Populism, identities and responses to energy infrastructures at different scales in the United Kingdom: a post-Brexit reflection

Abstract

Recent socio-political events - such as Brexit - have provoked discussion and uncertainties about the future of the European Union, including European sustainable energy transitions. Nevertheless, not much research in the energy and social science domain has discussed and empirically explored how these socio-political events and related processes - rise in right-wing populism, post-truth politics - are shaped by and impact public beliefs about energy issues and the role of changes in people's different-level identities (local, national, European). In this paper, we discuss the importance of further exploring these ideas in energy social science research. We examine results of the Eurobarometer survey in the time span 2007-2016, and of two different representative surveys of United Kingdom adults, conducted in 2007 and 2012. This data allowed us to explore similarities and differences during this period regarding attitudes and beliefs about high voltage power lines and other energy and climate change related issues at different levels, and associated identities. Results suggest that feelings of belonging to different imaginary communities play out socio-political and psychological intergroup relations. We conclude that the ways that these impact on people's responses regarding energy issues at local, national and European levels represent promising directions for future research.