EU policy on the move – mobility and domestic translation of the European Union’s renewable energy policy |
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Authors: | Jarmo Kortelainen Teijo Rytteri |
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Institution: | Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland |
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Abstract: | We discuss how the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive was designed to be mobile, and how it was moved to and implemented in Finland by translating it to enhance wood-based energy production through specific subsidies. We study policy-making as a mobile process, which approach has its original roots in political science and more recent basis in political geography. The article aims to develop conceptual understanding of how the mobility of a supranational policy is generated and how a policy is translated into complex and contentious geographical contexts. We aim to show that mobility of a directive is enabled by an empty governance space which is aimed to be ‘filled in’ in each spatial context, and that the filling in process makes each translation a contentious and path-dependent process. In Finland, the selected policy tools and practices continued the path-dependent ways of favouring forestry industry’s traditional position as the primary utiliser of forest resources. |
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Keywords: | Policy mobility energy policy policy translation path dependency transnational environmental governance |
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