The public Debates on Energy Transition in Germany and France. Understanding ecological transformations by crossing two sociological approaches to discourse

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Reiner Keller
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Sociological Theory
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389691224

When we compare France and Germany, conflicts, debates and energy policies have followed different trajectories, with a rather weak ecological movement and the hegemony of nuclear power on the French side, a more structured ecological movement since the 1980s and a recent mixed energy system on the German side. Recently, as a result of climate policies and European directives, significant changes have occurred, creating convergences at different scales in both countries.This research project has two main objectives. First of all, based on theoretical and methodological backgrounds, it will cross two approaches to discourse analysis, developed in both countries, and which have focused on technological risks and ecological conflicts: on the French side, the pragmatic sociology of controversy (using a specific software, Prospero) and, on the German side, the analysis of discourse related to the sociology of knowledge (SKAD). Despite their widespread use in the social sciences in France (sociology of controversies) and in Germany (SKAD) for more than a decade, they did not find the opportunity to collaborate and to overcome the linguistic barrier between their respective academic fields.The second objective is to analyze the development of public discourses around energy system and the environment, considering them over the long term (from 1970 to the present). By creating a common heuristic approach, we will organize the comparison of the argumentative trajectories followed in the two countries, paying attention to the multiple interconnections, partly due to the relationships built through the European institutions. A number of significant events have played the role of reconfigurators and the collaborative team will grasp both the differences of interpretation and the socio-technical dynamics produced in Germany as in France.To articulate strongly the two objectives, we will build a series of large digital corpora in order to analyze with the Prospero software, specifically adapted in connection with SKAD's methodological apparatus. The integrated use of the two approaches will produce dynamic maps of the sets of actors and arguments, forms of mobilization and public debates, sets of decisions and normative instruments, providing a comprehensive view on energy transition and transformations of public spheres in both countries. This collaborative research will form the touchstone of a sustainable scientific system, based on corpus and common tools, in order to observe and analyze the transformations that take place (or not) in the political and technological spheres around the energy and environmental issues in Europe.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Francis Chateauraynaud