NordForsk: Legitimacy and Acceleration in Green Energy Initiatives and Transition

To meet the challenges brought about by climate change, there is a need for the green transition and decarbonization of society to proceed faster, come in the form of larger projects, and reach new areas of society. This need increasingly conflicts with other environmental and social challenges. This includes unequal distribution of burdens, degradation of nature, and violations of the rights and interests of local populations and minority groups. Such conflicts can undermine the legitimacy of green transition projects, leading to delays, cancellations, or projects being carried out despite protests and contestation by affected parties. Although democratic participation has traditionally been seen as the most important strategy for ensuring the legitimacy of political initiatives, there is much to suggest that such mechanisms alone do not necessarily provide broad acceptance at a time when greater speed, scale, and scope are required in green transition processes. By combining theories of legitimacy, justice, and acceleration, LEGIT aims to understand the role played by democratic participation in legitimising green transition processes in the Nordic region. The project examines how various actors, including national and local authorities, businesses, interest organizations, and civil society understand and relate to transition projects, and the potential role different forms of democratic participation play in whether these actors consider such projects as legitimate. Through the research project, we will examine the political and institutional conditions for democratic participation, the opportunities and limitations of participation, and identify strategies that relevant actors use to support a responsible and just green transition in the Nordic region. LEGIT is a Nordic collaboration between NIFU (Norway), Syke (Finland), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and Linköping University (Sweden).

At the core of LEGIT is the recognition of how the need for an accelerated green transition in the Nordic countries is increasingly in conflict with other environmental and societal challenges, including the unequal distribution of benefits and burdens, nature degradation, and the violation of local and minority rights. More democratic participation is considered necessary for ensuring the legitimacy of green energy projects. However, there is increasing evidence that the capacity for democratic involvement to create legitimacy is under pressure from the need for increased speed, scale and scope that is at the heart of an accelerated transition. In light of such tensions, the objective of LEGIT is to examine the role of democratic engagement and citizen-involvement in legitimising green transition initiatives, and how democratic engagement compares to other grounds for justification. To achieve this objective, LEGIT will address the following research question: Considering the tensions created by the acceleration phase of the green transition, what role does, and can, democratic engagement in various forms play in the legitimisation of green transition initiatives? LEGIT aims to combine insights from studies of political legitimacy and democracy with that of sustainability transitions. The project employs a comparative qualitative research strategy and will combine case study analyses of democratic involvement in green energy initiatives across the Nordic region, with a national-level analysis of policies and systemic conditions, alongside strategies and actions of key actors. LEGIT is a Nordic collaboration between Syke (Finland), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), NIFU (Norway) and Linköping University (Sweden). It consists of leading researchers on sustainability transitions at these institutions.