Qualitative study uncovers institutional conflation of public silence with acceptance in local governance bodies, highlighting procedural justice deficits in renewable energy projects.
Key Points
Examine how local institutional decision-makers interpret public participation, institutional friction, and energy justice in wind and solar developments.
Conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with four municipal councils, seventeen parish councils, and four common lands committees in Portugal.
Assessed institutional governance routines, administrative capacity, and stakeholder interpretations of social acceptance and community contestation.
Local decision-makers predominantly framed support for renewable energy projects in terms of distributive economic benefits while treating formal public participation as minimal or unnecessary.
Institutional actors consistently conflated non-contestation with community acceptance, despite public silence being reinforced by low administrative capacity and unclear participatory mandates.