Submitted Abstract
Scenario-building has assumed an important place in many public policy decision-making processes, including significant areas of European Union (EU) policy-making. The use of such scenarios in the specific context of the EU has, however, not generated a significant academic literature to date. The present PhD project seeks to address this gap. It examines the use(s) of scenario-building in the area of EU energy policy, focusing on electricity generation as a case study.Framed by both the more general literatures on scenario-building and more specific literatures concerned with the EU policy process, the proposed research project will draw extensively on documentary evidence and semi-structured interviews with key actors in order to build up an original and comprehensive portrait of the manner in which scenarios are developed and incorporated within the policy process. The study will centrally probe questions of ‘who’ is involved in the use of scenarios and ‘how’ they are (strategically) deployed, with a particular view to understanding both the dynamics of the decisional process and the relative (in)effectiveness of the policy instrument.As such, the project seeks to make an original contribution to both the analysis of scenario-building and the EU public policy literature. Benefitting from the participation of the Luxembourg energy distribution and gas supply company CREOS, the project will also seek to draw out practical lessons concerned with the nature, malleability and possible improvement of the use of scenarios as a policy tool in relation to stakeholder concerns.