Contested energy transitions.
Conflicts and Social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France

CEFRES Research Area 2 : Norms and transgressions

Contact : martin.durdovic[@]soc.cas.cz

Martin Durdovic is a research scholar at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, specializing in energy social research. His current research interests center around social aspects of nuclear energy and nuclear waste management on the one hand and sustainable energy transitions on the other. His research relies on both qualitative and quantitative approaches, such as narrative analysis, stakeholder interaction analysis, public opinion surveys, and other, and also involves engagement with sociological theory and meta-theory. Martin Durdovic is a laureate of the 2020 Czech Sociological Association biennial award for the best sociological book (Narrative and Dialogue. The Theory of Social Intersubjectivity) and a member of various expert bodies and associations. In the 2021-2022 academic year, he was a visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California. Since February 2024, he coordinates with Gilles Lepesant, the senior research fellow at CNRS – National Center for Scientific Research, Géographie-Cités, a two-year incubation project supported within the Tandem program and entitled: “Contested energy transitions. Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France”. More information about Martin Durdovic is available here: https://www.soc.cas.cz/en/lide/martin-durdovic

Recent publications

• Durdovic, Martin. 2023. „Counter-strategizing after a dialogue failure: Stakeholder involvement and nuclear waste disposal in the Czech Republic.“ Energy Research & Social Science 103: 103198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103198
• Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „Emergent Consequences of Narrating Futures in Energy Transitions.“ Futures 138: 102930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2022.102930
• Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „ A Morphogenetic Approach to Social Aspects of Energy: The Case of Coal.“ Pp. 37-55 in Iwińska, Katarzyna & Bukowska, Xymena (eds.). Gender and Energy Transition. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78416-4
• Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „The Transformation of Order in Narrative as Discordant Concord: Using Paul Ricoeur to Explore Narrative Realism as Part of Social Morphogenesis.“ Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52 (2): 260-278.  https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12319

Contested energy transitions.
Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France

CEFRES Research Area 2: Norms and Transgressions

Contact : gilles.lepesant[@]cnrs.fr

His research focuses on the transformations in the geography of energy induced by the increasing role played by renewables. The research covers the strategies deployed at the European Union level as well as at the national level (particularly in Germany and in Central Europe) and at the local and regional level. The main research areas are the EU energy-climate policy, the spatial implications of its implementation and the challenges linked to the deployment of renewable energies (permitting, social acceptance, consistency with ESG principles). Taking into account the strong inertia in energy systems, the objective is to investigate the historical, political and technical factors that accelerate or inhibit the deployment of renewable energies and to contribute to the empirical and theoretical literature related to this field.

At CEFRES, he is coordinating with Martin Ďurďovič (Senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) the Tandem project “Contested energy transitions. Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France”.

This project takes place in the context of an energy transition enshrined into the “Green Deal” whose aim is to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The research carried out aims at identifying tensions and conflicts linked to the energy transition, to highlight the perceptions of the different stakeholders and to investigate the innovations deployed to overcome constraints and challenges. The project covers four countries: Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and France as well as a set of cities and regions within these countries.

Publications (selection)

• Gilles Lepesant (2024), « Entre défis de sécurité et ambitions climatiques, l’affirmation d’une Union européenne de l’énergie », L’Information géographique, Janvier.
• Gilles Lepesant (2024), « Adapting coastal areas to sea-level rise in Netherlands and in France. Between hard protections, nature-based solutions and managed retreat », Special issue : « Grassroot innovations in climate action : unpacking cooperations and conflicts in multilevel governance ». Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Février.
• Gilles Lepesant, (2023), “Higher Renewable Energy Targets in Germany. How Will the Industry Benefit?”, Briefings de l’Ifri, Ifri, January 6.
• Gilles Lepesant (2022), Géographies des énergies, l’Europe dans le nouvel équilibre mondial, Éditions Hermann, Paris.
• Gilles Lepesant (2022), « Vers une transition énergétique allemande adossée aux énergies renouvelables et au gaz ? », Allemagne d’aujourd’hui, n°239.