Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how energy and job security are the main concerns of technocratic governance in the context of structural change policies, while various civil society actors in the Rhineland insist on the positive link between participatory democracy and climate protection

Paper long abstract:

Germany's plans to phase out coal to meet the Paris Agreement's climate goals have officially inaugurated the period of structural change in the Rhineland's lignite mining region. Ideas to turn the area into a European model region for sustainable energy production rely substantially on the mining company's expertise and infrastructure and pursue the main goal of creating jobs in "innovative" sectors. The anticipated loss of well-paid regular employment in the coal industry moreover conjures up the specter of a strengthening right-wing populism, further legitimizing the rhetoric of "green" growth in the name of defending democratic freedoms. Yet, after years of feeling politically alienated by the close ties between local governments and coal industry, many citizens not employed in the fossil fuel sector had hopes that this new situation would provide an opportunity for stronger democratic inclusion as a path to protect the environment. Now with officials relying primarily on "technofixes" (Haraway) to manage the process of structural change in the region, they fear that the talk of "participation" in planning practices becomes a mere fig-leaf for legitimizing the establishment of new business ventures to secure jobs and energy supply instead of facilitating climate protection. In line with Timothy Mitchell's reflections on "carbon democracy", this conflict between job and energy security on the one hand and climate protection on the other illustrates that political institutions and mechanisms that developed in accordance with an economy based on fossil fuels seem inadequate to govern the transformation of this same system.