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://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/austria-rejecting-nuclear-energy--from-party-competition-accident-to-state-doctrine(c86af369-7d62-4f22-aa4c-1a38866845cd).html