From risk to vulnerability : the role of perceived adaptive capacity for the acceptance of contested infrastructure

Infrastructure projects such as repositories for nuclear waste or hazardous waste sites impose risks (in the form of potential burdens or losses) over extensive timescales. These risks change dynamically over time and so, potentially, does their management. Societies and key actors go through learning processes and subsequently may be better able to deal with related challenges. However, social scientific research on the acceptance of such projects is mainly concerned with (static) risk perception issues and does not include dynamic aspects. Adaptive capacity, which is part of the concept of vulnerability, therefore represents a promising complementing facet for this line of research. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of perceived adaptive capacity for the acceptance of contested long-term infrastructure for the two issues of nuclear and hazardous waste. In an online experimental survey (N = 300) examining either the acceptance of a nuclear waste repository or of a hazardous waste site we demonstrate that i) perceived adaptive capacity can be separated empirically as a psychological construct from risk and benefit perception, and ii) perceived adaptive capacity explains a significant additional share of variance in the acceptance of both waste types beyond risk and benefit perception. Furthermore, we report what adaptation mechanisms of perceived adaptive capacity participants expect to occur in the future. We conclude that such a dynamic perspective yields important insights in understanding individual decision-making regarding long-term infrastructure projects

0830704981

ISSN:2214-629

The precarious consensus on the importance of energy security : contrasting views between Swiss energy users and experts

Consented visions are a driving force for energy policies and projects. But while there used to exist a fairly uniform understanding of energy security, in recent years competing visions have emerged. Examples include autarchic, regional energy systems, and highly integrated, international ones. Each of these follows its own energy security logic. This paper explores linkages between individuals’ understanding of energy security and their preferences for different energy visions, comparing energy users and experts. It draws from two consecutive studies in Switzerland. The first is a series of twelve qualitative interviews among energy system experts, who reveal a strong preference for an integrated energy system that is based on high-quality infrastructure. This stands in contrast to the country’s predominant paradigm of independence, which is not only present in the public discourse but also in national energy policies. The second study is an online survey that finds differences between energy users’ (n=194) and experts’ (n=98) understanding of energy security: Experts tend to see energy security primarily as the absence of supply disruptions, whereas energy users tend to take a long-term perspective, and to include additional aspects in their considerations, such as environmental concerns. Thus, the societal consensus on the importance of energy security is a precarious one: conflicts about the meaning of energy security can strip the concept of its power to be a building block of societal energy visions. Decision-makers in policy and the energy sector therefore need to be aware that a shared understanding of energy security cannot be taken for granted. They should also recognize energy security as a strong argument for promoting renewables. However, it will not suffice to refer to a specific renewable project as “beneficial for energy security” – conveying its benefits from an energy security perspective requires knowledge of key actors’ understandings of this complex concept

Making more of middles: advancing the middle-out perspective in energy system transformation

Social and technological innovations are commonly seen as either being induced from the ‘top-down’ – e.g., by policymakers – or evolving from the ‘bottom-up’ – e.g., by consumers. Instead, a ‘middle-out’ perspective (MOP) focuses on agents of change that are located in the middle, between the top and the bottom. Janda and Parag (2013) and Parag & Janda (2014) describe how middle actors include (but are not limited to) such groups as building professionals, religious congregations, and commercial property owners (Janda & Parag 2013; Parag & Janda 2014). In recent years, these and other authors have further developed the MOP to address providers of housing refurbishment (Janda, Killip & Fawcett 2014), heating engineers (Wade, Hitchings & Shipworth 2016), community-based organizations (Hamilton et al. 2014), facilities managers (Goulden & Spence 2015), social housing providers (Cauvain & Karvonen 2018), and actors involved in energy storage (Devine-Wright et al. 2017). This paper focuses on recent advances in the ‘middleout perspective’. It considers several new middle actor groups, including an energy committee for orthodox Jews in Israel (Parag 2018), code officials in India (Janda & Khosla 2018), formal social groups in Swiss cities (Blumer et al. 2018; Frick et al. 2017), professionals working with housing providers in Sweden (Reindl 2017), local authorities and delivery agents in Scotland (Bush, Wade & Webb 2018), and housing developers in the USA (Agee et al. 2018). These cases demonstrate new applications of the MOP, bring additional theoretical perspectives to bear (such as practice theory) and further develop the use of perspectives already recognized within the MOP (e.g., system of professions). By looking across these, this paper develops the MOP with respect to other work on intermediaries, professionals, and communities of practice. To increase practical use of the MOP, the paper encourages future authors to clarify both the direction and scale of middle-actor impacts

A two-level analysis of public support: Exploring the role of beliefs in opinions about the Swiss energy strategy

Energy system transitions in democracies require that national interests and central planning are reconciled with the public’s preferences. This pilot study investigates public support for the Swiss national energy strategy and two specific technologies that are part of it: expansion of hydropower and deep geothermal energy. It addresses two research questions. First, how does public support for a national energy transition differ from public support for specific technologies endorsed in an energy transition strategy? Second, are there differences in the factors influencing public support for these technologies? We investigate these questions empirically with a survey (N = 640), focusing on understanding the role lay-people’s expectations about the future energy system, political ideology, and future orientation play in generating support for these two levels of public support and for two technologies with different characteristics. We find that while support for an energy transition is well explained by above factors, this is true to a much lesser extent for technology support. One conclusion is that support for an energy transition and for energy technologies is politicized to varying degrees, which is why their acceptability may be less shaped by their objective characteristics, but rather by subjective perceptions and beliefs the public holds towards them