Journal
ENERGY RESEARCH & SOCIAL SCIENCE
Volume 33, Issue -, Pages 147-162Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.005
Keywords
Incumbency; Politics; Energy policy; Socio-technical
Categories
Funding
- ESRC [RES-588-28-0001]
- RCUK Energy Program [EP/K011790/1]
- Smart Energy Transitions (Academy of Finland) [293405]
- EPSRC [EP/K011790/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- ESRC [ES/K006371/1, ES/I021620/1, ES/L01632X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/K006371/1, ES/I021620/1, ES/L01632X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EP/K011790/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Academy of Finland (AKA) [293405, 293405] Funding Source: Academy of Finland (AKA)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The notion of a 'policy mix' can describe interactions across a wide range of innovation policies, including 'motors for creation' as well as for 'destruction'. This paper focuses on the United Kingdom's (UK) new policy direction' that has weakened support for renewables and energy efficiency schemes while strengthening promotion of nuclear power and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas ('fracking'). The paper argues that a 'policy apparatus for incumbency' is emerging which strengthens key regime-based technologies while arguably damaging emerging niche innovations. Basing the discussion around the three technology-based cases of renewable energy and efficiency, fracking, and nuclear power, this paper refers to this process as destructive recreation. Our study raises questions over the extent to which policymaking in the energy field is not so much driven by stated aims around sustainability transitions, as by other policy drivers. It investigates different 'strategies of incumbency' including 'securitization', 'masking', 'reinvention', and 'capture.' It suggests that analytical frameworks should extend beyond the particular sectors in focus, with notions of what counts as a relevant 'policy maker' correspondingly also expanded, in order to explore a wider range of nodes and critical junctures as entry points for understanding how relations of incumbency are forged and reproduced.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available