Trade-Offs in German Wind Energy Expansion: Building Bridges Between Different Interests, Values and Priorities.

Background: In order to achieve climate targets, a transition to low-carbon energy production is necessary. However, conflicts between different interests, values and priorities, particularly at the community level, can constrain this transition. This paper aims to analyze lines of conflict and opportunities for building bridges between conflicting interests in the expansion of wind energy in Germany at the local level, in order to achieve successful implementation of wind energy projects.Results: Our analysis of four cases of local-level wind energy projects in Germany shows that limited local options for action reinforce the need for local actors to maximize the benefits of energy transition projects. In addition to the conflict over scarce space, the lines of conflict at the local level run primarily along the dimensions of costs and benefits, winners and losers. Real or perceived procedural and distributive injustices have the potential to fuel resistance to wind energy projects in the selected cases. Wind energy projects were successfully implemented in the four selected cases despite the presence of local opposition.Conclusions: The results show that, by integrating procedural and distributive justice and offering tailored solutions, community support for expansion of renewable energy projects can be enhanced. Further, the paper advances the concept of societal sponsorship, which is the willingness of members of a community to bear, or tolerate, decisions despite conflicting opinions. This concept is presented as an alternative to the concept of acceptance, which implies a positive, supportive attitude, and that protest should be avoided or overcome instead of recognized as a contribution to the debate. Societal sponsorship can be enhanced when procedural and distributive justice are adequately addressed.

The Smell of Factionalism: Left Opposition in the Vyatka Provincial Organization of the Bolshevik Party in 1923-1924

The activity of the Vyatka left opposition that arose during the internal party discussion in the fall of 1923 and the spring of 1924 is studied. The work is based on archival documents from the Central State Archive of Kirov Region, as well as on materials from the Vyatka Pravda party newspaper. The platform of the local opposition opposed the formation of factions but insisted on clarifying what factionalism is supposed to mean. The Left Opposition united the party community of the provincial city and adjacent working areas. Most party members initially expressed full confidence in the partys Central Committee. An analysis of archival material shows that the Vyatka opposition tried to establish a broad discussion of problems in internal party life. In the provincial center there was a party discussion club that organized heated discussions. The focus on clarifying the concepts of factions and groups reflected the desire of opposition supporters to avoid being accused of betraying the party and the cause of the revolution. Remarkably, until early January 1924 the left opposition had absolute support among party members in Vyatka. The article analyzes the Central Committees suppression of the local opposition in January - February 1924, and in particular the skillful techniques of Aron Solts and his supporters. At the final stage of the struggle, a group of conciliators arose among the members of the opposition, and contributed to the victory of the Central Committee line. The article clarifies reasons and circumstances of the defeat of the opposition, none of whose representatives openly stood in opposition to the majority of the Central Committee or called on ordinary members to protest. The authors demonstrate that the local left opposition was a situational unification of diverse forces, dissatisfied with the bureaucratization of the party, the growing dictatorship of the Central Committee, the newcomers, as well as the dominance of appointees from the Party and the Soviets. During the discussion in the organizations of the Party, the need for developing internal party democracy and a free discussion of the problems emerged, showing that there was a potential alternative to Stalinism. The main feature of the left opposition was that it formed and temporarily won the predominantly non-proletarian Vyatka, where before the 1917 revolution the zemstvo and city democratic self-government has gained roots; this is interpreted as a preservation of the demand for freedom and democracy in local society.

The Populist and Institutionalist Logics of Anti-Expressway Campaigns in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article focuses on the opposition to the New Zealand Government’s Roads of National Significance programme to examine the individualistic and collective forms of political engagement that underpin contestation of expressway proposals and the challenges involved in forming an anti-expressway campaign that transcends locally based opposition. Utilising Ernesto Laclau’s notion of populism, it is argued that, in a post-political planning context, a reliance on an individualistic or institutionalist political strategy can restrain collective action and the development of effective supra-local or national campaigns. The populist and institutionalist logics underpinning the campaigns against the Kāpiti expressway proposal reveal the shared interests between activists and local opposition groups and the potential for progressive forms of populist action on environmental issues and transport policy.

Quantitative methodology for the estimation of the environmental impact of wind farms – The case of Greece and application on the country’s operating units

Following the EU guidelines towards a carbon free electricity sector by 2050, wind energy is expected to contribute a large part of the produced electricity, if not the largest. In this respect, wind installations are expected to multiply over the next years. There is significant development until today and wind is generally considered as a “clean” source of energy. However, although arguably less than other sources, the impacts concerning wind installations are certainly there amidst ever-growing local opposition and will certainly grow, especially in locations with high density. Attempting to quantify the total impacts per local regions in the case of Greece, a methodology is developed for those impact factors that are considered the most important. Certain focus areas are used for applying this methodology, based on installation density, location inside natural protected areas, as well as locations of touristic value. The results show that in general the total impacts might be considered on average mild to low. The tool developed is a first attempt to evaluate impact in a cumulative way and help investors, policy makers and local communities work together in achieving the best possible outcome. Further work is necessary to further develop this methodology, verify and detail the formulas used and establish a robust pattern that will be a useful tool for everyone to use.

An Assessment of the County Review Process in Hampshire 1929–1932

Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1929, Hampshire County Council along with other administrative counties was required to review the boundaries of the second and third tier authorities within its borders. As well as being a time-consuming process, it could also be a particularly contentious one. In the event, Hampshire used the opportunity to reduce significantly the number of relatively small second tier authorities, particularly rural district councils, and to adjust boundaries which sometimes gave rise to spirited local opposition. The arguments used by the County Council to justify changes and those resisting them, many of which were aired at an Inquiry conducted by a Ministry of Health Inspector at Winchester in late 1931, are considered.

A Sea Cow Goes to Court. Extinction and Animal Agency in a Struggle Against Militarism

In Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa, the Japanese government is constructing a new military base for the United States Marine Corps despite ongoing local opposition and protest. Sea grass beds, which are potential feeding grounds of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, are situated within the construction area. Because of its critical status close to regional extinction, the dugong was declared a Natural Monument of Japan in 1972, arguably putting it under protection of the United States National Historic Preservation Act in context of the base construction. Based on this assumption, and the dugong’s cultural significance for the people of Okinawa, the issue was brought to an American court, a rare case where an animal plays a central role in a lawsuit dealing with cultural property. Based on Eduardo Kohn’s anthropology beyond the human and his thoughts on life as a semiotic process the article explores the entanglements between dugongs and people. I argue that in this process dugongs play an active role. Through their interpretation of the generated indexical signs at the construction site and their resulting behaviour, these animals give humans the opportunity to convert their presence and absence into the sphere of symbolic human interaction.

Remembering a Contentious Past: Resistance and Collaboration in the Former Soviet Union

This article is part of the special cluster, “Here to Stay: The Politics of History in Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Félix Krawatzek & George Soroka. The Western outskirts of the former Soviet Union suffered huge levels of destruction during World War II. It is for this reason that the memories of the war in countries such as Belarus and the Baltics have centered on the local opposition to the Nazi occupiers in an attempt to bring societies together after the war. This article compares how Latvia and Belarus have represented their involvement in World War II over time and undertakes an analysis of how young people today perceive of this aspect of their country’s history. Of particular interest is the extent to which young people are prepared to admit the existence of collaboration and whether a persona of moral authority is able to shift how young people assess the need for critical engagement with history. To that end, the study relies on an original survey generated in early 2019, which also enquired into questions related to historical memory. I argue that young Belarusians are, on average, more prepared to acknowledge collaboration than young people in Latvia and that the involvement of a moral authority shifts assessments of history in a decisive way in Belarus only. The results for Latvia stress in particular the persistent divide relating to the country’s two linguistic communities.

Acceptance Issues in the Transition to Renewable Energy: How Law Supposedly can Manage Local Opposition

Renewable energy projects are increasingly confronted by persistent resistance from local communities, which delays and sometimes even prevents their implementation. This reflects the frequent gap between support for the general idea of renewables as a strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and acceptance of renewable energy installations in the local landscape. For more than a decade, the Danish Renewable Energy Act has applied various financial measures to promote local acceptance. A general characteristic of the measures is their compensatory purpose, which presupposes that renewable energy facilities have negative impacts. The current toolbox includes instruments aimed at compensating individual house owners for specific financial losses, as well as measures that in more general terms, and ex post, compensate for non-financial impacts. Nevertheless, the toolbox is not yet fully developed and there is a need for further understanding of how different measures work, also in relation to more recently introduced renewables within the local acceptance framework of the Renewable Energy Act, such as solar power. Suggestions are made for the development of more dynamic and flexible regulatory approaches that would include individualized measures tailored to meet the distinct needs of local communities or individual landowners.

Siting refugee camps in mainland Greece using geographic information systems-based multi-criteria decision-making

PurposeRefugee camps are not easily welcomed by local communities. The purpose of this paper is to outline a structured approach to support the decision-making process for siting refugee camps in mainland Greece using multiple criteria, including local opposition. A suitability analysis generates a list of potential sites and a multiple criteria evaluation is applied. The motivation is the development of a methodology that can support choices and policies regarding the refugee camps siting problem, incorporating the need to address local opposition.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed methodology combines geographic information systems (GIS) with multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. These are used to develop a location classification and ranking model based on related criteria and subcriteria, attributes and weights. The region of Peloponnese in Greece is selected as a case study to validate the approach.FindingsThe lack of predefined candidate sites for refugee camps necessitates, initially, tackling a site search problem to generate a pool of potential sites through a suitability analysis. Subsequently, using the GIS the pool yields a subset of potential sites, satisfying all the criteria to setup a refugee camp. Through the current analysis the suitability of the single existing refugee camp site in Peloponnese can be evaluated. Finally, a “with and without” analysis, excluding the social criterion, depicts the changes in the candidate sites pool and their scores.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a lack of relevant literature taking into account the local opposition or sociopolitical implications as decision criteria. The selection of the appropriate criteria is a complex process that involves the cooperation of many experts. The main criteria, subcriteria and their attributes were determined according to existing literature and authors' informed judgment.Originality/valueThe proposed methodology can help decision-makers to setup a decision-making system and process for identifying refugee camps' sites using multiple criteria, including local opposition.

Tensions will rise as Ethiopia election campaigns open

Significance However, the start of campaigning has been overshadowed by the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Tigray, protests in Oromia amid a hunger strike by detained Oromo opposition leaders and the apparent murder of a local opposition leader. Impacts Candidate selection processes could increase intra-party tensions, particularly among opposition parties already facing splits. Insecurity could complicate preparations for the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). Election controversies could worsen tensions with international partners, particularly the EU and the United States.