Against the backdrop of depopulation and Big Society, citizen initiatives in rural areas are believed to be able to mitigate service-provision inequalities between urban and peripheral regions. Factors influencing the success and failure of such citizen initiatives and their potential in providing solutions to perceived problems have thus far hardly been explored. Our previous work on potential aspects of success and failure indicates that the durability of an initiative does not necessarily define the success of the initiative. Studies have neglected the question of continuity and what will happen when the initiators put down their efforts. In what way do initiators transfer their responsibility and is there a sense of problem ownership?This paper aims to conceptualize factors influencing the continuity of citizen initiatives and provide insight in the processes that take place when initiators stop their activities. Further, the study aims to identify who claims ownership of the issue the initiative focuses on. An inventory of citizen initiatives was made in the three northern provinces of the Netherlands, where rural areas experience depopulation. Questionnaires focusing on how initiatives think about their future, especially when the initiators stop, were sent to around 600 initiatives. The results will add to future research on success and failure of citizen initiatives, but also provide insights for citizen initiatives and ways local governments try to facilitate them.
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Citizen participation in local renewable energy projects is often promoted as many suppose it to be a panacea for the difficulties that are involved in the energy transition process. Quite evidently, it is not; there is a wide variety of visions, ideologies and interests related to an ‘energy transition’. Such a variety is actually a precondition for a stakeholder participation process, as stakeholder participation only makes sense if there is ‘something at stake’. Conflicting viewpoints, interests and debates are the essence of participation. The success of stakeholder participation implies that these differences are acknowledged, and discussed, and that this has created mutual understanding among stakeholders. It does not necessarily create ‘acceptance’. Renewable energy projects often give rise to local conflict. The successful implementation of local renewable energy systems depends on the support of the local social fabric. While at one hand decisions to construct wind turbines in specific regions trigger local resistance, the opposite also occurs! Solar parks sometimes create a similar variation: Various communities try to prevent the construction of solar parks in their vicinity, while other communities proudly present their parks. Altogether, local renewable energy initiatives create a rather chaotic picture, if regarded from the perspective of government planning. However, if we regard the successes, it appears the top down initiatives are most successful in areas with a weak social fabric, like industrial areas, or rather recently reclaimed land. Deeply rooted communities, virtually only have successful renewable energy projects that are more or less bottom up initiatives. This paper will first sketch why participation is important, and present a categorisation of processes and procedures that could be applied. It also sketches a number of myths and paradoxes that might occur in participation processes. ‘Compensating’ individuals and/or communities to accept wind turbines or solar parks is not sufficient to gain ‘acceptance’. A basic feature of many debates on local renewable energy projects is about ‘fairness’. The implication is that decision-making is neither on pros and cons of various renewable energy technologies as such, nor on what citizens are obliged to accept, but on a fair distribution of costs and benefits. Such discussions on fairness cannot be short cut by referring to legal rules, scientific evidence, or to standard financial compensations. History plays a role as old feelings of being disadvantaged, both at individual and at group level, might re-emerge in such debates. The paper will provide an overview of various local controversies on renewable energy initiatives in the Netherlands. It will argue that an open citizen participation process can be organized to work towards fair decisions, and that citizens should not be addressed as greedy subjects, trying to optimise their own private interests, but as responsible persons.
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This article discusses developments in citizen participation and its contribution to democracy since the publication of the original article. It evaluates the continued relevance of the use of a normative framework to assess different forms of citizen participation, nuances some of the conclusions and shows how inclusion and a connection with formal decision-making remain central issues that need more scholarly attention. Moreover, the article shows how the framework has been used in advising councillors and organisers of local citizen initiatives.
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Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Community energy organizations often take the form of cooperatives and strive for a high level of participation at the neighborhood level. Recently, community energy initiatives took on the challenge to develop neighborhood heating projects, which are citizen-led and sustainable. District heating (DH) projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, and large installations for heat production. Furthermore, specialized technical knowledge is needed for the design of DH-systems.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases where local energy cooperatives developed such citizen-led neighborhood heating projects. Our primary research question is what constitutes a citizen-led or citizen-supported DH-project? We focus on four themes: first, the internal organization of the CH-project; second its outreach to local citizens; third, the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; fourth, the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We developed a theoretical framework that consists of three main networks: the internal network, constituted by the local energy initiative itself and its surrounding neighborhood; the external network, which is comprised of local and regional governments as well as private companies; and the material network, referring to technological and physical aspects.In the discussion, we situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of activities to involve the neighborhood are key success factors. Nevertheless, the development of a community DH-project is a time-consuming process that takes a high toll on the participants. We observed that the remunicipalization trend is emerging in the Netherlands. Regarding technology choices, we found that the DH-initiatives became quite knowledgeable on technical issues and stimulated the application of new technologies such as small-scale aquathermal energy. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
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The paper describes the first implementation of the Unified Citizen Engagement Approach (UCEA), a newly developed design-oriented framework for citizen engagement in the energy transition. The preliminary testing and evaluation of several of its pathways in Groningen, the Netherlands, show that the role of design in the energy transition is not limited to the adoption of (co)design tools and methods. Instead, design should be integrated in the process in a more holistic way and on multiple levels, taking into account broader issues than energy, the maturity of local initiatives, and effective communication with stakeholders.
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Citizen participation is booming, especially the number of urban bottom-up initiatives where information and communication technologies (ICT) are deployed is increasing rapidly. This growth is good news for society as recent historical research shows that the more citizens actively and persistently interfere with public issues, the more likely a society will be resilient. And yet, at the same time, a growing number of scholars argue that due to the unprecedented impact of ICT, the public sphere is at stake. How to understand both trends? How do the anti-‘public sphere’ developments relate to the growing number of citizens’ initiatives using ICT? And if these citizen initiatives can indeed be understood as manifestations of public spheres, how can ICT foster or hinder the development of these public spheres? These questions will be explored by analyzing a Dutch citizen initiative called ‘Buuv’ (an online ‘market’ place for and by local residents) from a ‘public sphere’ perspective. The author will turn to The human condition (1958) of Hannah Arendt in order to elaborate a ‘public sphere’ perspective. An Arendtian perspective (as any perspective) highlights, however, some aspects and underexposes other aspects. Furthermore, chances are that Arendt’s thoughts are somewhat outdated, in the sense that we now live in a world where the online and the offline life intertwine — an experience that is referred to with the term ‘onlife’. Bearing these remarks in mind, the author will elaborate on the value of Arendt’s ideas to 1) the endeavor of understanding current trends in society—more urban bottom-up initiatives and anti-‘public sphere’ developments due to the broad uptake of ICT—and 2) the endeavor of revitalizing the public sphere in an onlife world. IEEE copyright
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The energy transition requires the transformation of communities and neighbourhoods. It will have huge ramifications throughout society. Many cities, towns and villages have put together ambitious visions about how to achieve e.g. energy neutrality, zero-emission or zero-impact. What is happening at the local level towards realizing these ambitions? In a set of case study’s we investigate the following questions: How are self-organized local energy initiatives performing their self-set tasks? What obstacles are present in the current societal set-up that can hinder decentralized energy production? In our cases local leadership, vision, level of communication and type of organisation are important factors of the strength of the ‘local network’. (Inter)national energy policy and existing energy companies largely determine the ‘global’ or outside network. Stronger regional and national support structures, as well as an enabling environment for decentralized energy production, are needed to make decentralized sustainable energy production a success.
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In the shift towards the Big Society, it is widely proclaimed that citizen participation and citizens’ initiatives are indispensable to maintaining services that used to be run by local or regional governments. Despite the increased interest in citizens’ initiatives, research has scarcely debated what actually defines the success of such initiatives. Using focus group discussions, this study examined the meanings and norms collectively constructed by government officials and professionals regarding the success and failure of citizens’ initiatives in rural areas. Remarkably, we found that the professional perspectiveof successful citizens’ initiatives was not dominated by the achievement of actualpolicy targets or project goals, such as maintaining public services. Rather, an initiative was perceived as successful as long as citizens are continuously active and in charge. Arguably, this somewhat paternalistic professional view of successful citizens’ initiatives could be challenged by the volunteers in those initiatives.
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Given the urgency of global energy transition, small- and medium-sized cities often undergo rapid changes. What is often missing, however, is a better understanding of how residents of those places perceive, and relate to the various aspects of local energy transition process and spatial outcomes. This study focuses on the Hoogkerk district of Groningen in the Northern Netherlands, where we used Q-Methodology to identify shared viewpoints. Our findings reveal three main viewpoints: a) the importance of protecting local spatial and environmental values, b) prioritising energy-saving approaches notably for the vulnerable segments of the society, and finally c) the need for comprehensive district-level planning led by the municipality. These findings underscore the importance of integrated approaches that address both spatial and process aspects of local energy transition. We argue that these insights can support policymakers and the local citizen initiative towards the development of an integrated local energy vision.
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Citizen science has demonstrated potential to foster local changes in public health, including physical (in)activity. We used community-engaged citizen science to explore how to improve the exercise-friendliness of a Dutch neighborhood, chosen because it scored below average on important health parameters.We followed the steps of design thinking and employed the Our Voice citizen science method to find out how community members perceived exercise-friendliness in their neighborhood. Members participated in technology-enabled “discovery” walks using the multi-lingual Stanford Neighborhood Discovery Tool mobile application. Positive, negative, and dual features in the neighborhood were captured. During a researcher-facilitated process, citizen scientists analyzed their data together, leading to overarching themes reflecting resident needs and desires. These themes served as the basis for developing a walking route throughout the neighborhood. Several initial walking route prototypes were developed and tested by citizen scientists, resulting in a final route design that was realized in collaboration with local government officials. Citizen scientists were interviewed and asked about their engagement with and sense of agency throughout the research process. They reported commitment to the project and their neighborhood, and a desire to contribute to society. They also reported increased agency in contributing to neighborhood impacts.This project showed that citizen science “by the people” is a powerful way to engage people with projects in their own neighborhoods. It provided local perspectives on the neighborhood, which led to actual changes in the environment
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