Beyond the surface: diagnosing the origins of institutional barriers in the governance of floating offshore wind

Abstract The expansion of floating offshore wind in the UK’s Celtic Sea presents a major opportunity to accelerate the low-carbon transition while supporting regional economic development. However, its implementation is unfolding within a fragmented governance landscape, which constrains the development of new governance approaches that can deliver on multiple policy objectives, including net-zero, nature recovery, and economic growth. Fragmentation is a well-documented feature of marine governance systems and is commonly associated with institutional barriers such as path dependency, policy layering, and institutional inertia. However, few studies have examined the underlying causes of these barriers, meaning that resulting recommendations often fail to tackle foundational institutional design issues. Drawing on institutional theory and using a diagnostic analytical approach, this study identifies multiple institutional barriers that hinder the development of floating wind in the Celtic Sea. The barriers are traced to underlying institutional attributes, including those that regulate actor roles and responsibilities, structure social networks, and distribute power and authority. The paper concludes that the governance challenges observed in the UK’s Celtic Sea arise from systemic and synergistic institutional barriers rather than as a result of isolated policy failures. Therefore, overcoming institutional barriers demands a reconfiguration of marine governance arrangements to enhance reflexivity, adaptability, and collaborative learning across governance scales and policy domains. By linking the emergence of institutional barriers to underlying institutional attributes, the paper contributes to the literature on institutional dynamics in marine governance and highlights the need for new marine governance arrangements that can deliver a coordinated and holistic approach to marine policy and support a just and equitable transition to a low-carbon society.