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Policy Discourses and Environmental Rationalities Underpinning India's Biofuel Programme
Author(s) -
Chaliganti Raghu,
Müller Ulrike
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
environmental policy and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.987
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1756-9338
pISSN - 1756-932X
DOI - 10.1002/eet.1697
Subject(s) - underpinning , technocracy , ecological modernization , civil society , opposition (politics) , globe , modernization theory , government (linguistics) , renewable energy , energy policy , biofuel , public policy , political science , public administration , economic growth , economics , ecology , politics , engineering , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , civil engineering , biology , law , ophthalmology
The use of renewable energy for transportation has received increasing support in environmental policy‐making around the globe. Following this trend, the Indian government launched a large‐scale biofuel programme in selected federal states, which involved the ecological rehabilitation of so‐called wastelands with energy crops. Although met with considerable opposition from civil society actors, the programme was further expanded and a national biofuel policy was adopted. Employing a critical discourse approach, this study argues that the government's strategy to promote biofuels can be explained based on technocratic design principles that have underpinned previous public policies in India. A consolidated view of these factors indicates that the continued domination of the pro‐biofuel discourse draws on a notion of weak ecological modernization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment