This article offers a comprehensive examination of integrating transition studies and policy studies in the context of energy transitions, highlighting the importance of participatory governance, reflexive policy frameworks, and innovation ecosystems. By combining insights from transition studies, such as niche innovations, multilevel governance, and socio‐technical regime shifts, with policy studies' institutional analysis, the paper provides a holistic framework using Germany's Energiewende as a case study. It explores how participatory governance enhances legitimacy and how reflexive governance adapts to emerging challenges, sustaining long‐term transitions. The Energiewende demonstrates the value of inclusive governance, where stakeholder engagement bolsters both policy legitimacy and social acceptance. This approach also shows that empowering local communities can lead to increased trust and cooperation in implementing policies. By leveraging frameworks that support innovation ecosystems, Germany has been able to integrate renewable technologies into existing infrastructures. Additionally, aligning local initiatives with national policies has proven critical in maintaining momentum in transitions. The integration of transition and policy studies reveals that leveraging multilevel frameworks is essential to accelerate sustainable technologies while ensuring equitable stakeholder participation. Further, adaptive measures in the Energiewende highlight how iterative feedback supports continuous learning and flexibility in transition pathways. This integration underscores the necessity of balancing technological innovation with social equity to ensure a just and sustainable transition. This paper argues that integrating these fields offers a better explanatory framework and practical strategies for overcoming transition obstacles. It concludes with recommendations for future research and policy development, emphasizing inclusivity, adaptability, and innovation in creating sustainable systems.

Community energy is seen as a helping hand for local, decentralized energy transition. Besides the main goal of supporting the community-friendly and socially acceptable development of renewable energies, the hope is also that a pro-environmental influence on sustainability behavior will be triggered when joining a community energy project. An analysis of a survey among 16 community energy projects in Germany, with 565 completed questionnaires, shows that a certain part of the members pays more attention to their energy behavior and develop a more positive attitude towards a decentralized energy transition and citizen participation after joining the community energy project. Therefore, we can empirically support that climate protection projects, such as community energy, influence pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, but this does not apply equally to all population groups. Members with higher income and stronger interest in returns are less likely to change their behavior. Based on these findings, we recommend the development of community energy policies that are more responsive to differences in social structure and address both privileged and underprivileged groups in a sophisticated way using specific offers and modes of involvement within the associations.

Concerns about energy transition and policies to achieve a clean energy Europe are omnipresent in all European discourses. A transformation dynamic has captured all European states, whereby the extent, scope, and direction of this transition vary between different (EU member‑) states and political levels (European, national, federal, local). Likewise, governance dynamics and policies vary between the different European governance and regulatory systems. This Special Issue aims to take stock and discuss approaches in governance and policy research to assess, analyse and evaluate this variance from a theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspective. Of particular interest are recourses to investigate concepts describing and analysing the formation of new policy fields. Within the framework of the Special Issue, the role of specific architectures in which the energy transformation in Europe is embedded (e.g., federalism and multi-level structures, institutional constellations of actors, multi-sector networks, etc.) are analysed to explain the energy transition policies and their transformative properties. Linking the empirical results back to basic research concepts and relating the results to the existing approaches in policy and governance research facilitates a better understanding of the energy transition as a classic and/or new transformation policy.

Background: This article asks the following question: how well are coal regions, affected by phase-out plans, represented in mediating commissions, to what extent do local communities participate in the decision-making process and how are the political negotiations perceived by the communities? We look at the case of the German lignite phase-out from a procedural justice perspective. Informed by literature on sociotechnical decline and procedural justice in energy transitions, we focus first on aspects of representation, participation and recognition within the German Commission on Growth, Structural Change and Employment (“Coal Commission”). Second, we analyze how to exnovate coal in two regions closely tied to the coal- and lignite-based energy history in Germany: Lusatia and the Rhenish Mining District. Results: Based on interview series in both regions, we connect insights from local communities with strategies for structural change and participation programs in the regions. We find significant differences between the two regions, which is primarily an effect of the challenging historical experiences in Lusatia. Participation within existing arrangements is not sufficient to solve these problems; they require a comprehensive strategy for the future of the regions. Conclusions: We conclude that the first phase-out process was a lost opportunity to initiate a community-inclusive sustainable transition process. As the phase-out process is not yet concluded, additional efforts and new strategies are needed to resolve the wicked problem of lignite phase-out.