Comparing Renewable Energy Policies: Technical Knowledge and Institutional Structures

科学与社会计划的政策、科学、工程和技术研究部分的这个项目将比较美国和德国促进可再生能源的政策，以了解体制和背景因素，重点是这些机构中嵌入的技术理念和规范价值观，从而导致采取成功的政策。这样的理解将为跨国学习提供更复杂的建议。现在正是研究这类政策的好时机。消费者和行业正在迅速采用可再生能源技术，导致许多国家可再生能源行业的年增长率达到两位数。然而，国际比较显示，一些欧洲国家比美国采用得更快。例如，从1990年到2001年，美国的风电装机容量从1,911兆瓦增加到4,062兆瓦。同期，德国的装机容量从48兆瓦扩大到8712兆瓦。我们认为，不同的公共政策导致了这些不同的结果。我们将利用历史制度主义、制度学习和技术社会研究的理论框架，对制度和政治背景因素进行细致入微的描述，特别关注影响这些国家促进可再生能源努力的技术思想和规范价值观的作用以及它们之间的紧密联系。这种分析将强调体制结构、作为政策变化来源的新思想的制度化、政策思想和技术分析的合法来源的争议性和讨价还价的性质，以及不同的政治背景如何在这些问题上结束，一位学者称之为公民认识论。在这样做的过程中，我们将深化和丰富制度主义和STS框架。这些理论机构很少相互关注，它们的综合可能会对双方都有利。此外，我们还将对一个具有实质性重要性的比较政策问题进行细致入微的阐述。我们计划根据对这类政策的发展和运作的背景敏感分析，为两国提出政策变化的建议。更好的政策将导致可再生能源技术更快、更可持续的扩张。许多学者指出了跨国吸取教训的困难。通过密切关注体制和技术背景，我们的分析应能克服这些困难。

This project in the Studies of Policy, Science, Engineering and Technology component of the Science and Society Program will compare policies for promoting renewable energy in the United States with those of Germany in order to understand the institutional and contextual factors, with an emphasis on the technical ideas and normative values embedded in those institutions, that lead to the adoption of successful policies. Such an understanding will inform more sophisticated recommendations for transnational learning. This is an opportune time to study such policies. Consumers and industries are rapidly adopting renewable energy technologies, resulting in annual double-digit growth rates for the renewable energy industry in many countries. However, international comparisons show more rapid adoption in a number of European countries than in the United States. For example, from 1990 to 2001, installed wind capacity in the United States grew from 1,911 MW to 4,062 MW. Over the same period, installed capacity in Germany expanded from 48 MW to 8,712 MW. We contend that different public policies have led to these different outcomes. We will utilize the theoretical frameworks of historical institutionalism, institutional learning, and social studies of technology to develop a nuanced account of the institutional and political contextual factors, paying particularly close attention to the role of technical ideas and normative values, and the tight linkages between them, that influence the attempts of these countries to promote renewable energy. This analysis will emphasize institutional structures, the institutionalization of new ideas as a source of policy change, the contested and negotiated nature of the legitimate sources of policy ideas and technical analysis, and the ways different political contexts come to closure on such issues, what one scholar has termed civic epistemology. In doing so, we will deepen and enrich both the institutionalist and STS frameworks. Those bodies of theory pay little attention to each other and their synthesis could benefit both. In addition, we will provide a nuanced account of a substantively important comparative policy issue. We plan to recommend policy changes for both countries, based on a context-sensitive analysis of the development and operation of such policies. Better policies will lead to more rapid and sustainable expansion of renewable energy technologies. Many scholars have pointed out the difficulties of transnational lesson-drawing. By paying close attention to institutional as well as technological contexts, our analysis should overcome those difficulties.