Between top-down constraints and polycentricity opportunities: the role of local governance systems in maintaining or overcoming climate lock-in dynamics in Wallonia

Between 2008 and 2023, local energy governance gained importance in Belgium. At the same time, it has been characterised by climate delay discourses, mirroring carbon-intensive lock-ins. Against this backdrop, this article questions whether local governance structures can contribute to overcoming these lock-ins, using municipalities of Wallonia as case studies. First, it identifies two local governance systems: polycentric and top-down. Second, it showcases a typology of climate delay discourses that are present in both governance systems. These discourses uncover behavioural and institutional lock-in dynamics. Third, it analyses whether municipalities with a polycentric governance system create an institutional and political environment that may overcome lock-in dynamics compared to municipalities with a top-down governance system. This article shows that local governance systems play a decisive role in overcoming or maintaining lock-in dynamics, which have so far been analysed only at higher institutional levels. Our findings demonstrate that while polycentric governance does not eliminate lock-ins, it creates institutional conditions that allow local actors and knowledge to counter them. This nuances the view of polycentric governance as inherently superior, suggesting instead that its value lies in enabling context-specific pathways and multiple entry points for action. Overall, municipal structures and the lock-ins they sustain are central to the limits and possibilities of climate transformation. We therefore argue that future research should move beyond policies to examine how governance systems shape climate trajectories.