We examine the problem of how to accelerate policies related to electric vehicles (EVs) in the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. These four Nordic countries represent an interesting collection of cases by virtue of having common decarbonization targets extending to the transport sector, interlinked electric energy systems and a joint electricity market largely based on low-carbon energy while they are open societies bent on innovation, making them well adaptable to a transition toward electric mobility. Our analytical framework drawing from transition research, lock-in and path dependency and institutionalism enables us to discern technological, institutional and behavioral mechanisms which can have both constraining and enabling effects vis-à-vis this transition by means of shaping national socio-technical systems and regimes. On this basis, we also discuss how to develop policies accelerating the transition. We find that the incumbent industries can shape policy choice through the lock-in into institutional inter-dependencies. The accumulation of social and material features, and vested interests of actors, for its part can maintain regime level inertia, impeding the transition. Yet, technological lock-in can also enable EVs, by means of learning effects from technologically interrelated wind energy projects and available infrastructure in buildings that support the EV charging needs. Overall, the complexity of path-dependent mechanisms embedded in the dominant regimes, together with the diversity of emerging policy mixes, demands attention both on the technologies and broader socio-technical systems in order to properly assess the prospects of transition toward electric mobility.

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We compare Russian nuclear energy diplomacy towards Finland and Hungary, where the Russian state corporation Rosatom intends to build nuclear power plants by the 2020s. Russian nuclear energy diplomacy features Rosatom working with other state institutions, its own subsidiaries and an extensive network of companies and R&D actors to support Russian nuclear power projects abroad. Using the structuration approach, we find three interests driving such diplomacy: energy business and associated profits; modernization of the Russian economy, including the diversification of its export structure; while foreign policy interests are also involved, considering the constraints emerging in EU-Russia energy diplomacy in the oil and gas sectors, including the sanctions since 2014. Some domestic actors in Finland and Hungary make the linkage between nuclear energy and foreign policy as explicit as do some western commentators. Seeking to pursue these interests, Russian actors must accommodate their considerable assets to the structural constraints they encounter in the target countries. We identify four structural dimensions The Russian actors are well endowed as regards the resources, technology, and infrastructure dimension; and the dimension of finance, business models, and markets. However, on the institutional dimension they face a less controllable environment. Regarding the ecological dimension, they must conform to local safety requirements. In both cases, Russian actors were able to strengthen perceptions of joint interests with actors in the target country facilitating the nuclear power plant projects, thereby paving the way for the use of soft power.

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When the Fukushima accident occurred in March 2011, Finland was at the height of a nuclear renaissance, with the Government's decision-in-principle in 2010 to allow construction of two new nuclear reactors. This article examines the nuclear power debate in Finland after Fukushima. We deploy the concepts of (de)politicisation and hyperpoliticisation in the analysis of articles in the country's main newspaper. Our analysis indicates that Finnish nuclear exceptionalism manifested in the safety-related depoliticising and the nation's prosperity-related hyperpoliticisation arguments of the pro-nuclear camp. The anti-nuclear camp used politicisation strategies, such as economic arguments, to show the unprofitability of nuclear power. The Fukushima accident had a clear effect on Finnish nuclear policy: the government programme of 2011 excluded the nuclear new build. However, in 2014 the majority of Parliament again supported nuclear power. Hence, the period after Fukushima until 2014 could be described as continued but undermined loyalty to nuclear power.