What Drives Energy Transitions? Comparing Belief Systems in Denmark, Germany and France

The energy transitions taking place in various countries worldwide do not only result from external events like Fukushima but build on long-term changes. Central to these changes are not only, as often stated, technologies but also and importantly actors. Through their activities and beliefs actors shape transformation processes on multiple levels. But who are the relevant actors and how do they characterise the transition process and its drivers? Looking at actor constellations, how do their beliefs vary in different countries? These are the questions I will address in my presentation in order to analyse the energy transition processes in Denmark, France, and Germany. The three countries all strive to implement ambitious energy transition strategies until 2050 which have been set up before, around and after Fukushima. The origins of these processes however go back to developments in the 1970s. In contrast to widely used transition theories like the multi-level perspective (Geels 2002), I will concentrate on a more actor-centred approach, the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier, Weible 2007). Its focus on advocacy coalitions allows grouping different actors together and to compare them within a country and, much less applied, across countries. Advocacy coalitions can be identified through a common belief system which is based on shared convictions and values. For analytical purposes, these beliefs have to be translated to a subsystem of interest, the politics of energy system transformations in this case, in which the actors come together. Some of the pronounced beliefs are country specific, others can be found in all countries. Some of the beliefs inform about the actor’s core priorities, others allow to identify driving factors for the actors themselves as well as for the transition process. The data used for this study are based on 70 expert interviews I carried through in 2015/6 in Denmark, France and Germany in the areas of politics, economy, science and civil society. I include testimonies from ministries, interest groups, research institutes, NGOs, energy companies and network operators into my analysis. In order to identify different advocacy coalitions, I apply a cluster analysis. However, the different lines of argument used by actors are retraced through qualitative content analysis. My findings confirm the existence of a rather economically oriented and an environmentally oriented coalition in each country. However, members and size of the coalition per country as well as core beliefs vary in distinctive ways. The three countries have in common that the core beliefs of the environmental coalition concerning the energy transition are rather homogeneous (within and across countries) whereas core beliefs of economic coalitions differ more strongly (within and especially across countries). Interestingly drivers are only to a small degree technological but rather political, economical as well as resulting from exogenous events. The findings are visualised through multidimensional scaling.