‘We want to have this debate.’ Exploring intersections of participation and polarization in the <i>Energiewende</i>

In 2011, the German Energiewende was postulated as a collective project, seemingly placing great importance on public participation. Today, citizen-led initiatives all over Germany oppose new energy projects, which could be envisaged as ‘trigger points': tangible manifestations which lead to the revocation of societal consensuses and drive polarization. At the same time, recent studies regard energy conflict as ‘self-invited participation', which, if conceived properly, could improve energy policies and systems. Against this backdrop, we explore two empirical cases: long-time opposition to wind turbines and nascent protest against a power line. Specifically, we are interested in the intersections of ‘invited' (formal) participation procedures, ‘self-invited participation' and polarization dynamics. The analysis reveals that disappointment with ‘invited participation' can lead to ‘self-invited participation'. While our explorative approach cautions against premature generalization, polarization seems to stem from experiences made with both invited and self-invited participation. A lack of recognition appears to be at the core of ‘problematic' dynamics of polarization, which, over time, decreases project critics’ readiness to participate in discourse, diminishes their trust in democratic institutions and inclines them to view opponents as enemies. Our results are worrisome in light of the much larger number of energy projects needed to complete the Energiewende.