TY - JOUR
T1 - Participative environmental policy integration in the Irish energy sector
AU - Mullally, Gerard
AU - Dunphy, Niall
AU - O'Connor, Paul
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper builds on work of ENTRUST, which received funding under the EU Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation . Grant Agreement No. 657998 . We would like to thank the editors of this special issue and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and feedback.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors
PY - 2018/5
Y1 - 2018/5
N2 - This article explores the implications of participation for Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), through the window of Irish energy policy, employing concepts of ‘energy democracy’ and ‘energy citizenship’. Our analysis of a consultation process on energy policy identifies distinctive narratives, with different idealisations of energy citizens. We distil the implications of consequent, emergent institutional innovations examining imagined citizens, communication, participation and decision-making linked to policy. We adapt and operationalise the analytical framework of discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008), using explanatory factors for EPI (Runhaar et al., 2017). Relocating the specific consultation in the wider process preceding and following its outcomes we examine the degree, and conditions under which participation advances EPI in the sector. We suggest that energy citizenship constructs and processes of energy democratisation remain highly contingent on context. Nevertheless, ‘principled priority’ (Lafferty and Hovden, 2003) though often involving trade-offs in practice, ought not be decoupled from processes of democratisation that may underpin its sustainability.
AB - This article explores the implications of participation for Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), through the window of Irish energy policy, employing concepts of ‘energy democracy’ and ‘energy citizenship’. Our analysis of a consultation process on energy policy identifies distinctive narratives, with different idealisations of energy citizens. We distil the implications of consequent, emergent institutional innovations examining imagined citizens, communication, participation and decision-making linked to policy. We adapt and operationalise the analytical framework of discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008), using explanatory factors for EPI (Runhaar et al., 2017). Relocating the specific consultation in the wider process preceding and following its outcomes we examine the degree, and conditions under which participation advances EPI in the sector. We suggest that energy citizenship constructs and processes of energy democratisation remain highly contingent on context. Nevertheless, ‘principled priority’ (Lafferty and Hovden, 2003) though often involving trade-offs in practice, ought not be decoupled from processes of democratisation that may underpin its sustainability.
KW - EPI
KW - Energy citizenship
KW - Energy democracy
KW - Energy transition
KW - Participative EPI
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U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2018.02.007
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2018.02.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042353759
SN - 1462-9011
VL - 83
SP - 71
EP - 78
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
ER -