IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijsusd/v15y2012i1-2p107-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Power failures: metagoverning a revival of nuclear power in Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Keith Baker

Abstract

The British Government is attempting, through metagovernance, to encourage a transition to a low carbon electricity generation industry by promoting a revival of nuclear power. This paper considers the barriers that the British Government might encounter by analysing its metagovernance efforts within the context of a dynamic, co-evolving socio-technical regime. It is shown that the British Government's attempts to metagovern a transition to nuclear power are likely to fail. This is because the British Government has failed to secure the support of a number of important stakeholders, is pursuing an unrealistic policy, is subject to critical dependencies, and cannot easily exercise authority over a complex network. The paper concludes by arguing that these failures are due to the British Government's inability to understand the process by which transitions occur.

Suggested Citation

  • Keith Baker, 2012. "Power failures: metagoverning a revival of nuclear power in Britain," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 15(1/2), pages 107-124.
  • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:15:y:2012:i:1/2:p:107-124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=44037
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Späth, Philipp & Rohracher, Harald, 2010. "'Energy regions': The transformative power of regional discourses on socio-technical futures," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 449-458, May.
    2. Smith, Adrian & Stirling, Andy & Berkhout, Frans, 2005. "The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1491-1510, December.
    3. Bell, Stephen & Park, Alex, 2006. "The Problematic Metagovernance of Networks: Water Reform in New South Wales," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 63-83, May.
    4. Smith, Adrian & Voß, Jan-Peter & Grin, John, 2010. "Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 435-448, May.
    5. Jan-Peter Voß & Adrian Smith & John Grin, 2009. "Designing long-term policy: rethinking transition management," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(4), pages 275-302, November.
    6. Zephyr, 2010. "The city," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1-2), pages 154-155, February.
    7. Dieter Helm, 2005. "The Assessment: The New Energy Paradigm," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(1), pages 1-18, Spring.
    8. René Kemp, 2010. "The Dutch energy transition approach," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 291-316, August.
    9. van der Laak, W.W.M. & Raven, R.P.J.M. & Verbong, G.P.J., 2007. "Strategic niche management for biofuels: Analysing past experiments for developing new biofuel policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 3213-3225, June.
    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. Menno Ottens & Jurian Edelenbos, 2018. "Political Leadership as Meta-Governance in Sustainability Transitions: A Case Study Analysis of Meta-Governance in the Case of the Dutch National Agreement on Climate," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-23, December.

    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. Pesch, Udo, 2015. "Tracing discursive space: Agency and change in sustainability transitions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 90(PB), pages 379-388.
    2. Coenen, Lars & Grillitsch, Markus & Hansen, Teis & Moodysson, Jerker, 2017. "An innovation system framework for system innovation policy: the case of Strategic Innovation Programs (SIPs) in Sweden," Papers in Innovation Studies 2017/8, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    3. Ohta, Kyoko, 2019. "Sustainable transitions to localized elderly care: Policy niches and welfare regimes in Japan," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 219-228.
    4. Smith, Adrian & Raven, Rob, 2012. "What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1025-1036.
    5. Fuenfschilling, Lea & Binz, Christian, 2017. "Global socio-technical regimes," Papers in Innovation Studies 2017/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    6. Matthew Lockwood & Caroline Kuzemko & Catherine Mitchell & Richard Hoggett, 2017. "Historical institutionalism and the politics of sustainable energy transitions: A research agenda," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 312-333, March.
    7. Bos, J.J. & Brown, R.R., 2014. "Assessing organisational capacity for transition policy programs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 188-206.
    8. Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 955-967.
    9. Fuenfschilling, Lea & Truffer, Bernhard, 2016. "The interplay of institutions, actors and technologies in socio-technical systems — An analysis of transformations in the Australian urban water sector," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 298-312.
    10. Sarrica, Mauro & Biddau, Fulvio & Brondi, Sonia & Cottone, Paolo & Mazzara, Bruno M., 2018. "A multi-scale examination of public discourse on energy sustainability in Italy: Empirical evidence and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 444-454.
    11. Lowes, Richard & Woodman, Bridget, 2020. "Disruptive and uncertain: Policy makers’ perceptions on UK heat decarbonisation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    12. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.
    13. Kuokkanen, A. & Nurmi, A. & Mikkilä, M. & Kuisma, M. & Kahiluoto, H. & Linnanen, L., 2018. "Agency in regime destabilization through the selection environment: The Finnish food system’s sustainability transition," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1513-1522.
    14. Sauermann, Henry & Vohland, Katrin & Antoniou, Vyron & Balázs, Bálint & Göbel, Claudia & Karatzas, Kostas & Mooney, Peter & Perelló, Josep & Ponti, Marisa & Samson, Roeland & Winter, Silvia, 2020. "Citizen science and sustainability transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(5).
    15. Katherine Daniell & Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Noel Wai Wah Chan & Céline Nauges & Quentin Grafton, 2015. "Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition," Post-Print hal-01290502, HAL.
    16. Moradi, Afsaneh & Vagnoni, Emidia, 2018. "A multi-level perspective analysis of urban mobility system dynamics: What are the future transition pathways?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 231-243.
    17. Philipp Späth, 2012. "Understanding the Social Dynamics of Energy Regions—The Importance of Discourse Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-18, June.
    18. Roesler, Tim & Hassler, Markus, 2019. "Creating niches – The role of policy for the implementation of bioenergy village cooperatives in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 95-101.
    19. Attila Havas & Doris Schartinger & K. Matthias Weber, 2022. "Innovation Studies, Social Innovation, and Sustainability Transitions Research: From mutual ignorance towards an integrative perspective?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2227, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    20. Maurizio Prosperi & Roberta Sisto & Antonio Lopolito & Valentina C. Materia, 2020. "Local Entrepreneurs’ Involvement in Strategy Building to Facilitate Agro-Food Waste Valorisation within an Agro-Food Technological District: A SWOT-SOR Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, June.

    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:ids:ijsusd:v:15:y:2012:i:1/2:p:107-124. 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: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=25 .

    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.