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

Author(s)
Wolfgang Claudius Müller
Abstract

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(s)
Department of Government
Pages
98-124
No. of pages
27
Publication date
2017
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506010 Policy analysis, 506011 Political history, 506012 Political systems
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/austria-rejecting-nuclear-energy--from-party-competition-accident-to-state-doctrine(c86af369-7d62-4f22-aa4c-1a38866845cd).html