Towards a better understanding of people’s responses to renewable energy technologies: Insights from Social Representations Theory

1. Introduction

Several governments worldwide are trying to streamline the deployment of large-scale renewable energy and associated technologies (RET) ¹ to tackle climate change and following increasingly binding international and European legislation in that regard (Kyoto Protocol, 1998; Renewables Directive, 2009). However, several cases of the siting of large-scale RET ² in different countries have highlighted that this may not be an easy task, since the deployment of those technologies is often met with opposition, leading to projects for the construction of RET being delayed or even withdrawn (Toke, 2005).

Whereas opinion polls tend to show that publics in different countries agree with the importance of generating energy from renewable sources in general, when specific large-scale RET are to be deployed in particular locations, these are often met with opposition (Bell, Gray and Haggett, 2005; Wustenhagen, Wolsink and Burer, 2007). In the last decades, social research has been trying to understand this so-called national–local or attitude–behaviour ‘gap’ (Haggett and Futak-Campbell, 2011), often named as and explained through the ‘Not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) concept (P. Devine-Wright, 2005; Wolsink, 2006). NIMBY has been used mainly to describe and pejoratively label people who oppose development (Burningham, 2000; P. Devine-Wright, 2005), to explain opposition through spatial proximity to the developments, and/or to explain opposition as based on individual selfishness, ignorance and irrationality (see also Owens and Driffill, 2008), following a deficit model of the public understanding of science. However, empirical studies have failed to systematically support the NIMBY hypothesis and it has started to be criticised (Burningham, 2000; Jodelet, 2001; Wolsink, 2006).

Nevertheless, for a long time NIMBY functioned as the only theoretical framework for the understanding of the attitude–behaviour discrepancy regarding siting decisions for RET and other developments and thus its uselessness as an explanatory framework (Burningham, 2000) has “left a lacuna that needs to be filled” (P. Devine-Wright, 2005: 136). It has also highlighted other fragilities in this literature: the large amount of empirical studies conducted on it, usually using only quantitative-positivist methodologies (Ellis, Barry and Robinson, 2007; Haggett and Futak-Campbell, 2011), but without stemming from any conceptual framework (P. Devine-Wright, 2005; Walker et al., 2011). Several authors started to stress then the need for a theoretical framework and conceptual tools able to organise this field of research in a more integrative way, and which would recognise the usefulness of different methodologies and disciplines for doing this (P. Devine-Wright, 2005; Ellis et al., 2007).

Various alternative concepts and explanations to NIMBY have meanwhile been proposed. In a tentative way of systematising these proposals, we may say that they focused on four aspects. First, the discussion of alternative concepts that could critically re-name this area of research – such as ‘social acceptance of renewable energy innovation’ (Wustenhagen et al., 2007) or, those also critical of the concept of ‘social acceptance’, ‘publics’ responses to RET’ (see Batel, Devine-Wright and Tangeland, 2013) – and with it overcome the above-mentioned pejorative representation of publics embedded in the NIMBY concept, since “if researchers use the concept of NIMBY in their research activity, they can also be seen as justifying public opposition in that way” (Batel et al., 2013: 2). Second, the enlargement of the scope of analysis from the individual level to more group and societal ones (Bell et al., 2005; Wustenhagen et al., 2007). For instance, several studies started to demonstrate how factors such as institutional procedures and other project-related factors influence local responses to RET (Bell et al., 2005; Gross, 2007; Wolsink, 2006). Third, accrued attention started to be paid to how other actors – developers, policy-makers – impact on the attitude–behaviour discrepancy (Barnett et al., 2012; Ellis et al., 2007; Jodelet, 2001). Finally, some authors have actually advanced specific theoretical frameworks to explain that gap, such as rethinking Nimbyism as place-protective action arising from perceived threats to place-related identities (P. Devine-Wright, 2009), or using discourse analysis as a “new analytical framework for solving ecological problems” (Haggett and Futak-Campbell, 2011: 209). Huijts and colleagues (2012) have proposed the adoption of a more individualist, socio-cognitive framework for explaining, through a predictive and mainly a-contextual model, the psychological factors influencing renewable technology acceptance, while Walker and colleagues (2011) have proposed a framework that highlights the importance of examining the interactions between publics and RET actors, their expectations and relations across time, and the contexts in which those take place.

While these more recent developments highlight that important efforts have been made to support a paradigmatic shift from NIMBY, they also highlight that more integration, namely, at a theoretical level, is needed in this field of research. In fact, and considering the above-mentioned proposals, we can see that despite their seeking for more thorough frameworks for understanding public responses regarding RET, they still remain partial in what they take into account. For instance, some of those proposals neglect or relegate to the background the role of developers and decision-makers, their representations of and (power) relations with the publics, in public responses to RET (e.g., P. Devine-Wright, 2009; Huijts et al., 2012). Other proposals dismiss the role played by people’s relations with the place where they live and representations of it (e.g., Huijts et al., 2012). More importantly, all these new frameworks fail to discuss and provide an integrative perspective of RET as both a social (Castro, 2012) and a technological (Bauer, 1995; Latour, 1991) new object(s) in contemporary societies, and thus to assume an epistemological approach able to understand the socio-psychological processes involved in their reception by groups and individuals. They fail to connect the analyses of the macro processes involved in social change with the micro processes shaping, materialising and contesting it, in communication and discourse (Castro and Batel, 2008) and, with that, do not acknowledge and analyse the role of the multiple representations and identities that can be used, negotiated, contested by publics, the media, developers and policy-makers, and that shape publics’ responses to RET.

In this paper we will argue then that for a better understanding of people’s responses to RET it is not important to actually understand why the attitude–behaviour discrepancy in those responses exists, but instead what type of socio-psychological processes give it shape and what functions those serve. In turn, this implies, first, to better conceptualise and situate the promotion of renewable energy generation in its historicity (Giddens, 1979), that is, as an innovation process in contemporary societies (Bauer, 1995; Castro, 2012). Second, to give an account of the socio-psychological processes entangled in social change, specifically, the role played by the relation between representation, identities and communication in change and resistance to change (Batel and Castro, 2009; Howarth, 2006; Jovchelovitch, 2007).

In the remainder of the text, we will start by situating RET as a social change process in today’s societies. Then we will discuss how specifically some proposals of Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, [1961] 1976a), as a theory of social change (Castro and Batel, 2008), can fulfil some of the lacunas left by the before mentioned conceptual frameworks in the understanding of people’s responses to RET, while at the same time helping to provide a more integrative framework to this area of research, and one based on a contextual model of public understanding of science (Miller, 2001).

2. Renewable energy at the crossroads of legal and techno-scientific innovation

According to Castro and colleagues (2009), environmentalism, as a process of social change, is currently in its Generalisation stage: after its emergence as a social concern mainly through the influence of active minorities, namely grassroots movements (Moscovici, 1976b), several treaties and laws at supranational levels (Beck, 2009) institutionalised it while setting specific targets for and constraints on the practices of people towards environmental sustainability. Now, mediating systems between the legal sphere and the public one, such as the mass media and community practitioners, are circulating the content of those laws – and specific interpretations of them (Castro and Batel, 2008) – which are expected to be appropriated by people, so that environmental sustainability can actually be attained.

This highlights that while aiming to understand individuals’ and groups’ appropriation of those laws, it is relevant to take into account the multilevel system of governance – or governance-beyond-the-state (Swyngedouw, 2005) – that shapes them, within which policies generated at the European or international level are expected to be appropriated at community and individual levels. This implies that generic laws will need to be translated to specific local realities, to which they are usually not adapted (Castro and Mouro, 2011), therefore having the potential to create conflicts, and that this should be considered when trying to understand people’s responses to such laws.

However, there are different sustainability laws, with different characteristics which have to be considered for a better understanding of the socio-psychological processes the reception of those laws might involve (Castro, 2012). Regarding the laws for renewable energy generation (e.g., Renewables Directive, 2009), they aim for societies to change from forms of high-carbon energy production to low-carbon and, specifically, renewable forms of energy generation. For the compliance with those laws several models of implementation of renewable energy can be adopted (e.g., Walker and Cass, 2007): for instance, those goals could be achieved through more decentralised models, with a mode of renewable energy production at the household or community level which would ‘responsibilise’ citizens for the achievement of those goals. However, currently, those policies and legislation are mainly binding for governments, which have to attain certain amounts of renewable energy production at a national level. In turn, the achievement of these goals is mainly trying to be done within the current model of electricity systems that is prevalent in most countries, that is, a centralised one (Walker and Cass, 2007). Within this model, electricity networks are based on large-scale infrastructures for energy production, such as coal fired power stations or wind farms, usually located in remote rural and coastal areas, which are connected to a national grid of transmission and distribution lines responsible for the transport of energy to sites of demand, which is usually higher in urban and industrialised areas (Butler, 2001). ³

Therefore, in the last few years the number of projects for the construction of large-scale renewable energy technologies and associated infrastructures has substantially increased as compared with previous years (see Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2011). In other words, whereas laws for renewable energy generation are only directly binding for governments, they also affect people when RET and associated infrastructures are deployed, and also while forcing changes in inter-group relations in the public sphere, namely, “between local communities and both governmental experts and the companies proposing the new technologies” (Castro, 2012: 117).

In this vein, current low-carbon energy production not only translates the policy–legal sphere’s “efforts to lower carbon dioxide emissions” (Castro, 2012: 106). First, it also materialises specific technological innovations (Bauer, 1995), devised in order to perform that task. While the use of renewable sources for the generation of energy, such as wind or water, is already a very old practice (Poumadère, Bertoldo and Samadi, 2011), the design, size and embeddedness at different geographical scales of current infrastructures for the generation of electricity or heat from those sources, namely within centralised models of electricity systems, are new and unfamiliar to most individuals and groups (Poumadère et al., 2011). These new artefacts are being deployed in specific historical and societal contexts, in which different representations coexist regarding energy, space and place, landscape, citizenship and so forth, and where particular individuals and groups will thus attribute distinct meanings to the same technologies (Pinch and Bijker, 1987).

Second, the fostering of low-carbon energy production is also interdependent with other innovations coming from the policy–legal sphere. The promotion of renewable energy generation is happening at the same time that changes are also being proposed by new legal frameworks aiming to regulate public involvement (Barnett et al., 2012; Castro and Batel, 2008). These laws are directly binding for individuals/groups, and aim to remodel inter-group relations, while seeking that citizens have more voice in decision-making processes and, consequently, that experts and decision-makers do not dominate those entirely (e.g., Aarhus Convention, 1998; Lima, 2004). These laws intend traditional relations between science and the publics to change, from pedagogical to dialogical (Lima, 2004; Wynne, 1996), from representative to deliberative or agonistic (Barry and Ellis, 2011; Mouffe, 2005).

In sum, the promotion of renewable energy production materialises a process of both legal and techno-scientific innovation and, as such, is fostering several changes in public arenas, or, to put it plainly, is fostering several conflicts, between old and new ways of thinking and doing – at individual, group and societal levels – and in the relations between developers, policy-makers and publics, to name but a few. It is crucial then, for a better understanding of people’s responses to RET, to reflect upon how people make sense of the new, of change, specifically, by paying particular attention to the role of conflicting representations at individual, group, inter-group and societal levels in the acceptance of or resistance to change regarding RET. Next, we will discuss how some proposals of Social Representations Theory can help us with that.

3. The Theory of Social Representations or how to better understand the socio-psychological processes involved in people’s responses to change

Social Representations Theory (SRT) (Moscovici, [1961] 1976a), “by focusing on everyday communication and thinking, hopes to determine the link between human psychology and modern social and cultural trends” (Moscovici, 1988: 225). Social representations comprise affect, attitudes, beliefs and practices (Jovchelovitch, 1996; Moscovici, [1961] 1976a), and are “socially elaborated and collectively shared” (Wagner, 1994: 205). The main function of social representations can be said to be that of turning familiar the unfamiliar (Moscovici, 1988), and they thus serve “as symbolic tools which allow group members to make sense of their social world and their relationships to other groups” (Andreouli and Howarth, 2013: 363) and objects, and the main aim of SRT is to understand how in today’s public spheres, composed of a multitude of subjectivities and meanings, different knowledges are created, contested and transformed by and for social groups (Howarth, 2006; Jovchelovitch, 1996).

SRT has been used extensively to examine the socio-psychological processes involved in several social change processes (e.g., Lauri, 2009; Wagner, 1994), mostly those entailing techno-scientific innovation (e.g., Bauer and Gaskell, 1999), but it has not been used regarding RET as a social change process, one that involves not only techno-scientific innovation, but also legal innovation (e.g., Aarhus Convention, 1998; Renewables Directive, 2009), and that shapes how that techno-scientific innovation is to be generalised throughout society. However, it is important to consider the specificities of different types of social change processes in regard to the socio-psychological processes their reception might entail (see Castro, 2012).

In fact, and even if SRT has also already been used to some extent for examining people’s responses to RET (e.g., Jodelet, 2001; P. Devine-Wright and Devine-Wright, 2006; P. Devine-Wright and Howes, 2010), this research has used only specific ideas proposed by SRT (e.g., anchoring and objectification), and focused mainly on RET as technological new objects being deployed in particular communities/places, or on specific aspects of RET (e.g., representations of wind energy intermittency). In other words, that research has not fully assumed SRT as an epistemology (Markovà, 2003) to understand the socio-psychological processes entailed in people’s responses to RET as a social change process, one involving both techno-scientific innovation and legal innovation. This is especially reflected in the lack of conceptualisation and analysis in that research of the three aspects of SRT that will be discussed next.

4. Conclusions and discussion

Governments worldwide are fostering the production of renewable energy, mainly through the deployment of large-scale infrastructures, following increasingly binding legislation in that regard (Kyoto Protocol, 1998; Renewables Directive, 2009). However, and despite the public’s supporting renewable energy generally, the deployment of those infrastructures is often met with opposition from the local communities where they are constructed (Bell et al., 2005). This phenomenon, often dubbed the attitude–behaviour or national–local ‘gap’ in people’s responses to RET, has often been explained through the NIMBY framework, encompassing a deficit model of the public (Wynne, 1996). More recently though, several authors started to criticise NIMBY and set out to better understand local opposition to RET (Wustenhagen et al., 2007). However, the new frameworks proposed fail to discuss RET as both a social and a technological innovation in contemporary societies, and thus to discuss the socio-psychological processes involved in their reception. In turn, and while focusing on the attitude–behaviour ‘gap’, they perpetuate a conception of that discrepancy as a paradox, and local opposition to RET as something which has to be ‘fixed’ (Aitken, 2010).

In this paper we proposed then that to actually better understand the how, why and what for of people’s responses to RET, and to overcome a deficit model of public understanding of RET, this area of research could benefit, first, from a better situating of the promotion of renewable energy production in today’s societies, namely, as a legal and techno-scientific innovation process. In turn, and second, conceiving of people’s responses to RET within that broader perspective highlights the relevance of considering socio-psychological approaches to how social change happens or how people make sense of new social objects.

We argued that Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, [1961] 1976a) could be useful for providing such a conceptualisation. One of the main tenets of this theory is that it proposes that social change does not simply imply the substitution of old ideas by new ideas but, instead, that it often results in the coexistence of conflicting meanings within the same society, group and individual, during a certain period of time. In other words, the attitude–behaviour discrepancy in people’s responses to RET is not to be considered as deviant, but instead as natural, if we conceive of people as ‘polyphasic’ and agentic while trying to “feel at home, secure from any risk of friction or strife” (Moscovici, 1984: 24) in their everyday lives. Thus, it is not important to actually understand why the attitude–behaviour discrepancy exists, but instead to better understand what type of socio-psychological processes give it shape and what functions those serve. In this vein, we have also specifically discussed how the proposals of SRT regarding how social representations are constructed and transformed, and the role that cognitive polyphasia, identities and power relations have in that, are crucial to integrate in future research within the literature on public responses to RET.

Among the areas of future research we would mainly stress the relevance that SRT can have on two aspects of people’s responses to the promotion of RET. First, the analysis of how different patterns of beliefs, attitudes and practices regarding RET and public participation emerge, not only within the same society – the focus of that literature so far – but also within the same group/individual.

Secondly, the systematic examination of not only the public or lay sphere understandings of RET and public engagement, but also those of other key social actors – developers, decision-makers, the media – and, specifically, the articulated analysis of how the communication between those groups impacts on different responses to RET-related change. This calls for accrued attention to be paid to the integrated analysis of communication, representational and identity processes, which takes into account how cultural, institutional, contextual/relational dimensions interact between and within social agents and shape the fostering of RET as a social change process happening at different geographical scales.

Finally, the adoption of SRT proposals to investigate people’s responses to RET can also contribute in important ways to the development of SRT. For instance, in furthering our understanding of communicative strategies for resistance to change and, through that, fostering social representations’ theorisation of conflict and argumentation (Castro and Batel, 2008: 481) and of the socio-psychological processes contributing to the relation between change and stability in today’s societies. But it can also foster a better understanding of other types of responses to change than the typically researched acceptance of or resistance to change (as in Castro, 2012; Wustenhagen et al., 2007) and, specifically, those described as ‘acceptance’ which in fact often refers to different kinds of reactions to change, such as support, acceptance and arguably others, that are important to disentangle, as they can have different consequences for the sustainable deployment of RET (see Batel et al., 2013).

Some of the literature on people’s responses to RET can also fruitfully develop SRT’s theorisation of two aspects that have been neglected within it: the role of space and place in social representation (see P. Devine-Wright, 2009) and the political dimension of representation and identities (see Jones, Jones and Woods, 2004; Swyngedouw, 2005). In fact, on one hand, research on social representations has mainly examined them as societal or cultural phenomena, and neglected how social re-presenting happens at other, smaller scales, intertwined with representations of more specific spaces and places. On the other hand, SRT research has often been criticised for not explicitly theorising how power relations shape the possibilities for social re-presenting (Batel and Castro, 2009) or how politics, the institutions and technologies of governing (Foucault and Rabinow, 1984; Swyngedouw, 2010) constitute the relations between representation and identities (Andreouli and Howarth, 2013). More importantly, SRT research and specifically that examining ‘socio-environmental’ change (e.g., Castro, 2012), has not often critically discussed the very ‘rationalities’ that are the bases of the definitions of (environmental) problems and solutions, or, in other words, has not considered the “radically differentiated if not opposed social, political or ecological desires” (Swyngedouw, 2010: 223) that are behind institutionalisation efforts of ‘environmental sustainability’ – but also of ‘multiculturalism’, ‘active ageism’ and so forth (see also Elcheroth et al., 2011). In an associated way, it would be important for SRT research to go beyond the focus on ‘dialogical consensual practices’ (e.g., Batel and Castro, 2009; Jovchelovitch, 2007) and to focus more on how to integrate antagonism and dissent in the understanding of social change (Mouffe, 2005).

In sum, the combination of insights of Social Representations Theory with proposals of the literature on public responses to RET can help us to move towards a better understanding of those responses. In turn, this is crucial for the deployment of RET to happen in a sustainable democratic way, one that recognises and incorporates all the diverse, conflicting and variegated existent representations, identities and discourses of renewable energy.