Production of Wind Energy in Latvia – Comparison of Government’s Strategic Narrative and Political Narratives of Kurzeme Planning Region (2019–2022)

Description

One of the priorities of the politics to achieve the climate neutrality, is to increase the share of electricity from the renewable resources. The wind energy is accepted as the most appropriate source for Latvia’s situation. However, in order to implement such a policy, it is important that policy should be accepted in the regional communities. One of the ways how to measure the acceptance of the wind energy policy chosen by the government, is to research the dominating narratives towards wind energy production in public. The research aims to compare the strategic narrative of the government of Latvia on the wind energy production with the policy narratives of Kurzeme’s planning region during the period of 7th May 2019 until 22nd March 2022, as well as assess their mutal interaction.. The paper includes research of the projection of the strategic narrative in the region’s public. Furthermore, identifying the region’s policy narative towards wind energy production, the perception of the government’s strategic narative has been defined in society. The study is based on theories on policy process, Narrartive Policy Framework and Startegic narrative theory. According to the theory of the strategic narrative, the more coherent the narrative is in forming, distribution and perception stages, the  more likely it is accepted in society.. It has been found that alternative narratives on wind energy production are distributed in the region and the government’s strategic narative is adopted only in one-third of Kurzeme’s planning region’s public.. The Latvia government only partly manages to mobilize the political elite, society and mass media of the Kurzeme planning region around its strategic narrative on the wind energy and alternative policy narratives are spread in local communities.

Period	29 Mar 2023
Event title	RSU Research week 2023: PLACES
Event type	Conference
Conference number	3
Organiser	Rīga Stradiņš University
Location	Rīga, LatviaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International