Structural Change, Vested Interests, and Scandinavian EnergyPolicy-Making: Why Wind Power Struggles in Norway and not inDenmark

摘要

The article takes a theoretically informed look at why policies favoring renewables (here wind power) areimplemented in some countries rather than others, with empirical data from Norway and Denmark. The theory combinesJoseph Schumpeter and Mancur Olson, emphasizing structural economic change as all-important to long-term economicgrowth, but that vested interests may easily hamper the growth of new industries, like renewables. Typically, vestedinterests tied in with the old industrial paradigm seek to preserve their advantage, securing for themselves favorableregulations and institutions. These regulations and institutions do however not necessarily fit new and upcomingindustries. The article juxtaposes the experiences of Norway and Denmark. Norway, with its powerful petroleum industryhas fed vested interests and built institutions to support the already existing industry, to the detriment of renewables.Denmark, lacking a fixed industrial energy structure, used the 1970s oil crises to build a new structure, based aroundrenewables. Both cases support the theory, suggesting that vested interest structures serve as powerful influences onenergy policy.