Democracy Problems of Energy Transitions: Technocracy, Participatory Governance, and Populist Response

The effects of the "rise of populism" on energy and climate policy in general and energy system transformation in particular are increasingly being discussed (Fraune/Knodt 2018). Especially right-wing populist parties and politicians seem to adopt climate change skepticism for their policy platform (Lockwood 2018). In addition, populist discourses on elitist policy making offer points of contact for disaffected citizens as well as opportunities for civic protests against renewable energy projects – and vice versa (Reusswig 2016). This linkage is not surprising, since the energy system transition is a momentous long-term project. Although supported by a substantial part of the elites, it is fraught with major uncertainties and its effects on concerned citizens are significant, sometimes even radical. Therefore, it seems appropriate to place the topic in a broader, democratic theory founded context. By taking up the “Political Society” approach of German political theorist Michael Th. Greven (1999), we argue that current conflicts about the energy transformation express fundamental challenges to democracy. They can be traced back to: 1) an ongoing politicization of society; 2) an increasing differentiation of political decision-making; and 3) a growing cognition-asymmetry between citizens, experts, and elites in different policy areas. After a brief presentation of these challenges to democracy, we want to show why and how they affect the energy system transition (1). Subsequently, we argue that technocracy, participatory governance, and populism are three perspectives of dealing with these challenges (2). We consider populism less an independent political program or activist ideology but rather as a reaction to the factual problems triggered by the other two perspectives (3). However, populism in political action is always related to specific milieus and context-relative constellations; by using Germany, Austria, and Denmark as examples, we demonstrate that populists' concrete approaches to energy transformation issues depend on national political contexts (4).