156 Participatory Processes
network would be incomplete. In summary, variation is thus significantly reduced
from the beginning.
En passant, this points to the essential differences in scale. The intricate types
of development, characteristic of the modern constellation, will be relatively small
in scale because of the reasons briefly touched upon above, especially in the initial
phase of conceiving, experimenting and innovating.
In a postmodern constellation, on the other hand, the realization of macro-
projects implies almost by definition a large scale. Not for nothing, system innova-
tion has become a catchword. Various other implications arise from this difference
in scale. I refer to two effects here. First, transformation costs will be very much
higher, not only because of differences in scale but also because of the generally
high degree of disconnection from the existing situation. The macroproject does
not build upon the resources, networks, identities and opportunities inherent in
the existing situation (X) as described in Figure 8.5, but represents a rupture.
Second, a ‘democratic issue’ of a completely new order emerges. Realization of
the macroproject leaves little opportunity for discussion and learning, whereas
multiple unfolding provides more room for the insights and choices of the differ-
ent actors themselves. While existing and virtual networks coincide within tradi-
tional constellations (because the future can only be imagined as repetition of the
given) and while modern constellations consist of an undeniable tension, of a care-
fully managed balance between both types of networks, in postmodern constella-
tions one finds the other extreme. Just as, in general terms, the future dominates
the present, in a more specific sense, virtual networks come to dominate the cur-
rent networks and practices. In agriculture, this becomes strikingly clear in the fact
that those who define and materialize the future (the macroproject) are completely
different actors than those who constitute the current relevant networks in and
around agriculture. Alongside these complications, there is another, central, para-
dox. Conceptualizing innovation is no longer difficult. The expert systems are well
up to this job. On the other hand, realization of the imagined innovations (the
intended macroprojects) becomes one of the main, if not the central, problems.
Here capability and incapability emerge again as two, closely related, themes.
Finally, an observation about the often extreme degree of ‘institutional cluster-
ing’ arising in postmodern constellations in and around these virtual networks.
Innovation revolves, in essence, around the recognition, realization and utilization
of new possibilities. New possibilities (that currently do not exist but that could
exist in future) are the pre-eminent resources in the postmodern constellation (one
could say, with some irony, that resources too have become highly virtual). How-
ever, by way of large macroprojects, such as those developed by different expert
systems, this future has already become highly parcelled out by the state. The
future is divided into fields that are considered to be conceivable, realizable and
legitimate and into other fields that are considered to be inconceivable, unrealiza-
ble and illegitimate.
Hence, in the postmodern constellation, the virtual network is highly institu-
tionalized. With respect to various future projects (irrespective of their nature)