Planning, Protest, and Contentious Politics

Abstract

Spatial planning plays a crucial role in implementing policies for renewable energy, especially when it comes to wind energy. At the same time, spatial planning can be the place where governmental support programs for renewable energy meet with local resistance. By comparing two inherently different spatial planning approaches for wind energy in two sub-national jurisdictions, this paper addresses the relationship between wind energy planning and the overall governance arrangement for renewable energy. It thereby contributes to an emerging understanding of spatial planning as the governance of place. Focusing on Ontario, Canada, and Brandenburg, Germany, as the two sub-national forerunners in wind energy development, the paper identifies spatial-discursive strategies employed by the government and the anti-wind movement. In anticipation of conflict, Ontario has chosen to raise planning responsibility for renewable energy facilities to the provincial level. In contrast, Brandenburg has chosen to endorse its regional planning approach. Drawing on document analysis and interviews with planners, policy-makers, and anti-wind protest groups in both jurisdictions, the paper finds that the design of spatial planning has played a crucial role in the governance and the contestation of sub-national policy schemes in both jurisdictions.