Austria: Rejecting Nuclear Energy – From Party Competition Accident to State Doctrine

Autor(en)
Wolfgang Claudius Müller
Abstrakt

This chapter discusses nuclear energy policy in Austria since the 1950s. It stresses, that political parties were the main actors and decision-making on energy policy was strongly influenced by them. Building on the work of Strøm (1990) and Müller and Strøm (1999) it is argued that several position changes regarding nuclear energy were made by Austrian parties in response to public opinion, trading-off policy against votes or office. The Austrian case resembled other Western European countries until the 1970s, when a nuclear power plant was built but never made operational because of a negative referendum. After a decade of struggling with attempts at policy reversal, an anti-nuclear consensus was reached after Chernobyl. Soon parties did engage in a new form of competition on the nuclear issue – over their competence in fighting nuclear energy in other countries, in particular plants close to the Austrian border.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Staatswissenschaft
Seiten
98-124
Anzahl der Seiten
27
Publikationsdatum
2017
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
506010 Politikfeldanalyse, 506011 Politische Geschichte, 506012 Politische Systeme
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 7 – Bezahlbare und saubere Energie
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/austria-rejecting-nuclear-energy--from-party-competition-accident-to-state-doctrine(c86af369-7d62-4f22-aa4c-1a38866845cd).html