(2017) Policy mixes for incumbency: the destructive recreation of renewable energy, shale gas 'fracking,' and nuclear power in the United Kingdom. Energy Research & Social Science, 33. pp. 147-162.

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Urban experimentation with sustainability has been gaining prominence in policy and academic discourses about urban transformations, spurring the creation of urban living laboratories and transition arenas. However, the academic literature has only begun examining why experimentation flourishes in particular cities, and why it conforms to place-specific styles. Meanwhile, the strategic niche management (SNM) tradition has extensively explored how protective spaces for experimentation emerge but has dealt only tangentially with why this happens in particular places. In this paper, we develop an approach for unpacking the formation of favourable environments for experimentation in specific places. We adopt an abductive research design to create a dialogue between distinct theoretical positions and one in-depth case study. Our case examines the formation of the Bristol energy scene, which hosts a variety of experimental initiatives concerning civic energy alternatives. Based on our findings, we refine the understanding of the processes shaping this experimental setting. There is value in characterising the 'genealogy' of experimental spaces and acknowledging their antecedents, path-dependencies and place-specificities. Efforts to foster urban transformation demand nuanced accounts of how places become experimental because they are not static backgrounds for experimentation.

SWPS 2015-18 ( June) DisclaimerThe works available here are the responsibility of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of other SPRU researchers. As matters of policy and practice, SPRU does not endorse individual research contributions. Guidelines for authorsPapers shall be submitted in pdf or Word format. They should contain a title, an abstract, and keywords. Papers should be submitted to one of the Editors, who will process them and send them to the appropriate Associate Editor. Two members of SPRU will be asked to provide a short written review within three weeks. The revised versions of the paper, together with a reply to the reviewers, should be sent to the Associate Editor, who will propose to the Editors its publication on the series. When submitting the authors should indicate if the paper has already undergone peer-reviewing, in which case the Associate Editors may decide to skip internal review process. AbstractThis paper focuses on arguably the single most striking contrast in contemporary major energy politics in Europe (and even the developed world as a whole): the starkly differing civil nuclear policies of Germany and the UK. Germany is seeking entirely to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Yet the UK advocates a 'nuclear renaissance', promoting the most ambitious new nuclear construction programme in Western Europe. Here, this paper poses a simple yet quite fundamental question: what are the particular divergent conditions most strongly implicated in the contrasting developments in these two countries. With nuclear playing such an iconic role in historical discussions over technological continuity and transformation, answering this may assist in wider understandings of sociotechnical incumbency and discontinuity in the burgeoning field of 'sustainability transitions'. To this end, an 'abductive' approach is taken: deploying nine potentially relevant criteria for understanding the different directions pursued in Germany and the UK. Together constituted by 30 parameters spanning literatures related to socio-technical regimes in general as well as nuclear technology in particular, the criteria are divided into those that are 'internal' and 'external' to the 'focal regime configuration' of nuclear power and associated 'challenger technologies' like renewables. It is 'internal' criteria that are emphasised in conventional sociotechnical regime theory, with 'external' criteria relatively less well explored. Asking under each criterion whether attempted discontinuation of nuclear power would be more likely in Germany or the UK, a clear picture emerges. 'Internal' criteria suggest attempted nuclear discontinuation should be more likely in the UK than in Germany -the reverse of what is occurring. 'External' criteria are more aligned with observed dynamics -especially those relating to military nuclear commitments and broader 'qualities of democracy'. Despite many differences of framing concerning exactly what constitutes 'democracy', a rich political science literature on t...