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‘Going through the dance steps’: instrumentality, frustration and performativity in processes of formal public participation in decision-making on shale development in the United Kingdom

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posted on 2023-06-10, 04:39 authored by Laurence WilliamsLaurence Williams, Abigail MartinAbigail Martin, Andrew StirlingAndrew Stirling
We employ a mixed-method approach to analyse four forms of formal public participation in decision-making on shale development in the UK – planning, environmental permitting, public consultation and dialogue workshops. We focus analytically on the kinds of issues that can be raised effectively in such processes and the scope for public influence. This focus is conceptually inspired by literatures on public participation from Science and Technology Studies and on energy infrastructure planning disputes, with our findings building on existing work on public participation in decision-making on UK shale development. We also conduct local community interviews in the Fylde, Lancashire, UK, in order to understand how these processes are viewed by those who have participated in them. We find that these formal participatory opportunities generally tightly restrict the types of issues that are open for discussion, narrowing the scope for public influence. Some of these forms of participation (public consultations and dialogue workshops) take on an instrumental character, serving as a tool to help achieve the policy aim of facilitating a domestic industry. Others (planning and environmental permitting) are designed to be insensitive to public questioning of that policy aim. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, many of our local community interviewees saw these processes as performative exercises in the legitimation of UK government shale gas policy.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Energy Research & Social Science

ISSN

2214-6296

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Volume

92

Page range

a102796 1-16

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2022-09-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2022-09-06

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2022-09-05

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