Regime Shift - History of The Concept

History of The Concept

Scholars have been interested in systems exhibiting non-linear change for a long time. Since the early 20th century, mathematicians have developed a body of concepts and theory for the study of such phenomena based on the study of non-linear system dynamics. This research lead to the development of concepts such as catastrophe theory; a branch of bifurcation theory in dynamical systems.

In ecology the idea of systems with multiple regimes, domains of attraction or called alternative stable states, only arose in the late 60’s based upon the first reflections on the meaning of stability in ecosystems by Richard Lewontin and Crawford “Buzz” Holling. The first work on regime shifts in ecosystems was done in a diversity of ecosystems and included important work by Noy-Meir (1975) in grazing systems, May (1977) in grazing systems, harvesting systems, insect pests and host-parasitoid systems; Jones and Walters (1976) with fisheries systems; and Ludwig et al. (1978) with insects outbreaks.

These early efforts to understand regime shifts were criticized for the difficulty of demonstrating bi-stability, their reliance on simulation models, and lack of high quality long-term data. However, by the 1990s more substantial evidence of regime shifts was collected for kelp forest, coral reefs, drylands and shallow lakes. This work lead to revitalization of research on ecological reorganization and the conceptual clarification that resulted in the regime shift conceptual framework in the early 2000s.

Outside of ecology, similar concepts of non-linear change have been developed in other academic disciplines. One example is historical institutionalism in political science, sociology and economics; where concepts like path dependency and critical junctures are used to explain phenomena where the output of a system is determined by its history, or the initial conditions; and where its domains of attraction are reinforced by feedbacks. Concept such as international institutional regimes, socio-technical transitions and increasing returns have similar epistemological basis as regime shifts, and utilize similar mathematical models.