Tentative governing of fuel cell innovation in a dynamic network of expectations

Björn Budde (Corresponding Author), Kornelia Konrad* (Corresponding Author)

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    35 Citations (Scopus)
    205 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Expectations and visions are known to be forceful elements in the governance of emerging innovations. However, visions and expectations are prone to change, thus creating challenges for strategy and policy processes. Actors have to deal with the dynamics of expectations, either ex-post when expectations have changed, or ex-ante, for instance by taking possible future changes into account in the design of policy measures. This article follows the dynamics of fuel cell expectations in the German policy discourse (1994–2011). Firstly, we study how fuel cell expectations were discursively related to a wider network of expectations regarding developments in the context of fuel cells. Secondly, we examine whether and how policy measures referred to these expectations, and how policy dealt with the dynamic evolution of expectations. We show that fuel cell expectations alone were not sufficient to trigger substantial policy support; only once they linked up with visions and expectations about the future energy system and further context developments were supportive policy measures initiated. Furthermore, although we observed dedicated and successful efforts to stabilize policy support for fuel cells pre-empting possible changes in expectations, governance still had to adapt to changes in the network of expectations, in particular the rise in expectations for battery-electric vehicles.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1098-1112
    Number of pages15
    JournalResearch policy
    Volume48
    Issue number5
    Early online date31 Jan 2019
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2019

    Keywords

    • Electric vehicles
    • Fuel cells
    • Governance
    • Multi-level perspective
    • Sociology of expectations
    • 22/4 OA procedure

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