IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i21p7401-d673345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the Political Discursive Lock-Ins on Sustainable Aviation in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Aneta Kulanovic

    (Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden)

  • Johan Nordensvärd

    (Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden)

Abstract

This article analyses the political discourse about governing the future of the aviation industry in Sweden and how a polarized and entrenched discursive path dependency around aviation makes it difficult to invest into aviation’s possible futures as a sustainable transport. We find three different politically merged frames in the political discussion about governing the road to sustainable aviation: (1) Neoliberal sustainable aviation, (2) Green Keynesian sustainable aviation and (3) National environmentalists’ aviation. We can see a discrepancy between two merged frames that believe sustainable aviation will be possible with more or less government support and steering (Neoliberal sustainable aviation and Green Keynesian sustainable aviation) whereas the third merged frame (National environmentalists’ aviation) argues that aviation is bound to be environmentally inferior to trains and, therefore, all focus should go to the later. We can see that there is not just a path dependency in the merged frame of National environmentalists’ aviation that discounts the possibility that both the role of aviation or its sustainability can change as the technology changes. There is here a static perceived view of technology as being forever clean or dirty. Another path dependency is the linkage of aviation transport with particular political parties where the green party, for instance, oppose aviation while the conservative party wants to support aviation and innovation in aviation. This polarization is actually the largest and most important aspect of the discursive lock-in as this undermines any compromises or large-scale future investments in sustainable aviation.

Suggested Citation

  • Aneta Kulanovic & Johan Nordensvärd, 2021. "Exploring the Political Discursive Lock-Ins on Sustainable Aviation in Sweden," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-16, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:7401-:d:673345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7401/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7401/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Unruh, Gregory C., 2002. "Escaping carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 317-325, March.
    2. Frauke Urban & Johan Nordensvärd, 2018. "Low Carbon Energy Transitions in the Nordic Countries: Evidence from the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Andreas W. Schäfer & Steven R. H. Barrett & Khan Doyme & Lynnette M. Dray & Albert R. Gnadt & Rod Self & Aidan O’Sullivan & Athanasios P. Synodinos & Antonio J. Torija, 2019. "Technological, economic and environmental prospects of all-electric aircraft," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 4(2), pages 160-166, February.
    4. Sven Maertens & Wolfgang Grimme & Janina Scheelhaase & Martin Jung, 2019. "Options to Continue the EU ETS for Aviation in a CORSIA-World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-19, October.
    5. Lisa Jacobson & Jonas Åkerman & Matteo Giusti & Avit K. Bhowmik, 2020. "Tipping to Staying on the Ground: Internalized Knowledge of Climate Change Crucial for Transformed Air Travel Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-18, March.
    6. Bryngemark, Elina, 2019. "Second generation biofuels and the competition for forest raw materials: A partial equilibrium analysis of Sweden," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    7. Unruh, Gregory C., 2000. "Understanding carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 817-830, October.
    8. Scheelhaase, Janina & Maertens, Sven & Grimme, Wolfgang & Jung, Martin, 2018. "EU ETS versus CORSIA – A critical assessment of two approaches to limit air transport's CO2 emissions by market-based measures," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 55-62.
    9. Jonas Sonnenschein & Nora Smedby, 2019. "Designing air ticket taxes for climate change mitigation: insights from a Swedish valuation study," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 651-663, May.
    10. Anna Durnová & Philippe Zittoun, 2011. "Interpretive policy analysis in a French setting. The Fifth Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference, Grenoble, June 2010," Post-Print halshs-01021612, HAL.
    11. Sudhir Rama Murthy & Monto Mani, 2013. "Discerning Rejection of Technology," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(2), pages 21582440134, April.
    12. Jennifer Clapp & Peter Dauvergne, 2005. "Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262532719, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arturs Kokars, 2023. "Strategic Development of Aviation in Latvia ," GATR Journals jber240, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lai, Y.Y. & Christley, E. & Kulanovic, A. & Teng, C.C. & Björklund, A. & Nordensvärd, J. & Karakaya, E. & Urban, F., 2022. "Analysing the opportunities and challenges for mitigating the climate impact of aviation: A narrative review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. Foxon, T. J. & Gross, R. & Chase, A. & Howes, J. & Arnall, A. & Anderson, D., 2005. "UK innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies: drivers, barriers and systems failures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(16), pages 2123-2137, November.
    3. Francesco Lamperti & Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Alessandro Sapio, 2018. "And then he wasn't a she : Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Working Papers hal-03443464, HAL.
    4. Curci, Ylenia & Mongeau Ospina, Christian A., 2016. "Investigating biofuels through network analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 60-72.
    5. Ahmed Eid & May Salah & Mahmoud Barakat & Matevz Obrecht, 2022. "Airport Sustainability Awareness: A Theoretical Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, September.
    6. Valeria Costantini & Francesco Crespi, 2013. "Public policies for a sustainable energy sector: regulation, diversity and fostering of innovation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 401-429, April.
    7. Aalbers, Rob & Shestalova, Victoria & Kocsis, Viktória, 2013. "Innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1240-1250.
    8. Peura, Pekka, 2013. "From Malthus to sustainable energy—Theoretical orientations to reforming the energy sector," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 309-327.
    9. Nill, Jan & Kemp, Ren, 2009. "Evolutionary approaches for sustainable innovation policies: From niche to paradigm?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 668-680, May.
    10. Antoine Fontaine & Laurence Rocher, 2024. "Cities looking for waste heat: The dilemmas of energy and industry nexuses in French metropolitan areas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(2), pages 254-272, February.
    11. Wüstenhagen, Rolf & Menichetti, Emanuela, 2012. "Strategic choices for renewable energy investment: Conceptual framework and opportunities for further research," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-10.
    12. Salm, Sarah & Hille, Stefanie Lena & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2016. "What are retail investors' risk-return preferences towards renewable energy projects? A choice experiment in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 310-320.
    13. Floater, Graham & Rode, Philipp & Robert, Alexis & Kennedy, Chris & Hoornweg, Dan & Slavcheva, Roxana & Godfrey, Nick, 2014. "Cities and the New Climate Economy: the transformative role of global urban growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60775, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Gürsan, C. & de Gooyert, V., 2021. "The systemic impact of a transition fuel: Does natural gas help or hinder the energy transition?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Sen, Suphi & von Schickfus, Marie-Theres, 2020. "Climate policy, stranded assets, and investors’ expectations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    16. Liao, Weijun & Fan, Ying & Wang, Chunan, 2022. "How does COVID-19 affect the implementation of CORSIA?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    17. Jin, Wei & Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2016. "On the mechanism of international technology diffusion for energy technological progress," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 39-61.
    18. Foxon, Timothy J. & Pearson, Peter J.G. & Arapostathis, Stathis & Carlsson-Hyslop, Anna & Thornton, Judith, 2013. "Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 146-158.
    19. Bandyopadhyay, Gopal & Bagheri, Fathollah & Mann, Michael, 2007. "Reduction of fossil fuel emissions in the USA: A holistic approach towards policy formulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 950-965, February.
    20. Abdul-Manan, Amir F.N. & Baharuddin, Azizan & Chang, Lee Wei, 2014. "A detailed survey of the palm and biodiesel industry landscape in Malaysia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 931-941.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:7401-:d:673345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.