9 - Choice Awareness cases

Abstract

This chapter presents and examines specific decision-making processes in more than 10 cases that concern major energy investments from 1982 to 2007. All cases focus on collective decision making in a process involving many people and organizations that represent different interests and discourses, as well as different levels of power and influence. Moreover, they all involve political objectives of implementing radical technological change in society, that is, measures that imply significant institutional changes. This chapter refers to Choice Awareness theory and shows how existing institutional perceptions and organizational interests will often seek to eliminate certain choices from the political decision-making process when the introduction of radical technological change is discussed. However, the cases also illustrate how the use of Choice Awareness strategies can raise the awareness and further the implementation of radical technological change.