Comparing Electricity Transitions: Diverging Pathways in Germany and the United Kingdom.

The proposed paper tries to combine insights from the recent literature in economic sociology and social theory concerned with explaining change in policy domains or fields (e.g. Fligstein/McAdam), the social science literature on comparative political economy (e.g. Hall/Soskice, Amable), the transition theory approach and will evaluate their competing explanatory strategies. This will be done by analyzing and comparing electricity oriented policies and sectoral changes in Germany and the United Kingdom between app. 1990 and the present. In both countries, the relative contribution of renewable electricity was fairly small in 1990 (1.9% in the UK, 3.6% in Germany). In the next two decades, renewable electricity developed more quickly in Germany, reaching 23.4% of total electricity generation in 2013. In the UK, renewable electricity developed slowly in the 1990s, gained some momentum in the early 2000s, and accelerated after 2010, reaching 14.8% in 2013. Both countries have also developed ambitious future targets for renewable electricity, in the context of explicit energy transition plans. In 2010, the German goverment proposed a new ‘energy concept’, indicating future renewable electricity goals of 35% in 2020, 50% in 2035 and 80% by 2050 (BMWi/BMU, 2010). Following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, these targets became part of the so-called Energiewende, an official energy transision strategy, which also included a complete phase-out of nuclear energy by 2022. In the UK, the 2008 Climate Change Act enshrined in law an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, compared to 1990, and 34 % reduction by 2020. The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan (2009) subsequently articulated delivery targets for different sectors, including 30% renewable electricity by 2020. Nevertheless Germany and the United Kingdom have chosen remarkably different ways to deal with the reorganization of the electricity sector. Both have supported a liberalization of the electricity sector as well as the development of renewable energies. While the UK has chosen the way to pursue sectoral changes in close cooperation between government, public administration and the incumbent industry, the situation in Germany is characterized by a more combative approach violating key interests of the incumbent industry actors, which are in dire straits at the moment. Civil society actors were challenging the established close cooperation between public administration and the incumbent actors from economy and research. This has led within the usually consensus oriented framework of policy making and development to a consistent high level of conflict. Parts of the government and public administration were establishing coalitions with different types of civil society actors leading to constant conflict. The comparative political economy literature (with its traditional institutionalist focus: strategy follows structure) does not seem to be well equipped to explain these different pathways. It seems more promising to turn to newer social theory and their focus on the issue of organizing. By using these more agency and frame oriented approaches the different pathways in the UK and Germany will be examined.