Public Participation in Environmental Policymaking: A Case Study of the German Energiewende
(2020) SKOM12 20201Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- The climate crisis urges countries around the globe to end their national energy systems’ dependencies on fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The development of renewable energy sources and its increasing physical interventions into the living space of citizens lead to growing public protests that pose a threat to planned energy infrastructure projects. In response to public protests, political decision-makers worldwide utilise public participation processes aiming for efficient and effective environmental policymaking and to prevent citizens’ disenchantment with politics. However, failed attempts of public participation to live up to its expectations have led to disillusionment among scholars and practitioners.
From a... (More) - The climate crisis urges countries around the globe to end their national energy systems’ dependencies on fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The development of renewable energy sources and its increasing physical interventions into the living space of citizens lead to growing public protests that pose a threat to planned energy infrastructure projects. In response to public protests, political decision-makers worldwide utilise public participation processes aiming for efficient and effective environmental policymaking and to prevent citizens’ disenchantment with politics. However, failed attempts of public participation to live up to its expectations have led to disillusionment among scholars and practitioners.
From a strategic communication perspective, and against the theoretical background of legitimacy theory and stakeholder management, this thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of how public participation can obtain legitimacy for environmental policy decisions among the public. To this end, citizen initiative representatives’ expectations and perceptions of public participation in Germany’s energy transition process (Energiewende) are researched, and an approach for how strategic communication principles can be used to improve public participation to obtain legitimacy for environmental policymaking processes and decisions is suggested.
Empirical data was gathered using semi-structured interviews. By applying a social constructionism viewpoint, four mutually dependent, yet distinguishable, expectations of public participation were identified, namely early involvement, access to information, genuine interest, and joint decision-making. The cause for policy decisions’ legitimacy gap was found to be an overall discrepancy between citizen initiative representatives’ expectations and their experience of the public participation process. Representatives perceived participation to be serving an alibi function leading to insufficient citizen involvement, and citizens having little influence on the decision-making process and outcomes. Beyond that, disapproval of public participation implementing actors as well as the provided participation opportunities were identified as additional reasons for the legitimacy gap. The thesis concludes with suggestions on the use of strategic communication to engage in meaningful conversations with citizens to build mutually beneficial relationships and hence obtain legitimacy for environmental policy decisions. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9012902
- author
- Hohlfeld, Christian LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- public participation, legitimacy, strategic communication, stakeholder management, environmental policymaking, energiewende
- language
- English
- id
- 9012902
- date added to LUP
- 2021-02-01 09:15:03
- date last changed
- 2021-02-01 09:15:14
@misc{9012902,
abstract = {{The climate crisis urges countries around the globe to end their national energy systems’ dependencies on fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The development of renewable energy sources and its increasing physical interventions into the living space of citizens lead to growing public protests that pose a threat to planned energy infrastructure projects. In response to public protests, political decision-makers worldwide utilise public participation processes aiming for efficient and effective environmental policymaking and to prevent citizens’ disenchantment with politics. However, failed attempts of public participation to live up to its expectations have led to disillusionment among scholars and practitioners.
From a strategic communication perspective, and against the theoretical background of legitimacy theory and stakeholder management, this thesis aims to contribute to a better understanding of how public participation can obtain legitimacy for environmental policy decisions among the public. To this end, citizen initiative representatives’ expectations and perceptions of public participation in Germany’s energy transition process (Energiewende) are researched, and an approach for how strategic communication principles can be used to improve public participation to obtain legitimacy for environmental policymaking processes and decisions is suggested.
Empirical data was gathered using semi-structured interviews. By applying a social constructionism viewpoint, four mutually dependent, yet distinguishable, expectations of public participation were identified, namely early involvement, access to information, genuine interest, and joint decision-making. The cause for policy decisions’ legitimacy gap was found to be an overall discrepancy between citizen initiative representatives’ expectations and their experience of the public participation process. Representatives perceived participation to be serving an alibi function leading to insufficient citizen involvement, and citizens having little influence on the decision-making process and outcomes. Beyond that, disapproval of public participation implementing actors as well as the provided participation opportunities were identified as additional reasons for the legitimacy gap. The thesis concludes with suggestions on the use of strategic communication to engage in meaningful conversations with citizens to build mutually beneficial relationships and hence obtain legitimacy for environmental policy decisions.}},
author = {{Hohlfeld, Christian}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Public Participation in Environmental Policymaking: A Case Study of the German Energiewende}},
year = {{2020}},
}