Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
apply to energy policymaking. For example, in Japan, the energy policy
regime is dominated by pro-nuclear advocates who have vested interests in
ighting for the continued support for nuclear power. In the face of these
entrenched interests, fostering change is not easy.
Fortunately, advocacy coalition theory also provides some insight into
how change can be strategically carried out. Work of Paul Sabatier sug-
gests that change can be efected by appealing to the secondary interests
of regime stakeholders in order to cause dominant regimes to fracture and
lose cohesiveness.
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his implies that entrenched conventional energy regimes can be under-
mined by encouraging shifts of allegiance within coalitions that support
incumbent regimes. For example, natural gas-ired power is a peak-load
technology that complements wind power. Accordingly, although natural
gas-ired power plants can be considered to be competitors to wind power
plants, strategically focusing on exploiting the synergies between these
technologies can foster support for wind power from a technological sec-
tor that otherwise would be in opposition. Similarly, some stakeholders
who support coal-ired power do so because of economic justiications. For
some, the coal industry might be a regional employer. Consequently, poli-
cies that are designed to help coal workers transition into the wind power
ield can help attenuate resistance from those employed by the coal sector.
Other stakeholders may harbor a belief that coal-ired power is the cheap-
est source of electricity provision, thereby justifying support. Enhancing
knowledge related to the externalities associated with coal-ired power may
help to mitigate opposition of this type.
he point is that policymakers or wind power advocates that wish to
foster change need to understand that entrenched interests have both
economic and political power to impair progress. Accordingly, strategies
to either appease entrenched interests or alter entrenched positions need
to be considered at the agenda and formulation stages and must be imple-
mented as part of the wind power development strategy.
11.3.4 Evolutionary Mindset
Research on successful wind power markets suggests that policy efective-
ness is predicated on the understanding that wind power difusion is an evo-
lutionary process that features delineable stages that require diferent types
of policy support.
At the inception—the foundation stage—policy must be designed to
establish the structures necessary to support commercial wind power
