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An Institutional Approach to Understanding the Green Paradox of Nuclear Power

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An Institutional Approach to Understanding the Green Paradox of Nuclear Power An Institutional Approach to Understanding the Green Paradox of Nuclear Power By Rhiannon Lloyd A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Cardiff University Human Resource Management Section of Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ……Rhiannon Lloyd…………………………………. (candidate) Date ……18/08/2013…………………… STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of ……PhD………… (Insert MCh, Md, MPhil, PhD etc. as appropriate) Signed ……Rhiannon Lloyd…………………………………. (candidate) Date ……18/08/2013………………… STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. Signed ……Rhiannon Lloyd…………………………………. (candidate) Date ……18/08/2013…………………… STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ……Rhiannon Lloyd……………………………………. (candidate) Date ……18/08/2013…………………… Abstract This thesis proposes that the range of institutional logics provided by both Friedland and Alford (1991) and Thornton, Ocasio and Lounsbury (2012) has overlooked the inclusion of an environmental societal logic. The concept of an environmental logic is therefore developed and applied in order to understand how a ‘green paradox’ surrounding nuclear power emerged over the past sixty years of the UK civil nuclear energy programme. The research employs a Critical Realist ontology (Bhaskar 1975) and constructs a qualitative and historical case study of the nuclear power industry via the analysis of newspaper articles and Government policy documents. The findings show that the green nuclear debate was informed by four ‘situated’ manifestations of an environmental societal logic which informed the environmental values and expectations of different actor groups engaged in the debate. In particular, the thesis shows how a situated target- based environmental logic emerged within the energy industry as a result of embedded institutional work and eventually informed the arguments promoting green nuclear. These arguments remained in contention with those of the environmental movement who maintained that nuclear power was definitively not environmentally friendly. Additionally, the Critical Realist ontology provides a framework with which to explore levels of meaning and structure and thus offers a means to explain this ‘situated’ nature of institutional logics. This thesis contributes to existing institutional theory in three key ways: Firstly it proposes and illustrates the theoretical and analytical utility of an environmental institutional logic. Secondly it develops the concept of a situated logic and, in doing so, builds an improved understanding of the ways in which agency, institutional logics and the institutional structure of industries interconnect. Thirdly it demonstrates and explains how one societal logic may become situated in multiple and possibly contradictory ways depending on the actor groups in which it manifests. Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 0 Contents .............................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 7 The Research .................................................................................................................................. 8 Thesis Overview ............................................................................................................................. 9 Research Question 1 .................................................................................................................10 Research Question 2 .................................................................................................................10 Research Question 3 .................................................................................................................11 Chapter 2: An Institutional Approach ...............................................................................................16 Introducing Institutional Theory .................................................................................................. 16 Institutional Beginnings .............................................................................................................17 The Paradox of Embeddedness .................................................................................................19 Institutional Logics ....................................................................................................................... 20 The new Neo-institutionalism ...................................................................................................... 22 Organisational Fields and Scientific Diffusion ...........................................................................23 Bringing Back the Actor: Institutional Entrepreneurship ............................................................. 25 Structural Approaches to Institutional Entrepreneurship ........................................................26 Social Position and Elite Power .............................................................................................27 Degree of Embeddedness .....................................................................................................28 Contradiction and Entrepreneurship ....................................................................................30 Processes of Institutional Entrepreneurship .............................................................................32 Legitimacy and Rhetoric ........................................................................................................32 Rhetoric .................................................................................................................................33 Legitimation strategies ..........................................................................................................35 Theorisation ..........................................................................................................................36 Legitimacy and Rationality ....................................................................................................38 Conclusion to Process Theories of Institutional Entrepreneurship.......................................40 Agents in Institutions ................................................................................................................... 41 Translation .................................................................................................................................41 Inhabited Institutions ................................................................................................................42 Institutional work ......................................................................................................................44 1 Institutional Complexity: Connecting the Levels .......................................................................47 Field Externalities and Institutionalisation ................................................................................48 Conceptualising Situated Logics .................................................................................................. 51 In Summary .................................................................................................................................. 52 Chapter 3: An Environmental Logic ...................................................................................................54 An Environmental Societal Logic .................................................................................................. 54 Anthropological Beginnings: Objectifying Nature ........................................................................ 55 Organisational Theory and Nature ............................................................................................... 56 Introducing an Ecological Paradigm ............................................................................................. 57 Institutionalism and Nature ......................................................................................................... 58 Nature and the Institutional Environment ................................................................................60 Social Nature as Part of an Institutional ‘Environment’ ............................................................61 Developing an Environmental Logic ............................................................................................. 62 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 67 Research Question ................................................................................................................67 Chapter 4: Methodology and Research Design .................................................................................69
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