 949852). SVT acknowledges the Ramon y Cajal Fellowship (RyC-2017-22782) and the ‘María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence’ (CEX2019- 000940-M) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Conflict of interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. 7 References Angst M, Mewhirter J, McLaughlin D, Fischer M (2022) Who Joins a Forum—And Who Does Not?—Evaluating Drivers of Forum Participation in Polycentric Governance Systems. 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