Do natural disasters accelerate sustainability transitions? Insights from the Central Italy earthquake

This paper examines whether natural disasters open a policywindow of opportunity for sustainable transition in laggingregions. Bridging disaster studies and the transition managementapproach, the authors define the Post-Disaster Policy Window ofOpportunity (PPWO) concept, as a heuristic tool to assess theacceleration of a sustainable transition generated by a shock. Thepaper applies PPWO to the case study of the Central Italyearthquake (2016) deploying both primary and secondary dataconcerning public policies designed to pursue societal challengesat regional levels. The authors examine (i) the governancescheme, (ii) the objectives, and (iii) the policy implementationstrategy of the transition as agreed in a pre-disaster phase, andwhether they changed during the disaster and in its aftermath.The findings highlight natural disasters per se cannot prompt aradical change to territorial development patterns in laggingregions. However, disasters’ potential to spur sustainabletransitiońs acceleration can be enabled through a place-basedapproach with a coherent vertical and horizontal policycoordination.