Planning and the management of social acceptance of wind energy: Using a governmentality approach to compare Ireland and Denmark

Community opposition has been recognized as a major constraint for wind energy deployment in most European countries, and there is a wealth of research that has explored the factors that condition local responses to such projects. While there are studies that evaluate how regulatory measures such as consenting regimes participation and ‘planning gain’ such as community benefit packages and ownership, there are very few studies on how the complex relationships between host communities and infrastructure development are managed by wider governance regimes.
In this paper we use concept of governmentality to explore how the social acceptance of wind energy has been managed as a form of ‘conduct of conduct’ in two wind rich European countries: Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. We use the Foucauldian concepts of problematizations, rationalities and technologies to analyse the evolving legislation, polices and regulatory instruments in two wind-rich European countries, Denmark and Ireland. In each country we sketch out the historical evolution of wind energy and track emerging social acceptance issues. We conclude with some general reflections on the usefulness of a governmentality framework in energy transition research, suggesting that ‘acceptance’ is as much an issue of power as it of community-technology interactions, which have very different wind energy pathways and trajectories, but which have ultimately adopted similar strategies to deal with community acceptance concerns. which will have implications for the broader energy transition.