Policy analysis / 2022
How history and national identity inform nuclear policy
A comparative environmental-politics paper about why neighboring countries with shared cultural features can arrive at very different energy policies.
A personally taken image from Austria or Germany, an energy landscape, or an architectural detail connected to national identity.
The comparison
The paper begins with a seeming contradiction: two neighboring countries with many shared characteristics arrived at markedly different nuclear policies.
At first glance, it is easy to focus on the similarities between Austria and Germany; similar cultures, shared language, and neighboring geographies. Yet, when one looks more closely at the histories of these two countries, and their sense of national identity, there is a divergence that has a significant impact on the role they play within the environmental sphere, especially as it relates to technology.
The larger question
Nuclear energy serves as the case study, but the analysis is ultimately about how collective identity enters technical policy decisions.
More generally, through this comparison, it is possible to draw conclusions about the relationship between culture and policy, as well as the role of national identities in informing policy on a national level.