Multi-Level Governance in Germany’s Energiewende? The Changing Role of the State of Schleswig-Holstein in Wind Electricity Development from the 1980s to 2010
Posted: 1 Jun 2022
Date Written: February 14, 2022
Abstract
This study analyzes how the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein (SH), a politically conservative and economically poor state eager to host nuclear power plants in the 1970s and 1980s, changed its role in Germany’s Energiewende. Integrating more nuanced classifications of “leaders”/”pioneers” in international relations and comparative politics into “entrepreneurs” in theory of policy process, and exploring the relationship between “leaders”/”pioneers”/”entrepreneurs” and “followers”, this study elaborates a more nuanced classification of change agents and actors on whom change agents work out. Based on elaborated classification, the article extensively examines protocols and documents of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, and the SH Landtag. SH was a potential “veto player” (at least one of majority coalitions) in supporting nuclear energy in the 1970s, a “follower” forced by legal power of the federal government in hosting a large-scale windmill experiment project (the GROWIAN) in the 1980s, an “opportunity maximizer” incentivized by economic benefits provided through the Electricity Feed-in Act (StrEG) at the beginning of the 1990s, a “constructive pusher with cognitive power” in proposing a 5% hardship clause in the 1998 StrEG revision, and a “constructive pusher with cognitive power” on repowering in the 2009 Renewable Energy Act revision.
Keywords: energy policy, Germany, change agent, policy change
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